You are on page 1of 6

Gender in China

The Rising of Womens Status


Gender inequality is a common social condition in China and it has a thousand-year history behind. In the very old Chinese society, there was a strict hierarchy supported by Confucian attitudes and norms. People were expected to behave well inside and outside the family according to their gender and age. Women had a low social status under this system. They were subordinate to men and young women were particularly at the bottom of the hierarchy (Bauer et al 1992). To understand the Chinese gender systems, Rosaldo et al (1974: 25-35) argued that the gender inequality in China has long been constructed by the division into a superior public sphere dominated by men and a subordinate domestic sphere associated with women (Bauer et al 1992).

Anthropologists are interested in examining the gender relation in China. Understanding the long-established gender norms in the traditional society, the Communist government has challenged the hierarchy since 1949 by encouraging womens participation in the society construction, which is seen as the liberation of women in new China. The marriage laws were introduced in 1950 and 1980 in order to change womens role in family by prohibiting arranged marriage, raising the legal marital age as well as giving women and men equal rights to divorce ((Bauer et al
1

1992). However, anthropologists found these efforts ineffectual, gender inequality still persists in todays China. They found that gender inequality is particularly obvious in education and employment. Womens position remains lower than men in the gender hierarchy because of the unchangeable and continued preference for sons in the country (Arnold and Liu 1986).

Despite the state policy promoting equal educational opportunities for boys and girls, the former tend to have greater educational enrollment and attainment than the later. It is because sons are believed to be more likely to support their parents in their old age while daughters will marry into another family. If parents can only invest in one child, the educational opportunity will definitely go to sons for the sake of parents security in old age. Anthropologists also pointed out that the enrollment status of children in China is affected by parents education and occupation. Greater gender inequality will be found among families with less educated fathers. Being a peasants daughter has fewer educational opportunities than being a peasants son. Apart from education, gender difference can be also found in employment and occupational opportunities. Women have low labor mobility. They often work in certain occupations, in particularly commerce and services. Only few women can achieve high status in the workplace such as the executive of an organization or administrators in an enterprise.
2

Nevertheless, while anthropologists argue that gender equality persists in todays China, they do agree the gender gap is getting narrow than decades before. Chinese womens conditions and status have been improving since the mid-1970s after the call for international women and development by the feminist activists (Gao 2008). There is a historical legacy considering women as the second gender by believing men are responsible for outside matters while women are in change of family stuff. The change of this legacy came in 1950s when women liberation took place. The newly founded Communist government was under great pressure to develop the economy after the grave trauma caused by the civil war. To increase labor inputs, women were liberated to shoulder the heavy task of agricultural labor and they had become a new force in agriculture. Their participation in agriculture brought changes to the division of labor in rural production (Gao 2008).

The liberation of women in the 1950s had challenged the traditional gender norms. It is one of the significant effects on womens power. Anthropologists commended that the rising of womens power has created social changes to the country, in which womens status and condition have improved. Young women only occupied a temporary position as they were regarded as marginal outside in the traditional
3

families. Daughter married out and became new daughters-in-law entering another family under the rules of patrilineal exogamy and patrilocal post-marital residence (Yan 2007). Girls were powerless and statusless in comparison to male siblings. But this gender inequality has been changed in several generations.

As mentioned above, anthropologists found the new marriage law in 1950s ineffectual to tackle gender equality in China, while some of the others did reckon the law had enhanced womens power to veto a marriage proposal. They agreed that there were declines of parental authority and power in the domestic sphere in rural China. Young women can exercise her veto power to change the rules slightly, for instant, by not following parents will or even finding a husband by herself. They can exercise their veto power many times as long as they find their Mr. Right. In addition, education is a significant factor in womens empowerment.

Peer connections outside family networks are increased by the expansion of formal schooling and this introduces young women to knowledge and new ideas leading to their empowerment (Thornton & Fricke 1987: 755-58). Those women who have better education are more active in mate-choice, marriage negotiations and demanding early family division. That is, they will less likely become the conventional type of
4

good daughters-in-law if they spend more years in school (Yan 2008).

To conclude, gender inequality is still a social problem in China which can be found in education and workplace. Fortunately, there are state policies and socialist practices aiming at changing womens position in the domestic sphere from a subordinate and statusless outsider to an autonomous individual. A number of generations of girls have exploited these social changes, in which anthropologists call this the rise of girl power (Yan 2008). Girl powers do have its limitation. It has not brought radical changes in gender equality but it has altered womens role in domestic sphere. Girl power is reflected in mate-choice, marriage negotiation as well as family division. Modern women challenge the traditional expectation of girls and daughters and they have the ability to impose their will on their prospective. However, girl power in China differs in urban and rural area in which rural women have less power than those in urban. In todays China, gender inequality persists but the rise of girl power brings social changes to the society in which the gender gap is narrowing.

Reference List
Arnold, F. & Liu, ZX 1986, Sex Preference for Children in China. Population and Development Review, vol.12, no.2, pp. 221-246.
5

Bauer, J & Wang, F & Riley, NE & Zhao, XH 1992, Gender Inequality in Urban China: Education and Employment, Modern China, vol.18, no.3 July, pp. 333-370. Fong, VL 2002, China's One-Child Policy and the Empowerment of Urban Daughters, American Anthropologist, vol.104, no.4, pp. 1098-1109. Gao, XX 2008, Women and Development in China: An Analysis and Reappraisal of Practice, Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, vol.40, no.4 Summer, pp. 1326. Gates, H 1995, Review: Gender Relations in China, American Anthropologist, New Series, vol.97, no.2 June, pp. 363-365.
Harrell, S 2001, 'The Anthropology of Reform and the Reform of Anthropology: Anthropological Narratives of Recovery and Progress in China', Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 30, pp. 139-161.

Lavely, WR 1988, ' China's One-Child Policy and Gender Equality: A Comment on Hong and Mandle', Gender and Society, vol.2, no.2 June, pp. 241-242. Rosaldo, MZ & Lamphere, L & Bamberge, J 1974, Woman, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Overview, In Woman, Culture, and Society, pp. 17-42. Stevens, SE 2003, Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China, Gender and Modernism between the Wars 1918-1939, NWSA Journal, vol.15, no.3 Autumn, pp. 82-103. Thornton, A & Fricke, T 1987, Social Change and the Family: Comparative Perspectives from the West, China, and South Asia, Sociological Forum, vol.2, no.4, pp. 746-79 Yan, YX 2006, Girl Power: Young Women and the Waning of Patriarchy in Rural North China, Ethnology, vol. 45, no. 2 Spring, pp. 105-123.

You might also like