Women in Chinese Societies

Women in Chinese Societies

Even since the dramatic post-1949 changes in China regarding the role of women, China has remained paternalistic in its 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 materialistically.

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