Favoring a son over a daughter must end

How deeply embedded is the old evil of "favoring a son over a daughter" in some people's minds?

The recent popular TV drama, Ode of Joy, tells of such a mindset. The heroine, 30-year-old Fan Shengmei who works in Shanghai, spends half her salary supporting her parents and her brother's family. Under pressure from her parents, she pays for an apartment for her brother, even though she doesn't have one of her own and shares a rented apartment with two girlfriends. When her brother beats somebody up and has to pay compensation to his victim, she is the one that has to fork up the cash.

She is an excellent employee in the human resources department in her company and gets quite a good salary. Yet the exploitation of her by her family means she would not be able to survive without the help of her friends.