During the year, state run media paid increasing attention to unbalanced birth ratios, and the societal problems, such as trafficking in women, which it is causing. In the cities the traditional preference for sons is changing. There reportedly have been instances in which pregnant prisoners in reeducation-through-labor camps were forced to submit to abortions. The Maternal and Child Health Care Law requires premarital and prenatal examinations to determine whether couples have acute infectious diseases or certain mental illnesses (not including mental retardation), or are at risk for passing on debilitating genetic diseases. The Ministry of Health implements the law, which mandates abortion or sterilization in some cases, based on medical advice. The law also provides obtaining a second opinion and states that patients or their guardians must give written consent to such procedures. At least five provincial governments have implemented local regulations seeking to prevent persons with severe mental disabilities from having children. In August the Government issued an “explanation” to provincial governments clarifying that no sterilization of persons with genetic conditions could be performed without their signed consent.
Internal peace in China has also contributed to the individuals living longer. Since Communism rests on the doling out of commodities and benefits based on the number in a household, the structure of the government itself encouraged population growth. The rural resurgence produced the natural effect of having more children to help with the work and produce more. Lack of space in urban area’s induced pressure on couples not to have more children. A satisfying compromise was never reached between the two mitigating factors of urban and rural family needs. Thus, an ineffective initiative was implemented. Due to the ineffectiveness of the law, compliance became a problem, especially in the rural areas. Women were looked to for the solution to the problem.
Forced sterilization and abortions were becoming commonplace in the regions where pressure was put on the officials to take action. Threats of violence and the loss of assets of a family were guerilla tactics used on the offenders of non-compliance. The self-esteem of Chinese women and girls was all but crushed with being looked at as worthless, since boys were highly valued in single family homes. Girls were to be for the use of others. In attempts to save money, girls were kept away from school and provided cheap domestic labor instead. It is obvious to see the cultural battle that women in China have before them. The demands of rural agricultural labor undermine the one-child law and create conflict on many levels in both rural and urban China.
While it is easy to belabor the oppression of women in China, one must look to the monumental strides that a Communist nation was able to take in the last 50 years. An unparalleled determination rested in the Communists goal for answering the “woman question”. The strides that were taken economically have contributed to the betterment of many Chinese women. Communist China intentions were to provide women with economic equalization, which shook the foundation of Chinese society. The male-dominated household was being challenged to recognize the legitimate other half. Remembering that girls were considered “useless”, brings to light the true strides that have advanced Chinese society in the form of legal recognition. The intra-familial relations have not evolved along the lines of recognition of the individuality and authenticity of women.
For example, the barbaric practice of foot binding, which rendered a woman powerless to be an economic contributor. And even beyond that, the twist in idealizing something so demeaning to women demonstrated that China was not ready to release their cultural bonds on women. Arranged marriages offered nothing for women in as far as emotional release. The more estranged a husband and wife where, the more beneficial for the husbands mother. Wealthy husbands were allowed concubines while the poor men merely had affairs. This is not meant to imply that the state and the household are monolithic agents in an over determined system of patriarchy. Although male-domination persists, socialist ideology raised the consciousness of women to the existence of their subordinate social valuation. Women did not receive as many work points as men for comparable labor in the agricultural commune. Women were encouraged to contribute more to farm work so that men could pursue more important forms of production.
Women were recruited for political activities but then expected to fulfill their domestic responsibilities and serve the patriarchal interests of the state. In each case there were women who attempted to challenge the privileged status of men. But then there were also women enlisted by the party-state to reorient the terms of equality under socialism. In an ironic recognition of the inter-subjective synergy between the patriarchal state and household, Zhongguo Fun? (Women of China) wrote the following in response to the resistance of rural women cadres to housework: Family and state are interdependent and interrelated. For this reason, in China, homework and social labor are mutually geared together, and homework is just a part of social labor, which plays an important part in socialist construction. If a woman can integrate what little she can do into the great cause of socialist construction and if she has the ideal of working for the happiness of future generations, she would be a noble person, a woman of benefit to the masses, a woman of communist morality (Anders,46).
Women in China must still adhere to the traditional roles set about by their culture. The Communist Revolution provided the examination of the roles of women in China and implemented important steps toward the recognition of their legitimacy. Rightly so, Chinese feminists are not satisfied with their place in society and campaign for a new and better understanding of the value of women in society
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