I found the column on Chinese women disappointingly superficial. While I understand the temptation to generalize about a culture and its treatment of women, making blanket statements about the status of Chinese women belies a willful lack of understanding.

I remember my first month in a former Soviet country and the impressions I formed about the people with whom I worked.

I felt my host mother was "unenlightened" because she had chosen to be a stay-at-home mom — my American feminist principles dictated that she have a career and family in order to prove herself a fully actualized woman!

What I didn't realize at the time was that under communism, women were forced to work, so choosing to stay out of the workforce was radical and liberating for many women in my Eastern European community.

I simply don't agree that living in a new culture for a month is sufficient to warrant judgments like Ms. Xu's. In China, for instance, the concept of "face" could have affected Ms. Xu's interactions with women: It's considered impolite to brag about one's own knowledge, so it's not surprising that many women claimed not to know anything about politics when asked.

My point is that we never know what kinds of cultural issues are swirling beneath the surface, and so to examine another culture through a distinctly Americentric lens and make sweeping proclamations about the people of that culture is arrogant.

At the very least, it quells the even-handed examination such a thought-provoking topic deserves.