China Essay, Research Paper

Nicole Ehmann

China Paper

CHINESE SOCIETY

Even since the dramatic post-1949 changes in China regarding the role of women, China has remained paternalistic in it’s attitudes and social

reality. The land reform, which was intended to create a more balanced

economic force in marriage, was the beginning of governmental efforts to

pacify women, with no real social effect. Communist China needed to address the “woman question”. Since women wanted more equality, and equality is doled out from the hands of those in power,capitalism was examined. The economic issues of repressed Chinese women

were focused on the Land Act and the Marriage Act of 1950. The Land reform

succeeded in eliminating the extended family’s material basis and hence,

its potential for posing as a political threat to the regime. Small-plots

were redistributed to each family member regardless of age or sex; and land

reform provisions stipulated that property would be equally divided in the

case of divorce. Nonetheless, their husbands effectively controlled land

allotted to women. Patriarchal familial relationships in the Confucian

tradition seemed to remain intact.

The Marriage Law of 1950 legalized marriage, denounced patriarchal

authority in the household and granted both sexes equal rights to file for

divorce. The second and most prominent element of the strategy was

integrating women into economic development. Women’s employment was viewed

as a prerequisite for emancipation from bourgeois structures as embodied in

the patriarchal family. Furthermore, at the core of the CCP’s strategy for

political consolidation was economic reconstruction and rural development.

The full participation of women was not only an ideological imperative but

a pragmatic one. Third, the All-China Women’s Federation (W.F.) was

established by the CCP to mobilize women for economic development and

social reform. Women did succeed in gaining materialisticly.

However, culture dictates whether these governmental attempts can be

successful and China has proven that they were only panaceas for the real

issue. Materialistic approaches could not shadow the issue of the view in

Chinese society of the role of women. In the struggle for equality, China

did not go to the women to find what they believed to be the most effective

answer to the issue. The paternalistic powers gave women what they thought

they needed for an equalizer, not understanding the need for

self-affirmation and independence.

The issue the women rallied under was that men were answering the “woman

question”. Women’s organizations were not allowed their voice, which became

an ironic and frustrating endorsement to the pathetic state of women in

China.

The One-Family, One-Child policy launched in 1979 has turned reproduction

into an area of direct state intervention. The new regime under Deng made

the neo-Malthusian observation that the economic gains from reform were

barely sufficient to accommodate a population of one billion, given the

natural population growth rate of 1.26 percent, much less provide a base

for advanced industrial development. The One-Family, One-Child campaigns

have therefore targeted women to limit their childbearing as a “patriotic

duty”.

The family planning policy is implemented by local units of the W.F.,

barefoot doctors and health workers who are mainly women. Each family is

visited individually by members of the local family planning committee.

After the first child, women are awarded a one-child certificate that

entitles them to a number of privileges. Standard regulations concerning

the type of birth control method employed require IUDs after one child,

sterilization after the second one and abortion for unapproved pregnancies.

The policy rests on a coercive system of sanctions and rewards. Economic

sanctions include: payment of an “excess child levy” as compensation to the

state for the cost of another child to the country; reduction in the

family’s grain ration (or higher prices) for producing a “surplus” child;

limitations on additional land for private plots and the right to

collective grain in times of flood and drought; and ineligibility for

promotion for four years, demotion, or reduction in wages (Anders,52).

Moreover, the offending couple has to bear all expenses for medical care

and education of excess children, and “extra” children have the lowest

priority in admission to kindergarten, school and medical institutions.

In contrast, one-child families are entitled to many privileges including

monthly or annual cash subsidies for health or welfare until the child

reaches fourteen years of age; and additional private plots from the

commune. Single children are entitled to free education, health services,

and priority in admission to nurseries, schools and hospitals. Parents

receive an additional subsidy to their old age pension (Croll,89).

The basis for the issue is ironical again. Population growth is generally

the result of a well functioning society. Improved medicine and nutrition

has sustained a higher life expectancy. Internal peace in China has also

contributed to the individuals living longer. Since Communism rests on the

doling out of commodities and benefits based on the number in a household,

the structure of the government itself encouraged population growth.

The rural resurgence produced the natural effect of having more children to

help with the work and produce more. Lack of space in Urban area’s induced

pressure on couples not to have more children. A satisfying compromise was

never reached between the two mitigating factors of urban and rural family

needs. Thus, an ineffective initiative was implemented.

Due to the ineffectiveness of the law, compliance became a problem,

especially in the rural areas. Women were looked to for the solution to

the problem. Forced sterilization and abortions were becoming commonplace

in the regions where pressure was put on the officials to take action.

Threats of violence and the loss of assets of a family were gorilla tactics

used on the offenders of non-compliance.

The self-esteem of Chinese women and girls was all but crushed with being

looked at as worthless, since boys were highly valued in single family

homes. Girls were to be for the use of others. In attempts to save money,

girls were kept away from school and provided cheap domestic labor instead.

It is obvious to see the cultural battle that women in China have before

them. The demands of rural agricultural labor undermine the one-child law

and create conflict on many levels in both rural and urban China.

While it is easy to belabor the oppression of women in China, one must look

to the monumental strides that a Communist nation was able to take in the

last 50 years. An unparalleled determination rested in the Communists goal

for answering the “woman question”. The strides that were taken

economically have contributed to the betterment of many Chinese women.

Communist China’s intentions were to provide women with economic

equalization which shook the foundation of Chinese society. The

male-dominated household was being challenged to recognize the legitimate

other half. Remembering that girls were considered “useless”, brings to

light the true strides that have advanced Chinese society in the form of

legal recognition.

The intra-familial relations have not evolved along the lines of

recognition of the individuality and authenticity of women. For example,

the barbaric practice of foot binding, which rendered a woman powerless to

be an economic contributor. And even beyond that, the twist in idealizing

something so demeaning to women demonstrated that China was not ready to

release their cultural bonds on women. Arranged marriages offered nothing

for women in as far as emotional release. The more estranged a husband and

wife were, the more beneficial for the husbands mother. Wealthy husbands

were allowed concubines while the poor men merely had affairs.

This is not meant to imply that the state and the household are monolithic

agents in an overdetermined system of patriarchy. Although male-domination

persists, socialist ideology raised the consciousness of women to the

existence of their subordinate social valuation. Women did not receive as

many work points as men for comparable labor in the agricultural commune.

Women were encouraged to contribute more to farm work so that men could

pursue more important forms of production. Women were recruited for

political activities but then expected to fulfill their domestic

responsibilities and serve the patriarchal interests of the state. In each

case there were women who attempted to challenge the privileged status of

men. But then there were also women enlisted by the party-state to reorient

the terms of equality under socialism. In an ironic recognition of the

intersubjective synergy between the patriarchal state and household,

Zhongguo Fun? (Women of China) wrote the following in response to the

resistance of rural women cadres to housework:

Family and state are interdependent and interrelated. For this reason, in

China home work and social labor are mutually geared together, and home

work is just a part of social labor and plays an important part in

socialist construction….If a woman can integrate what little she can do

into the great cause of socialist construction and if she has the ideal of

working for the happiness of future generations, she would be a noble

person, a woman of benefit to the masses, a woman of communist

morality (Anders,46).

Women in China must still adhere to the traditional roles set about by

their culture. The Communist Revolution provided the examination of the

roles of women in China and implemented important steps toward the

recognition of their legitimacy. Rightly so, Chinese feminists are not

satisfied with their place in society and campaign for a new and better

understanding of the value of women in society.

Bibliography

Andors, Phyllis. The Unfinished Liberation of Chinese Women. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1983.

Croll, Elisabeth. Chinese Women Since Mao. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1983.