his distaste for women because he believes that women's duty is no more than a wife and a mother

his distaste for women because he believes that women

To be sure, with China’s rapid economic transformation, women are living longer, earning more money and graduating from university in greater numbers than ever before.īut the country’s gains have disproportionately benefited men. And with divorce numbers on the rise, millions of Chinese women have been cut out of the nation’s real-estate boom, experts say. “No Communist leader before Xi has dared to openly say that women should shoulder the domestic burden,” Professor Wang said.Įager to preserve the stability of the family unit, the party has also done little to help women following a recent court ruling that weakened their claim to property in divorce proceedings. In a break with the Marxist ambition of liberating women from patriarchal oppression, President Xi has called on women to embrace their “unique role” in the family and “shoulder the responsibilities of taking care of the old and young, as well as educating children.”

By 2010, according to the latest official data, the average income of women in Chinese cities had fallen to 67 percent that of men, and in the countryside 56 percent. Thirty years ago, when the country first began implementing market reforms, Chinese women earned just under 80 percent of what men made.

Despite political turmoil and persistent bias, Chinese women entered the work force in record numbers, began to enjoy greater rights and were celebrated for their economic contributions. Mao famously told women they held up “half the sky” and outlawed arranged marriage and the practice of taking concubines. At home, women are increasingly disadvantaged in divorce and losing out on gains in the country’s property boom. In a stark turnaround from the early decades of Communist rule, officials now look the other way when employers, reluctant to cover costs related to maternity leave, openly pick men over women for hiring and promotions. “Now they want to push women into marriage and have a bunch of babies.” “When the state policymakers needed women’s hands, they sent them to do labor,” said Wang Zheng, professor of women’s studies and history at the University of Michigan. The Communist Party now wants to try to stimulate a baby boom.īut instead of making it easier for women to both work and have children, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has led a resurgence in traditional gender roles that has increasingly pushed women back into the home. From the womb to the workplace, from the political arena to the home, women in China are losing ground at every turn.ĭriving this regression in women’s status is a looming aging crisis, and the relaxing of the draconian “one-child” birth restrictions that contributed to the graying population. Such agreements are illegal but increasingly common in China, where discrimination against women is on the rise.

His distaste for women because he believes that women's duty is no more than a wife and a mother