“Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is time that we all perceive gender on the spectrum, not as two opposing sets of ideals,” said Emma Watson, on her speech at the UN Women’s HeForShe campaign for gender equality. Gender equality is an everlasting topic, concern by people all around the world, who have been fought long time for achieving this equality. China, as a large country with over 10,000 years long history, experiences a very long-time sexual imparity. Now everyone is making effort to achieve the equality from every aspect.
Talking about women’s rights, we can trace back them to the very beginning of civilized society in China, approximately 7,000 years ago—Matrilineal society. Yes, in fact, female used to be the dominant gender. At that time, women collected fruit and vegetables and men hunted. Women’s work was much more stable than men’s. They provided reliable food source so that they had higher status. Children adopted their mothers’ family name and a woman could have many husbands. Things changed when agriculture and animal husbandry developed rapidly. Men showed their physical advantages when dealing with more labor-consuming activities. Then they gradually replaced women’s status. Thus the patriarchal system in China is brought in. China starts its several thousand years long society of female inferiority.
The first developing aspect is that women’s education is totally different between today and in history. The idea that a woman without talent is virtuous was popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasty, which made girls almost have no chance and no right to get the formal education. At that time, boys started go to school at age of 8. They studied reading, learned manners, and attended the Imperial Examination to become a government official. While girls could not learn reading and writing, they were forced to stay at home to learn women’s modesty, ways to serve guests, and how to become a good wife. For example, the needlework was the required course for female. Under this kind of inequality in education, some much-told stories are created. The heroine of the Butterfly Lovers, which is a famous China ancient legend, is a woman who disguises herself as a man so that she can go to school.
This situation that girls couldn’t go to school continues for a very long time. Things changed when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement breaks out to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. People started to introduce in the Western education system, which allowed both girls and boys to study in school. China thus took the first step toward gender educational equality. However, while the idea that everyone can go to school was being accepted by more and more people in the late 20th century, in some rural areas in China, people still don’t place hope on girls to successfully complete their studies. More times, people let girls drop out and do household chores. According to the article, “Gender Inequality in Rural Education and Poverty,” written by Dong, H., K., Li, Q., X., Yang, and Zhang, gender inequality still exists today in rural education. They surveyed several families in different village of different provinces and found that the number of boys enrolled in school exceeds that of girls in general. Basically, today China almost achieves the gender equality in education, but still has lots to do.
The second aspect of development in women’s rights is about women’s work. In ancient China, it’s normal that “the man goes out to work while the woman looks after the house.” In the palace, men served as officials, got high positions and handsome salaries. In official circles, there are no space for women. How about the emperor? China had 408 emperors in historical record—however, with only one female emperor called Zhao Wu. Actually, there were women working in the palace with positions called “Shangshi”, “Shangqin”, “Shangfu” and so on. Directly transferring to English, those positions are called, “Service for food”, “Service for sheets” and “Service for clothing.” After all, ancient women either serve in house for family or serve in palace for officials. If none of the above, in ancient China, there were also lots of women who work in brothels. All those jobs women did reveal the inferiority of women at that time. Nowadays, though much more equal than before, there are still unequal treatments . As mentioned in the article, “Women's Employment Rights in China: Creating Harmony for Women in the Workforce”, wrote by BURNETT, J., “In 2000, men held four times as many high-ranking positions as women in businesses, the government, or social institutions. In 2002, women held twice as many jobs as men that paid under 500 RMB a month; men held one and a half times as many jobs as women that paid 2,000 RMB or more a month.” China is still making the effort to make sexism about occupations go away. We can see more and more female elites in the workplace now.
Last but not least, women’s status in their families is also a issue that should not be ignored. According to the law of the Tang Dynasty, daughters didn’t have the right to inherit fortune. Sons inherited it or the owner chose a male in the same lineage to possess the fortune. If there are no male left in the family, the women could keep the fortune but could not sell it. There were also too many restrictions in ancient China for women. After marry, women were encouraged to not go out side. Easily showing face in public was considered frivolous. In the Qing Dynasty, the chastity memorial arch first appears. People attached great attention on women’s chastity. If a woman was raped, she would be drowned to death. If a woman’s husband died, she could not marry someone else. In more ridiculous situations, the women would be considered a symbol of unluckiness and be expelled from that location. In late 20th, there were still sex discrimination among families, especially in rural areas. Sometimes when a baby girl is born, the elders would choke the infant to death and throw the body in the river. Unlike the past, today, most of the people don’t care much about the sex of their babies. Also, in the article, “Becoming Equal”, it says some legislation is passed to protect women’s rights in a marriage that “Beginning November 1, an updated local regulation will explicitly guarantee victims’ rights to report domestic violence in Beijing, according to the city’s legislature in September. It is women who are predominantly the victims of such crimes and whom the new rules are designed to help. The regulation is being hailed as one of the country’s latest steps forward in protecting women’s rights. The new rules are Beijing’ s implementation of the national Law on the Protection of Women’ s Rights and Interests.”