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Lecture 9: Gender, State Socialism, and Capitalism in Contemporary China

Lecture 9: Gender, State Socialism, and Capitalism in Contemporary China. 1. “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”: Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms of the 1980s. Decentralisation – greater power given to local government

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Lecture 9: Gender, State Socialism, and Capitalism in Contemporary China

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  1. Lecture 9: Gender, State Socialism, and Capitalism in Contemporary China

  2. 1. “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”: Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms of the 1980s • Decentralisation – greater power given to local government • Special economic zones – China opened up to foreign investment. These zones had few restrictions to encourage growth. • Household responsibility system – de-collectivisation; land divided up into private plots; people could choose what to grow and could sell surplus • Private businesses allowed to operate

  3. Problems with the Reforms • Problematic rise in inflation • Corruption • Civil unrest • Increasing disparity of wealth • Rapid industrialisation has lead to public health crises 2009 Gini Coefficient Map (higher number = greater disparity of wealth)

  4. Main street, Donglu village, Shandong Province

  5. Chiping, county town, Shandong province

  6. Shanghai by night Guangzhou

  7. Tiananmen Square protest 15th April – 4th June 1989 (Left) protesters erected a goddess of democracy which faced the portrait of Mao in a mocking way

  8. “Tank man”

  9. How have the reforms affected women? • Increased discrimination against women workers (seen as more expensive, less physically strong) • Rise in unemployment meant women pressured to leave work • Public child-care services closed • Women concentrated in low paid work • “Beauty premium” problematic due to lack of protection against discrimination

  10. Ceremonial girls and hostesses for the 2009 National People’s Congress

  11. 2. Sexuality and Reproduction • Only heterosexual marriage is permitted (no same-sex marriage, no civil unions) • No laws exist to protect workers against discrimination due to their gender identity or sexual orientation • Homosexuality a criminal offense until 1997 • Considered a mental illness until 2001 • CCP’s attitude towards homosexuality is the “three nos” (no approval, no disapproval, no promotion)

  12. Shanghai Pride began in 2009

  13. One-Child Policy • Implemented in 1979 • Incentivised (status, consumer goods) • Harsh penalties (fines, no rights to schooling/medical care for illegal child, forced abortion, forced sterilization) • Dependent on where you live/how many siblings you have/your ethnicity

  14. Carry out family planning, implement the basic national policy, 1986

  15. Opening of 10th National Women’s Congress Great Hall of the People, Beijing October 2008

  16. Women are human beings too. Why should their specific attributes, their interests, their development as a sex, and many other aspects of their womanhood not be important questions? Don’t the interests of women mingle with the ocean of the interests of the people? Shouldn’t women’s rights form part of democratic rights? Why do people just find fault with me when the question of women is raised? ..... Women are not baby-making machines. They are human beings, and as such they must fight for their rights, their interests, and their fulfilment. (as quoted in Honig and Herschatter’sPersonal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s, 2007: 310)

  17. You, being a husband, often get done with work earlier than I, yet you are not willing to enter the kitchen. If you are hungry, you just wait for your wife to come home and cook for you. After dinner, you just get up and leave, as if you were in a restaurant. You never think of touching the dirty clothes in the basket; instead you often complain “I don’t have any clean clothes to wear!” You simply assume that these are all the things for a wife to take care of..... (as quoted in Honig and Herschatter’sPersonal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s, 2007: 332)

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