PARPCC #17 – What relations between men and women in China ?

Panda, Rice Alcohol and PCC is a column of Camille Brugier, aimed at introducing scientific articles to a wider audience. His publications can be found on his thread Twitter.

While movements like #metoo are moving the lines on gender relations, it would be wrong to think that these reflections remain limited to Western societies. Wu and Dong show that the place of women is a very highly politicized object in contemporary China., particularly because the independence of women would embody class inequalities.

In post-socialist China (after Mao's death, either from 1976), the patriarchal institution was affirmed on the basis of three pillars: 1) a policy of private property rights unfavorable to women, especially in the event of divorce 2) an extremely restrictive family policy, with the one-child policy 3) the adoption of Confucian precepts favoring the family and establishing a hierarchical relationship between the sexes and between generations, to the detriment of young women.

To these state policies centered on the family and giving a much more traditional role to women, was opposed by another parallel movement: that of the massive arrival of Chinese women in the education system and on the job market; and paving the way for possible emancipation.

If there is a multitude of feminisms in China, Wu and Dong highlight two in Chinese cyberspace : “entrepreneurial feminism” and “non-cooperative feminism”. Entrepreneurial feminism encourages women to use strategies from a young age, highlighting their “feminine” and “domestic” qualities, to have a good marriage and thus ensure their economic security. This type of feminism trades women's sexual freedom for material security.

At the opposite, “non-cooperative feminism” encourages women to become financially independent in order to have access to freedom of choice, including sexual.

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The two authors highlight an interesting phenomenon: whatever feminist voices are at work online, attacks on feminists oppose entrepreneurial feminism. Put another way, the “anti” ignore the nuances and attack from the same angle: feminism in China would ultimately be a process of confiscation of female sexuality by men from privileged backgrounds.

While in “post-socialist” China, the term of the Marxist social class (class) is replaced by a more neutral term (class), women's sexuality, and its role in the marital market, continues to be debated in terms of inequalities and social classes.

Reference: Wu, Angela Xiao & Dong, Learn (2019), “What is made-in-China feminism(s)? Gender Discontent and Class Friction in Post-Socialist China”, Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 51(4), pp. 471-492.