Mistranslation of "Women can hold up half the sky"

[yong321]

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_Chinese_communism), "[t]he famous quote from Mao Zedong, reported to have been uttered in 1968, reflects the commitment of the new government of the People's Republic of China: 'Women hold up half the sky'". That quote has been well-known around the world for more than half a century. But the original sentence does not literally translate as such. The Chinese sentence "妇女能顶半边天" is literally "Women can hold up half the sky". The auxiliary verb '能', meaning "can", is omitted in the popular English translation. Why does this matter? Imagine a manager says "John can do this job", but not "John does this job". Clearly there is a difference, one stating a potential, the other a fact. To an English reader, at least one that loves languages and so may analyze each word of a sentence, the translation "Women hold up half the sky" implies that women are actually holding up half the sky, as if the feminist movement had achieved its ultimate goal. But the Chinese original truthfully acknowledges the challenge by only stating women's potential.

Incidentally, according to the latest research (https://m.fx361.com/news/2024/0108/22945689.html), published in late 2023, Mao said those words back in 1958, not 1968. The research also rejects a few claims of other origins of this quote.