True, Tredding Water or Retrograde?

Reading this post below reminded me that being a working mother is quite possibly one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Being in China for ten years has opened my eyes to the pace at which a policy of 'gender equality' can be turned back in the collective consciousness. Remember when Mao said that women hold up half the world? That was his justification for putting women to work in plain blue suits, just like men. Women were expected to enter the fields and the factories and, in turn, were recognized as (rhetorically) equal partners in the building of a new Socialist China.

When I came to China in the late 1990s, I started to hear something different. Young college girls were talking about getting married and staying at home. The rise of the post-1979 one-child generation and the 'Little Emperor' mentality that came with it made women feel like being a stay-at-home mom was the easiest, best path to being a good woman. I found young women who felt both empowered and slightly guilty that they were adamant on finding a job and living independently after graduation. Most of those women are married now, balancing a career with the pressure to have that one kid already!

I am not prepared to give a full commentary on the state of gender equality and advancement in China, but I do know that the Communist/Socialist ideal of gender equality has been slowly eroding and traditional gender roles are entrenched in the hearts and hands of the majority of Chinese women. Perhaps as labor costs rise, factories leave China and equal rights remain elusive and un-litigated, women in China will be facing an increasingly uphill battle to build a career, compete against traditional patriarchal values AND struggle to nurture their small families.

Working women hurt their families

by Ingrid Robeyns on August 8, 2008

A study conducted by sociologists from Cambridge University seems to suggest that the support for working mothers is weakening. The researchers compared survey results from the 1980s till recently, and found “growing sympathy for the old-fashioned view that a woman’s place is in the home, rather than in the office”, caused by “mounting concern that women who play a full and equal role in the workforce do so at the expense of family life.”