Globalization and women in China
Globalization refers to the interaction and integration of people, products, cultures and governments between various nations around the globe; this is fostered by trade, investment, and information technology.
[1][2] Globalization affected women's rights and the gender hierarchy in China, in aspects of domestic life such as marriage and primogeniture, as well as in the workplace.
These changes altered the quality of life and the availability of opportunities to women at different junctures throughout the modern globalization process.
As the Chinese government began to re-assimilate themselves into the global community in the late 19th to early 20th century, it shifted away from conventional Confucian ideals and women's role in society changed as well.
Mao's death marked the beginning of the current communist administration, and an influx of international communications in the areas of commerce, politics and social ideals.
[7] This belief prompted scholars to use female subordination as a means to validate Western ideas about Chinese culture and Confucian principles.
[7] Writings on Chinese woman rarely account for differences in time, ethnicity, class, region or age, preferring to describe the status of women as a static, unitary fixture of Chinese culture, despite the political and geographic boundaries that defined different regions and the economic and social changes that occurred throughout history.
[7] From the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 CE) until the modern period (1840–1919), scholars and rulers developed a male-dominated patriarchal society in China.
[8] These ideologies continued through the Tang dynasty (618–907), and girls were taught from a very young age to be submissive to their fathers, then to their husbands, and later to their sons.
[10] During the Song dynasty (960–1297), Confucian scholars further developed the patriarchal tradition with more restrictions for females, including foot binding for girls at a very young age.
[16] The third type was the "arranged marriage", which could be traced back to the Warring States, emphasized the necessity of parental control and matchmaking institutions.
[24] The May Fourth Movement, which took place on May 4, 1919, was a demonstration led by students at the National Peking University against the government, in which they protested the abolition of Confucianism and changes in the traditional value system.
[24] Since the movement stressed group efforts and propaganda, women were involved in numerous collective tasks such as publication, drama production, and fund raising, which helped them gain more social contact with men and win respect.
[28] Currently, all Chinese women are still expected to marry a man with superior educational and economic status in their early or mid-twenties.
[29] Many well-educated and well-paid urban professional women tend to delay their partner seeking and marriage, which results in a supposed revival of tradition – parental matchmaking.
[32] Since the one-child policy was established, urban wives have devoted their time to raising "'the perfect only child,'" so they now exert more effort creating their own families than serving in-laws.
[36] These "fists of flesh" were seen as attractive and arousing for men and the practice was passed down as a prerequisite to marriage from mother to daughter across generations.
[39] Naturally, the foot binding was recognized as "national shame", and people found it as a serious problem to be disappeared, thus raging anti-footbinding campaigns in the 1890s to the 1900s.
[44] Women were elevated to equal status as men through a series of laws which prohibited practices such as arranged marriages, concubinages, dowries, and child betrothals.
[56] Since the 1980s, roughly 200,000 female infants would be killed per year because of the preference for male children and the advancement in technologies such as ultrasound, which help to find out the sex of the fetus.
[44] In addition to female infanticide, girls are being unregistered or are abandoned by their families, which stops them from receiving education and legal benefits the government offered.
[69] Other types of work women perform in the countryside include pig and poultry rearing, spinning, weaving, basket-making, and other handicrafts.
[71] China's economic policies laid the basis of the industrialization drive in export-oriented development, and its reliance on low-wage manufacturing to produce consumer goods for the world market.
[76] For example, the beauty economy, which is defined as "a marketplace in which young, attractive women are used to promote commercial products and services", includes the sales industry.
[77] A recent phenomenon, the migration of rural Chinese workers began in 1984 when the Regulations of Permanent Residence Registration became less punitive and allowed people to move to find employment.
[78] Young rural women are preferred for these jobs primarily because they are less likely to get pregnant, and are able and willing to withstand longer working hours, have "nimble fingers, and will be less experienced in asking for their statutory rights.
[86] Ideas perpetuated due to globalization simultaneously increased women's intentions to become independent; many migrant workers desire lives separate from those of their families'.
[59] This resulted in a growing population of migrant laborers without the minimal benefits of residency including medical care, housing, or education.
[78] One case of female worker exploitation in the Hua Yi garment factory in Beijing resulted in mistreatment by management as well as withholding pay for at least 24 women.
[72] Uneven power relations inside the factory result in demands from management for personal services from women workers, from hair washing to sex.
