Women, Gender and Social Life in Chinese History

Women, Gender and Social Life in Chinese History

Introduction

Past scholarship has done much to fill in and highlight the place of women in the historical record. Yet much has been written on women and the family in China. In Chinese society, women occupied a low and degrading status in earlier times. It was common to assign the jobs negligible or less important to women. A baby boy was considered a gift from the gods and treated as such, while a newborn girl had to endure endless abuse. A Chinese proverb says: “Listen to your wife, but never believe what she says.”

Discussion

The Chinese woman, after centuries of submission and dedication to home, grew in several aspects and acquired a strong role, especially in companies engaged in the fight against poverty and social inequality. According to the latest census of 2011, China has more than 656 million women, 34 million less than men, a difference based on the years of one-child policy, but none of them occupies one of the highest offices of Government and in most sectors the leadership remains in the hands of men. It is further expected that China will have 300 million more men than women in 2020.

The 56% of women who commit suicide in the world are Chinese. The Asian giant, home to 20% of the world population (1.260 million), recorded one quarter of all suicides in the world and is one of the few countries where the rate is higher in women than in men (Phillips, 2002).

China is dynamic nation and has experienced great changes over twentieth century, parallel those that have taken place in the rest of the world. However, they are still too persistent in our conversations and specialized and informative texts, phrases like "ancient China". Like other contemporary societies, Chinese society has undergone profound social changes. After profiling aspects, most important that have been affected is the social position of women. Since the establishment of the People's Republic, the workforces analyze the adaptability of Chinese workers with changing economy and increasingly close relations of capitalist production. The family shows the evolution of family extended to nuclear, and its impact on family relationships and the position of women within it, all with a view multifocal in an attempt to reflect the diversity and multiplicity of women Chinese today.

To transform the family structure, the government decreed in the Marriage Act 1950. It was to "democratize" the relationships of family and neutralize the hierarchy of authority in accordance with the criteria hitherto dominant: generation, gender and age. The "liberated" women from "three obedience"-to father when daughter the husband as wife, the widow and son when the Chinese population submit to arranged marriages by parents without the prior consent of the spouses. Divorce is provided to women and, first time in the history of China, access to the custody of the children materialized after marital breakdown.

The law of Agrarian reform of 1950 granted property rights to ...