Recently, it was revealed that Huatu Education, a well-known institution for civil service exam training in China, had inappropriate and suggestive slogans in its promotional materials, sparking controversy online.
Some netizens on social media pointed out that the class slogans of “Huatu Education” had phrases like “If you don’t work hard, your daughter may be held by peers; if you work hard, you hold the daughter of peers,” which were deemed inappropriate, with distorted values and potentially objectifying or commodifying women.
A media reporter noted that the logo of Huatu Education was seen in the bottom right corner of the images shared by netizens.
The news quickly gained traction online. On September 16th, “Public institution accused of promoting distorted views on consuming women” became a trending topic.
Some netizens expressed confusion, with one saying, “To be honest, I don’t understand the meaning of this advertisement slogan. Does it mean that if you work hard, you don’t have to be a full-time mom?”
Another netizen replied, “From a male perspective, if you join the class, you can pass the exam and marry a young and pretty girl. The girl’s parents are the same age as you, with a 20+ year age gap. If you don’t join the class and fail, in 20 years, your daughter will marry an old man the same age as you. This is really low and shameless.”
One netizen expressed anger, saying, “What did we, as women, do to deserve this? Is the purpose of taking the civil service exam to marry someone else’s daughter? What kind of values are these? It’s unimaginable that this is a slogan from a civil service exam institution.”
Some netizens countered, “Did he say it wrong?” “At 60, it’s normal to hold your granddaughter who is the same age.” Some even provided real-life examples.
However, others pointed out, “Although it’s stating a fact, saying it like this sounds a bit inappropriate.” “While this situation may exist, it should not become the mainstream values.”
In response to the backlash, Huatu Education issued a statement explaining that the circulated “inappropriate advertisement” content was actually an improper internet joke mistakenly used by their female teacher Zhang in her teaching PPT, not an official company advertisement. The company expressed apologies for the negative social impact caused by this incident.
The statement mentioned that corrective actions have been taken, and they will further strengthen supervision to prevent similar issues from happening again.
According to reports from Taishan Finance, the advertisement has been taken down.
Huatu Education is a subsidiary of Beijing Huatu Hongyang Education and Culture Development Co., Ltd., founded by Dr. Yi Dinghong in 2001. Their main business covers training for various types of talent recruitment exams such as civil servants, teachers, finance, and medical fields. They currently operate over a thousand learning centers in mainland China and have more than ten thousand employees.