Common among sociologists is the belief that women’s rights improve with economic growth.  While this notion, known as the “modernization theory,”[1]  proves true in many developing countries, it is not entirely applicable to China.  Even though economic progress initially improved the lot of Chinese women, further development caused a decrease in women’s rights.

Chinese history can be broken down into three distinct economic periods: agricultural, communist, and semi-capitalist.  During the agricultural era, women had few rights.  Because of a strong family structure that subordinated women, women lacked social and economic freedoms.  With the move to communism, the modernization theory proved true.  China began to industrialize in force and the familial system that had held women back for centuries began to erode.  Contrary to the modernization theory, as the Chinese government began to allow for private enterprise and nurtured a free market with economic reforms starting in 1978, women lost a certain degree of social freedom.  New academic and business opportunities became available, but these came at a price.  The state’s move from an absolute communist enterprise allowed the traditional family to resurface.  In rural areas, women were relegated to the same roles they had during the agricultural period.

As China transitioned from an agricultural to a communist economic system, family was deemphasized and thus women’s rights and economic liberty increased. With the current transition to a capitalist market, however, traditional values have resurfaced and women have seen an increase in intellectual stimulation in their work at the price of a decrease in the social freedom they enjoyed during full-fledged communism.

Submission in the Agrarian Era

In traditional Chinese society, three primary practices caused the subordination of women: patriarchy, patrilineality, and patrilocality.[2]   The patriarchal system made the man the economic head of the household even though women were mainly responsible for the home’s upkeep.  Patrilineality, the practice of inheritance in which wealth was passed down through only the male line, marginalized women. Contrary to Lockeian ideals, patrilineality ensured that no matter how hard a woman worked, she would still own nothing. She had no right to pass her earnings on to heirs and thus her position in society was devalued.  Moreover, this economic practice guaranteed that women remained reliant on men.  Since a woman could not technically own property, without a man she was homeless.  This also led men to view women solely as producers of male heirs.  If a woman could not produce a baby boy, her husband would routinely adopt a male relative to become his heir rather than passing on his property to a daughter.[3]   Because only a male could inherit the family’s property, women were pressured to have as many babies as possible in hopes that a male offspring would survive.  A high level of child mortality ensured that women spent most of their lives trying to produce a male heir.[4]  Not only did this lead to their own health issues, such as miscarriages and death during childbirth, but it also prevented them from having the time to achieve any semblance of independence.

The third tradition that marginalized women was patrilocality, the practice of a newly married couple living in the home of the husband’s family.  Parents knew they would lose their daughter when she married, so they were reluctant to invest in her development.  Put bluntly, daughters had little economic value to their parents since they left home when they married, often at a young age.[5]   The opposite was true for sons.  If a family had a cultured, well-educated son, he would be able to woo a wife who would help the husband’s family.[6]   The treatment of girls was in fact worse in households with both male and female children, as all the family’s paltry resources were invested in the boys.

Traditional Chinese social norms also oppressed women.  The ideal Chinese woman was tough and hardworking yet docile and subservient.[7]  Trained from youth to refuse initiative, even if the possibility of economic freedom arose, the conventional Chinese woman would be loath to take it.

Progress in the Communist Age

With the rise of communism, old social values were reevaluated and new ideals were crafted.  In Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, a tome of sayings circulated among the Chinese people, Mao declared: “In order to build a great socialist society, it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity.”[8]   Mao not only instituted reforms that improved the lot of women, but also comprehended the root of gender inequality in China.  He realized that “genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.”[9]   In order for women to gain social standing in Communist China, the old family structure would have to be broken down.

Many communist policies were crafted with the aim of reducing the role of families.  The Communist Manifesto itself called for the “abolition of family”[10]  and declared that the “real point [of communism] is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.”[11]   The Marriage Law of 1950 is an example of the measures the Communist Party took to reform the status of women.  The law eliminated arranged marriages, bride prices, and child marriages.  This had a marked effect on rural women.  For one, the women had some degree of choice regarding a husband.  Also, since women were no longer sent off as children to live with their husband’s family, their own family had more incentive to invest in their education.  This portion of the law helped reduce the negative effects of patrilocality.  The law also granted women some economic rights, allowing them to inherit property.  This measure counteracted the traditional of patrilineality and gave women more power in home life.  Now that they could own property, women had more influence on family decisions. 

The commune also replaced the family as a unit of production.  Since the commune took over traditional family functions, women were freed from doting on their husbands and mothers-in-law as they did traditionally.[12]   No longer forced to spend hours toiling at home, women enjoyed greater independence.  Moreover, women were encouraged to challenge the authority of their parents since the state was all that mattered.  Many women joined the Red Guard, a move that gave them both steady wages and social freedom away from the constraints of family.[13]  Also, the communist emphasis on collective property rights over individual property rights diminished the power of patrilineality.  Since everyone had an equal share of ownership, women’s input gained validity.  In an attempt to make people loyal to the communist state, Chinese leaders implemented reforms that destroyed the traditional familial structure that had oppressed women.

Even though the majority of the measures implemented reduced the role of family, the communists were unable to change certain aspects of traditional culture.  They did not want to abandon family entirely because family created a degree of social stability.  Moreover, mothers and fathers could teach their children about communism, perpetuating loyalty to the state.[14]

Now that the government had implemented reforms that would improve women’s status, they had to convince the public to abide by these changes.  By using propaganda, the communist state helped change perceptions of women.  Billboards were erected detailing the Marriage Law of 1950.  The government also began a publicity campaign featuring the “Iron Girls Team,” a group of women who did the hardest industrial work possible in order to prove women were every bit as capable as men.[15]   Women were also portrayed in men’s uniforms on posters plastered throughout the country in an attempt to demonstrate that women contributed to the state just as much as men did.  With these campaigns, the government succeeded in changing the mentality of many men and helped women enter the industrial sector.

Having already begun the process of breaking down the traditional family structure, communist measures also gave women work and thus the economic freedom that would lead to social independence.  Beginning in 1950, Chinese women were given work opportunities outside of the home.  The hokou system was implemented in the 1950s as a means to economic growth.  The Communist Party assigned women to specific places to live, which in effect relegated them to a specific job.  This practice not only served as an opportunity to earn money, but also as a way to escape the dominating fathers and brothers who waited at home.[16]   As men and women now contributed equally to the family income, they had equal say in how the money was spent.[17]   This fact, coupled with the Marriage Law that allowed women to choose their own husband, gave women more social rights.

The improved state of women brought on by communism is clearly evidenced by the Chinese garment industry during the period.  During the communist era, women cotton workers made up over one third of the Shanghai proletariat.[18]   With the new economic reforms in place, many women fled the countryside in order to find work in the city.  In the new industrial setting, women enjoyed a much greater degree of social freedom.  They were able to live on their own for the first time, away from the strong patriarchal society that persisted in rural regions.  In the words of Pietra Rivoli, an economist who lived in China and researched firsthand how industrialization has affected women, “factory work... provided not only a step up on the economic ladder… but also a first taste of autonomy and self-determination.”[19]   Also, with a paycheck of their own, women experienced economic freedom for the first time.  Although the pay was paltry, women could finally decide how to spend their money.  Put simply, wages brought social freedoms.  In fact, the majority of women valued their newfound social freedoms more than the economic gains city work offered.[20]

Although communism gave women social freedom, the state’s reforms were not without their negative effects.  For one, the conditions in which women worked were dismal.  Working in the growing industrial sectors was very much a sweatshop experience: boring, dirty, and strenuous.  Even so, many women claimed that it was better than life on the farm.[21]   There was better pay than in the countryside, and working conditions on the farm were not much of an improvement.

The main problem with the communist economic reforms was that, while women had more freedom socially, they languished intellectually.  In spite of all the propaganda that encouraged women to take initiative, the Communist Party wanted women to only do their specifically assigned tasks with zeal.  Overall, women were still encouraged to be timid and docile.  There was such a division of labor in factories that no thought was needed to perform any specific task.[22]   The women had no idea how the factory was run or even how the garments were made; they only knew how to complete their specialized assignment, which was usually little more than manual labor.  However, the women who were unable to make it to the city were even worse off. Those left in rural hokous were considered “surplus labor” because there was nothing productive for them to do.[23]  They languished in the countryside, hoping one day to receive an assignment in the city.  While China’s industrialization under communism disrupted the family system that had held women down and allowed them to escape from the confines of rural life, it did not provide women with work that involved intellectual expression.

The Economy Advances but Women’s Rights Regress

With the capitalist economic reforms that began in 1978, women began to receive greater intellectual stimulation in the workplace at the price of some of the social freedoms they enjoyed during communism.  Since the economy shifted away from community production, more emphasis was again placed on the family unit.[24]   To a certain degree, this caused a return to the traditional family practices of patriarchy, patrilineality, and patrilocality.  Women were again relegated to subordinate positions under their fathers and brothers.  Also, with the return of patrilocality, families again had little economic incentive to invest in daughters, as they would be lost at marriage. Even though national living standards have increased since the 1978 reforms, women’s standing in rural areas has decreased as these regions regress to the old agricultural system.[25]

Moreover, without the communist support of gender equality, old social norms re-emerged.  Once again, women were increasingly viewed solely as producers of children and this had a negative effect in the capitalist marketplace.  Firms did not want to be pressured into giving women time off for maternity leave, so they simply did not hire females in the first place.  Rather than help mitigate this trend, government measures to give women more maternity leave simply reinforced the traditional idea that a woman’s sole job was to reproduce.[26]

With the liberalization of the economy, certain political policies liberalized as well.  There was a push towards the restoration of traditional Confucian values, even in the business world.  In Confucian capitalism, guanxi (or relationship/connections) are imperative to conducting business.  Men, however, were typically unwilling to form guanxi with women.[27]   This made female executives less effective than their male counterparts and thus the few women who were able to successfully climb the corporate ladder rarely remained there.

The new capitalist media quickly counteracted Mao’s propaganda campaign that encouraged sexual equality.  Instead of billboards portraying the “Iron Girl Team,” a representation of female strength and work ethic, the new generation of ads featured women in skimpy clothes hyping one product or another.  Capitalism allowed for and encouraged the objectification of women.  Moreover, a free press promoted the idea of “ideal womanhood” in which women stay at home and men work.[28]   This new form of propaganda still showed women as objects, but in a slightly different way than before.  Now women were useful not only for procreating, but also as sexual objects.  Even though marketing did not exist in the agricultural area, this capitalist advancement was still a return to traditional ideals in which women have a singular purpose. 

While the communist industrialization continued to provide women with some jobs in the city, without the state enforcing equity, gender discrimination was rampant.  As state enterprises privatized, women were traditionally the first to be laid off.[29]   In the early years of economic reform, no regulations kept private companies from discriminating against women.  Compounding the problem was the fact that during this time, the government was encouraging foreign companies to invest in China.  These firms were under even less scrutiny than the native Chinese businesses and thus gender discrimination among them was extraordinary.

Gender discrimination was so pervasive during this period that women were basically excluded from industry.  Because of the influences of patrilocality, men were better educated and thus rewarded with the highest paying posts while women were forced back into the agricultural sector.  China began to experience a “feminization of agriculture” in which women returned to traditional agricultural work while men took jobs in industrial sectors.[30]   By the end of the 1990s, women were doing two thirds of the nation’s agricultural work.[31]   In addition, those women that were able to find jobs in the city received fewer promotions than their male counterparts and lower pay, a change from the equal pay system of the communist era.   

Some measures were implemented with the intent of reversing the return to traditional culture, but they were largely unsuccessful.  The Inheritance Law of 1985, which declared illegal any sex discrimination in regard to inheritance, was an attempt to counteract the renewed popularity of patrilineality.  The law had little impact, however, since at this point the state lacked the rigid control it had exercised before the reforms.  The measure was not enforced and sexist rural practices continued.  Women could insist on their fair share of the inheritance and involve the authorities, but by doing so, women risked their social standing for financial gain.

Even though by and large the transition to capitalism reduced the social freedoms of women, at least one of the reforms enacted during this period, the One Child Policy of 1979, actually preserved the improved social status of women.  Although the act at first seemed an infringement on women’s rights, its ultimate effects actually improve females’ status.  If a family’s first child was a girl, there was no reason to discriminate against her and save money for an eventual boy if one was only allowed to have one child.  Therefore, the One Child policy decreased the gender gap within families.[32]  Also, since the law allowed a woman to give birth only once, it reduced the image of women as solely baby producers.  The law did, however, have negative effects such as the increased infanticide of baby girls.  Still, by and large the results of the One Child Policy have been positive.

Women’s organizations, such as the Women’s Federation, also developed in order to protect and promote women’s civil liberties.  These groups try to minimize the negative impacts of the market society and draw attention to the inequalities it has created, such as job insecurity for women, gaps in schooling, prostitution, and the exploitation of women as sex objects.[33]   Also, as the social status of women suffered from the development of a capitalist economy, so did women’s place in politics.  For example, there were more female government officials from 1950-1978 than after the reforms.[34]    Even though the groups have improved the situation slightly, their work has done relatively little to stem the tide of prejudice that is plaguing China’s female population.

Economic Growth and New Opportunities

Although social freedoms have been reduced as China transitions to a market economy, certain educational opportunities have become available.  During communism, those who had unconventional ideas, especially outspoken women, were sent to the countryside for “reeducation.”[35]   With a free market, however, women are able to experience a wide array of cultures through travel or study abroad programs.

Fed up with the epidemic sexism of industry, many women have turned to entrepreneurship in an attempt to use their specific skill set.  This was unthinkable during communism.  The haiju system, in which women were assigned to a particular region and a specific job, prevented them from using their abilities.  Today, rather than try to fit into an industry that seems designed to keep them from gaining power, women have begun creating businesses of their own.  Since the majority of jobs offered to women pay little, entrepreneurship is a good alternative.  Currently, women compose twenty percent of China’s entrepreneurs.[36]   They are attracted to entrepreneurship because success in the field is determined by results, not gender.

Since men dominate most established industries, some female entrepreneurs have turned to the burgeoning markets to start their business.  One such market is the “incense and oil industry.”[37]  New cultural freedoms generated by the 1978 reforms led to religious revivalism in rural areas.  Traditionally, women were the keepers of religious paraphernalia and the perpetuators of religious tradition.  Rather than simply accept the traditional role relegated to them, some women have combined these historical practices with their own capitalist instincts to form companies that sell traditional food offerings and supplies for ceremonies.  They take their cultural capital and turn it into economic capital, which in turn can lead to increased social freedom.  This is one example of how capitalism allows women to use their individual expertise to further increase their economic well-being.

Conclusion

As China’s economy has liberalized, women’s rights have not increased.  To the contrary, the introduction of a market economy has made gender equality in the country regress.  Part of this phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that a command government is more effective at instituting reform.  The communist government could enforce any policies it so desired and could quell any opposition to the expansion of women’s rights.  Moreover, since business was state-controlled, the government itself determined how industry functioned, ensuring there was no gender discrimination.  Women’s situation was far from perfect during communism, however.  Even though females had greater social autonomy and could live and work by themselves, their jobs were mindless and they were cheap labor exploited by the state.  With the development of a market economy, women have seen a reduction in social status; however, there are new options that were not possible during communism.  Now women have the opportunity to find a job in which they are proficient, and find work that is intellectually challenging.

China’s history illustrates the “women in development” theory, which states that economic development can initially cause gender inequalities.[38]  The caveat is that these inequalities are temporary.  Perhaps the impairment of women’s rights is only a fleeting response to the rigidity of communism.  Also, it is likely that in the future, new industries created by today’s female entrepreneurs will not practice sexual discrimination like the current male-dominated firms.  As it stands now, however, a more liberal economy has not brought about greater gender equity, but rather has exacerbated the gap between men and women.

Endnotes

[1] Emily Hannum. “Market Transition Educational Disparities, and Family Strategies in Rural China: New Evidence on Gender Stratification and Development.” Demography 42 (May 2005): 1.

[3] Dasgupta, 3.

[4] Dasgupta, 2.

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