GENDER EQUALITY IN

CHINA
An Unfinished Political Agenda

 Dr. Ritu Agarwal  Dec 28, 2023  Expert Speak

Xi Jinping attaches great importance to family education and tradition and stresses
that women should play an important role in the construction of family virtues. During
his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Xi Jinping emphasized that gender
equality is China's basic national policy. However, during his recent talk with All-China
Women’s Federation leadership, he emphasized that women's work is not only related
to women's development, but it is also related to maintaining family harmony. These
developments have once again brought the unresolved agenda back to the forefront
that women still bear the sole responsibility of taking care of the family and household

Women in Socialist China

Questions of gender equality (nan nu ping deng) and women’s development (funu fazhan)
have been a part of the official discourse on gender in China. Mao’s famous slogan
‘Women hold up half the sky’ indicated that China pays great attention to women’s equal
participation in the workforce, which can improve women's social status. During the
Communist Party of China’s (CPC) mass mobilization campaign especially during the
Great Leap Forward (GLF), women were encouraged to participate in economic
production. It was not limited to agriculture and light industry, but rather women became a
major workforce as almost 600,000 women worked in iron and steel-making industries in
Hunan province, the native place of Mao. Women were freed from the feudal practices of
foot-binding, arranged marriages, and child brides and they were mobilized as an important
workforce in the countryside.

After China’s liberation in 1949, the CPC formulated a series of progressive laws to ensure
women’s freedom in choosing their partners for marriage and addressed women’s right to
landed property within the household. The Official magazine ‘Women of China’ (earlier
known as Women of New China) created new images of women who have essentially been
freed from the shackles of bondages of oppression. The new images of women were
essentially those of carrying baskets, operating agricultural machinery, or toasting with
CPC leaders while attending some state functions.

Previously in revolutionary China, women revolutionaries like Kang Keqing and Xiang
Jingyu supported the rights and interests of women. Deng Yingchao (wife of former
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai) was active in the women’s rights movement long before she
joined the CPC. In 1923, Deng became active in women’s publications, eventually
becoming the editor of Women’s Daily, the only women-oriented newspaper in China at
that time. As a result of these efforts, women’s participation in the workforce had increased
and women were seen as the most visible actors in social and economic production.
However, women’s liberation was considered part of the revolutionary class struggle and
was denied an autonomous sphere by the socialist regime in China.

Reforms and New Wave of Feminism

In the 1970s and 80s, there was a new wave of feminism in China that questioned the
Cultural Revolutionary campaigns of ‘iron girls’ and ‘what men can do, women can do too’
in both academia and popular culture. The process of retrieving femineity and
rediscovering a feminine self, began with more differences in dress, occupation, social
roles and behaviour among men and women.

Scholars and women activists demanded gender equality by bringing forth differences
between women and men regarding their income, wages, employment, economic
participation, and social management. In the 1980s, the Women’s Federation began to
acknowledge the occupation differences between men and women and organized a
campaign for ‘Double learning Double competition’ （ Shuang xue shuang bi ） in rural
areas. In 1989, On Women’s Day, People’s Daily reported gender discrimination
experienced by female scientific and technological workers at work due to childbirth and
family responsibilities.

The Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing (FWCW) in 1995 signalled a new era of
hope and optimism regarding women’s rights in China. The Platform of Action issued by
the Chinese government, for the first time, talked about twelve areas of critical concerns
and was given importance by the policymakers to address gender equality in China. It
included women’s participation in economic production, education and training, poverty
reduction, access to health and political decision-making. Besides, China also created new
institutional mechanisms to address the questions of women’s empowerment in China. For
the first time in 1995 and subsequently, in 1999, 2004, 2007 and 2012, the data set on
gender differences in workforce participation, educational and healthcare statistics were
released by the Chinese government.

Statistics show that gender discrimination persists in terms of wages, employment, and
retirement age. Some companies don’t want to hire women because they will likely take
maternity leave in the future while other businesses still believe that once women become
mothers, they can’t concentrate on their work. Thus, urban economic enterprises were not
willing to recruit female workers and female university graduates found it difficult to get a
placement in companies. According to the statistics, women’s labour force participation
especially those having children under 2 years of age fell from 89 percent in 1990 to 56
percent in 2005 and for women with children under 6 years, it fell from 91 percent to 77
percent over the same period.

A major factor in the declining workforce ratio seems to be the lack of childcare provisions
as SOEs relinquished their social service responsibilities. The new Women’s Protection
Law which was implemented in 2023 stipulates that “the employer shall not, due to
marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave, breastfeeding, and other circumstances, reduce the
wages and welfare benefits of female workers, restrict the promotion, and employment of
female workers, dismiss female workers, unilaterally dissolve the labor (employment)
contract or service agreement. Thus, it seems to be taking a more welfarist attitude towards
women workers in employment.
All China Women’s Federation and Women’s Collectives

All China Women’s Federation was set up in 1949 as a mass organization of the CPC for
mobilizing and channelizing women in the revolutionary movement. Women’s Federation
used to organize a series of meetings at the provincial, county and village levels to
facilitate women speaking out about the problems within the family and community and
also ensured women’s participation in a series of mass campaigns organized by the CPC
from time to time. However, since the goals and aims of the Women’s Federation were
defined by the Party ideology, it often found itself in a difficult situation that demanded
conflicting political role to represent both women and the state.

In the reform period, the Party has been reluctant to loosen its grip over the ACWF, and
there have been counter-forces seeking to bring changes, particularly in terms of attaining
greater autonomy from the state. During the 1980s, it advocated gender equality in
employment and education and also organized public forums to acquaint women with their
legal rights and assist them in their struggle against all forms of discrimination. However, it
often found itself in a difficult situation in representing women’s interests and meeting the
Party’s goal.

However, after the economic reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were a series
of women’s studies research centres established in different Universities in Zhengzhou,
Hangzhou, Beijing and Tianjin. There was an awakening of new women’s consciousness
about their social experiences. There was a new interest in setting up women’s studies
programmes in different universities and academic journals started devoting themselves to
women’s issues. Popular organization like the Centre for Women’s Law Studies and Legal
Services, at Peking University, was established to provide legal aid and protection to
women in times of their need. ‘The Media Watch network’ became a major platform for
organizing sessions like Women’s Forums and started special columns in China Women’s
News to promote awareness of gender discrimination and women’s rights in China.

Xi Jinping Regime and New Focus on Family Stability

However, a series of incidents like the arrest of young feminist activists and the crackdown
on feminist organizations brought a setback for Chinese feminism. Moreover, with the
aging population and demographic crisis in China, the issues of women’s development
became largely confined to maintaining family stability and harmony. Xi Jinping attaches
great importance to family education and tradition and stresses that women should play an
important role in the construction of family virtues. During his speech at a high-level
meeting of the United Nations General Assembly commemorating the 25th anniversary of
the World Conference on Women in Beijing, Xi Jinping emphasized that gender equality is
China's basic national policy. However, during his recent talk with All-China Women’s
Federation leadership, he emphasized that women's work is not only related to women's
development, but it is also related to maintaining family harmony, social cohesion and
national development and progress.
In recent years, in Wanzhou district of Chongqing city, the Women’s Federation has started
this initiative of 'Women's Micro Homes' to promote women's training in carrying out
family culture construction. It once again emphasized that women have a unique role in
promoting the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation and establishing good family
traditions and thus, making an important contribution to the new development. Thus, these
developments have once again brought the unresolved agenda back to the forefront that
women still bear the sole responsibility of taking care of the family and household and the
binaries between women’s roles in public and private life have got more sharpened.

Image Source: China Daily

Author

Dr. Ritu Agarwal

Dr. Ritu Agarwal is an Associate Professor at Centre for East Asian studies, School
of International Studies, JNU. She holds a Ph.D. in Chinese studies from University
of Delhi. She completed her M.A. in Political science, JNU. Her Doctoral work
explored the micro-level agrarian transformation in Yunnan province and she is
currently engaged in questions of provincial transformation especially in Yunnan.
Her research interests are: rural political economy, urbanization, gender studies and
provincial politics. Dr. Ritu Agarwal studied Mandarin Chinese from Beijing language
and Culture University, Beijing. She was a visiting scholar to Yunnan Academy of
Social Sciences, Kunming, and visiting fellow to Yunnan Minzu University and
Yunnan University recently. She was also affiliated to Chinese University of Hong
Kong and East Asia Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore to collect
material for her research work.

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