PICTURE CHINA

Women in China

November 07th, 2006 | Category: Topic Focus

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Up until the Communist Revolution, Chinese women occupied the bottom rung of the social ladder. Undesirable from birth, women were treated much like property, first by their fathers and then by their husbands. Women were forced into arranged marriages and were not entitled to divorce or to own property.

In the early 1950’s, with the declaration that “women hold up half the sky”, Mao Zedong and the new communist government dramatically changed the status of women in China. At least in theory, women were given equal rights in economic, cultural and family life and equal pay for equal work. A new marriage law granted the right for women to choose their partners, get divorced and inherit property. However, the legacy of thousands of years of servitude did not wear off overnight and only now are some women starting to achieve true equality.

Today in China’s modern cities, the status of women is higher than it has ever been. Certainly compared to many other developing nations, modern Chinese women enjoy a high degree of respect and rights. While Chinese society is still, at times, chauvinistic, women have started to enter the upper echelons of the business world and government. The next generation of young women will, no doubt, enjoy even more equality and play an invaluable role in shaping the China of the 21st century.

10 Comments so far

  1. ah huang November 23rd, 2006 5:40 pm

    Some interesting pictures that show the broad range of faces in China. We in the West tend to think of Chinese as carbon copies (and they think the same of us) unless we’ve had experience with China.

    I think you over-stress quite heavily the equality of women in that country, though. The actual status of women in China is masked by the presence of women in the CCP’s ranks and the selection of women for the “congress”, both of which fraudulently skew the real position of females to make it seem they have higher position in China than in other places. Naturally, there is improvement since the 50’s and Mao’s half the sky speech, and yes, there is more to be expected. But then there is more to be expected every where until there is a real equality of the sexes.

  2. Koru May 17th, 2007 2:26 am

    It’s still a good thing that there’s a significant number of women in CCP, whether it reflects China as a whole or not. I’m also happy to see that women in high positions is considered a respectable thing in the world. I don’t know everything about the CCP and their fraud, but the government is obviously puting out the message, which, in a way, is half the battle. The explaination on this site gives me some confidence in this global struggle of gender-equality–and I learned something about Mao Zedong (that I should have known…)

  3. sol December 1st, 2007 4:36 pm

    wo ei china
    i love china
    truly
    sol ma

  4. Muhammad Tariq December 29th, 2007 2:33 pm

    i wante chiness women

  5. JMC March 3rd, 2008 4:56 am

    Interesting photos, could you give us more details? For example, what is the ethnicity of the women in the 1st and 3rd pictures?

  6. 中国人 March 27th, 2008 10:56 am

    永远第一！中国！！！

  7. putyourendtowar April 4th, 2008 11:33 am

    i gave her the sky, i gave her the sun, i gave her the moon and she still is blue…

    Mao Zedong

    http://putyourendtowar.livejournal.com/28766.html

  8. ashley May 6th, 2008 7:36 pm

    hey wat up not much here just sitting in s.s and wow chineese people are very pretty

  9. ashley May 6th, 2008 7:38 pm

    i love china except 4 the air pollution it is discusting GO WISCONSIN

  10. INLOVE> June 12th, 2008 5:05 am

    OU YE AI ZHONGGUO …! HEHEHEHE

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