The Issues Regarding Gender Equality in Socialist China - Essay Example

Institution: Tutor: Date: ISSUЕS RЕGАRDING GЕNDЕR ЕQUАLITY IN SОIСАLIST СHINА Introduction Across the world gender equality has progressively received a lot of attention especially in the recent past. In fact, sociologist terms gender equality to be one of the pillars of societal productivity especially in this modern world. As such gender equality is a term used to simply mean the equality of both sexes in the society (Harper-Hinton 1). Advocates of gender equality strive to bargain the equal treatment of both men and women in all fields including social fields including law, political field as well economic fields such as receiving equal pay and equal opportunities in the job market for all (Harper-Hinton 1). Gender equality activist further claims that the latter is the genesis of prosperity of a people, state or even society. As one of the millennium development goals gender equality is progressively becoming a reality in many global states though somehow with a lot of reluctance. To break from the past of predominant gender inequality has proved hard for quite a number of nations as it is faced by a lot of challenges. In this regard, this paper intends to explore and analyze gender equality and the issue that surrounded it, exhibiting it complexity and articulating the problems that hindered its achievement in the Socialist Era. Gender inequality from the past has been a product of the people culture, the way of life of society. Culture guides defines and guides the social political and economic activities of the society members. Equally it defines and governs the relationships between members of particular society. Although culture varies between societies, gender inequality happens to disadvantage women more than men. Woman has over and over been seen as a weak sex in comparison to men since the times of Socrates. As such, they have been subjected to a lot of gender inequality issues such as lack of equal share in inheritance from parents, unequal treatment in the job market especially on payment where women are paid little than their male counter parts even if they are in the same rank. For instance in china before the era of Mao’s regime, women were severely subjected in patriarchal terms and were never allowed to make decisions (Wang Zheng 531). In fact, they were seen as objects to bear children and to take care of the man’s properties. Worse even a woman was included and termed as one of mans property and they had no right to inheritance or property. Under this women suffered severely from male chauvinism a factor that has continued affect many women in the world leading to the move for United Nations Council to advocate for equality and empowerment of women (Wang Zheng 531). Mao realized the potential of women in the society and stated advocating for fair treatment of women which was actually the greatest enemy of their empowerment. Through empowerment it was the only way women would liberate themselves from men exploitation and unfair treatments. In fact, a woman life in China before Mao’s regime was seen as a life little better than a slave. Additionally, marriages were not based on love but instead women were forced to marry (Brownell & Wasserstrom 2002). After marriage the woman joined her husband household where she would be a subject to the husband and mother in law. Women could not access formal education as she was regarded to be of service to her husband and therefore the husband was perceived to need the education more (Brownell & Wasserstrom 2002). Moreover, no woman of any status was in control to their lives as such there was a phenomenon called ‘Three Obedience’ which ensured that any woman be it unmarried girl, married woman or window was in freedom to do what she chooses. The ‘three obedience’ required that unmarried girls obey their fathers and brothers while married women to be subject to their husband and lastly windows were to remain obedient to their adult sons. (Brownell & Wasserstrom 2002) So as to bridge the great gap between the oppressed women, Mao hand to employ a lot of tactics in his leadership. He believed that until a woman is empowered, she cannot be able to freely and comfortably liberate herself from mans oppression. He wanted to significantly match towards achieving the goal of equality both in the public and private sector and in overall fields. During this period women were mobilized into paid employment, significant challenge of the patriarchal social attitudes took place while efforts were done to progressively increase women literacy (Harper-Hinton 6). Indeed, through the employment pillar, women were integrated in the formal workforce ensuring diversity in organizations. While this improved the social status of women during that period, overall national production was observed to significantly accelerate and as such boosted the country’s economy (Harper-Hinton 6). Consequently, some women achieved economic independence and even owned factors of production hence acting as models to other women as well as supporting them. This period saw gender equality to a greater percentage improve and change for the better. Men and women started changing perception that women are weak sex and embraced that the two sexes shared the same intellectual competence, political consciousness and physical strength. Following this many women rejected housewife identity and embraced more valuable and productivity to the nation. (Harper-Hinton 6) They really went beyond the feudal social attitudes about men. Equally during Mao era the legal system was tremendously reformed consequently reforming marriage and property ownership laws to favor all sexes (Whyte Martin 232). At the same time, women federations which helped bargain for the women rights and implementation of the legal reforms were formed. In fact, the legal reforms gave women rights to have a stake in marriage decisions, free choice of marriage, divorce as well as children custody. Gender equality in political participation also took place resulting to dramatically increase of women involvement in the countries governance through appointment (Whyte Martin 232). This was a major step toward improving the women status in the society. In other cases mandatory women offices were provided for in the reformed laws and as such women got a chance to be involved in the countries decision making. As such, women leaders facilitated to uplift women through modeling other women vicariously hence further improving the plight of women in the society (Whyte Martin 232). Despite the collaborative effort of Mao regime to eradicate gender inequality, the programs implemented to carry out the mandate faced a lot of challenges. So many hindrances did affect the reforms of equality as they had no strong basis but rather the basics. For instance in political equality reforms women only acquired the basic leadership positions but there were rarely found in high state positions where mostly the state policies were formed. At the same time, women political leaders still operated with men colleagues who were mostly were reluctant in embracing equality. In fact, they saw women colleagues as political competitors according to (Harper-Hinton 13). In this case, women political leaders had reduced tangible influence in policy decisions that had influence on women lives. Additionally, women were highly encouraged to participate in work force in comparison to political participation. In the legal reforms equality equally faced challenges as many males had a feeling that the laws were undermining their authority and hence implementation of the legal reforms faced a lot of resentment. For instance divorce issue was not lightly taken by men as they thought that that their economic status will be severely affected as they would lose the wives offered domestic labour and equally took care of the properties. The issue that man remained the head of the family also had detrimental impact in the implementation of the legal laws regarding property ownership as land given to women in many cases was registered under the head of the family (man). Even in the modern societies implementation property equality is highly drawn back by these factors. Economic equality programs similarly faced several challenges (Harper-Hinton 15). The fact that women had the responsibility of domestic duties where they cared for the children and domestic issues, made it difficult for women to handle work efficiently. Despite Mao leadership effort to introduce communal child caring programs, the factors dragged economic equality backward (Harper-Hinton 15). Additionally, women who worked outside the home earned little than men and at the same time continued to out the normal traditional household roles in the homes. As such men still remained to be the main bread winners and equally the overall decision makers in homes. As such, this undermined equality efforts Mao government employed hence slow realization of substantial results. This factors coupled with the unwillingness of men who mostly were involved in implementation of equality programs and process shows how complex the equality and therefore the need to progressively innovate new ways to handle conclusive equality (Harper-Hinton 15). Conclusion In conclusion, equality cannot be taken for granted by any state and if a state does not do it stands at risk especially at this modern era. Equality has profound benefits to state including high general productivity in all sectors that is political field, economic sector and social sector. Indeed through the empowerment of women promote quality of family members not forgetting how the nation as a whole gains. On the other hand, governments should understand that conclusively handling the equality requires a state to be consistent and progressive as the result cannot be achieved at once. Moreover given the challenges the move proves to be quit entailing and demanding and if a state has a poor plan of achieving the goals and objectives it may not realize the prime goal (equality). Such challenges as the dominance of males in factors of production, males as the main bread winners and males as the heads of the family acts as serious setbacks of the plan implementation are the majority people involved in implementations. Work cited Brownell Susan & Wasserstrom Jeffrey. ‘Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities.’ University of California Press. 2002 Harper-Hinton Lily. Chinese Women: Move but Not Leap Forward. China Papers. Vol 64 issue 16 pp 1-19. 2009 Whyte Martin. China’s Post-Socialist Inequality. Current history. Pp 229-234. 2012 Zheng Wang. "State Feminism"? Gender and Socialist State Formation in Maoist China. Feminist Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3 pp. 519-551. 2005 Read More