“hold up as much sky as they want”

The phrase “hold up as much sky as they want” is Dai’s sardonic variation on “Women hold up half the sky.” In conversation with Li Yan, it briefly concedes women’s capacity before Dai pivots to a complaint that they are difficult to work for, making the expression less an endorsement than the setup for his disparagement of women colleagues.

Wording and Context

Dai delivers the line while drawing on a cigarette and resting one butt cheek on the edge of Li Yan’s desk. He says, “Women are okay, I guess. They can hold up as much sky as they want, but they’re a bastard to work for.” The hesitant concession and the insult occupy the same sentence: the expansive image of women holding up the sky is immediately narrowed by Dai’s grievance about working with them.

Rhetorical Function

The surrounding exchange shows how the phrase frames Dai’s judgment of Nien Mei-Ling. After Li Yan expresses interest in hearing more, Dai claims that sex inevitably enters workplace relations and says Nien Mei-Ling is attracted to senior officers, while looking down on colleagues of lower rank. These are Dai’s allegations, not independently established facts. The phrase’s apparent latitude therefore sits beside a distinctly hierarchical and gendered complaint: Dai grants women room to “hold up” the sky, then describes a woman’s professional standing through his own sexualized interpretation of her preferences.