Gender roles and family structure in China

Gender Roles and Family Structure in China

How has recent Chinese culture changed women and their families?

Information

• Developed in the Jiangyong county in southern China
• It began around 300 A.D
• It was a secret written language developed by women who were not allowed to be educated
• Men could not understand it
• It was passed down by women and was never to be shared with men

Nushu

The secret language of the Chinese women

Quotes

"Cultural diversity and social gender are closely related."

"Chinese women are playing more important roles, but at the same time they have to work harder than before."

• Women have more opportunities for education
• Countryside women are beginning to work in the cities
• Women who stay home have to take on more responsibilities because their husbands are working in the cities

Modern Women

In modern china, the general status of women is rising.

Work

• Centered on the home
• Tasks involved preparing food, cleaning, and looking after children
• women were expected to have many children, preferably sons
• Some poor women worked in the fields with their husbands

Education

• It was not considered important to educate girls
• Women were not allowed to take exams and therefore could not be in government services
• Most girls did not go to school
• Female scholars were very rare

Marriage

• The children's parents would consult an astrologer
• A woman's thoughts and opinions were not important; a father had the final word on his daughters marriage
• Arranged marriage was common but outlawed in 1949
• the wife would move in with her husbands family and often became the servant of her mother-in-law
• If families were very poor they would sell their daughters as servants
• If a wife did not have a son, many chinese men would re-marry

Family Life

• The wife moved in with her husbands family. The elder generations were respected greatly
• A woman would only become important if she outlived her husband and became the oldest in the household
• A woman should not have a life outside the home
• A woman's role was to look after her husband and family
• Confucious taught that a woman's greatest role was to have a son

Daily Life of Women in Ancient China

Many women living in ancient china led oppressed lives

Problems with communism

• Led to a de-emphasis of family
• Love and marriage is secondary to revolution
• Many educated women looked down on household duties and caring for children

Changes that communism caused

• communism establishes gender equality
• promotes free love and marriage

Communism and its influences

"Communism seemed to usher in a new society for China, and, in many ways, it actually did."

Why was this practiced?

• It was a luxury only the rich could practice. Poorer girls needed their feet so they could help work.
• It soon became a prerequisite for marriage
• Poor mothers bound their daughter's feet in hope that their daughters could "marry up" in society
• The first anti-foot binding society was formed in 1895

From a woman who had her feet bound...

"When I was seven my mother….washed and placed alum on my feet and cut my toenails. She then bent my toes toward the plantar with a binding cloth ten feet long and two inches wide doing the right foot first and then the left. She...ordered me to walk but when I did the pain proved unbearable, that night...my feet felt on fire and I couldn't sleep;mother struck me for crying. On the following days I tried to hide but was forced to walk on my feet...after several months all toes but the big one were pressed against the inner surface..,mother would remove the bindings and wipe the blood and puss which dripped from my feet. She told me that only with removal of the flesh could my feet become slender...every two weeks I changed to new shoes. Each new pair was one to two tenths of an inch smaller than the previous one....In summer my feet smelled offensively because of puss and blood;in winter my feet felt cold because of lack of circulation...four of the toes were curled in like so many dead caterpillars...it took two years to achieve the three inch model...my shanks were thin, my feet became humped, ugly and odoriferous. "

Background

• Began in the Sung dynasty (960-976 BC)
• Was designed to imitate an imperial concubine who was required to dance with her feet bound
• By the 12th century, the practice had become more severe, girls could not dance and had difficulty even walking.
• When a girl turned three, her toes were broken
• Her feet were then bound with strips if cloth to prevent the feet from growing longer than about 3.9 inches
• Foot binding ended in the 20th century, due to the influence of western culture

Foot Binding

This practice caused severe disability for millions of Chinese women.

Quotes

"Those who can bear the shortcomings and sufferings of men will get married, those not, single"

"If you want to stand a snowball's chance in hell of ever getting married in this country, don't demand too much from your man."

"'Leftover ladies' is really a bit of a misnomer--it's women's own standards that are changing so quickly."

The Numbers Behind it

• 90% of men think that women should be married before the age of 27 to avoid being "forever undesirable"
• 118 boys are born in China for every 100 girls
• By 2020, it is expected for 24 million men to be unmarried
• In the 2020's, it is estimated that 15 to 20 percent of Chinese men will not have access to brides.

Facts

• Any unmarried woman over the age of 25 or 27 is labeled in China as a "leftover"
• With far more men than women in China, this could prove to be a problem
• Women are getting more picky about who they want to marry, which is lessening the choices for men.

Leftover Ladies

Why can't outnumbered women find a match?

The Wedding Day

• The house is decorated with vibrant banners
• Red is used in the decorations because red symbolized happiness
• They put up poems and other arts and crafts
• After the wedding, there is a ceremony with tea

Dowry

• The woman's family prepares a list of the dowry
• One aim of the dowry is to help the new couple start their new life with ease

• The entire family takes full part in the wedding
• They chose things such as the wedding day during a formal meeting between the elders of the family

Ways around it

• Wealthier families can pay fines
• Some people choose to travel over seas and have a second child with a foreign passport
• Rural areas need more children to help work in the fields
• One can pay a broker to bribe officials for documentation for their extra children
• Though illegal one can get an ultra sound and abort the child if it is not the desired gender
• Some families wait until they have two children and then register them as twins

The Negative Effects

• There has been an increase in the number of abortions
• Some parents do not report the births of their children.
• Many citizens continue to have more than one child
• Parents who don't follow the policy can lose their jobs

Marriage

The Positive Effects

• Helps prevent social, economic, and environmental problems through out China
• 76% of the Chinese population supports the policy.
• Estimates say that hundreds of millions of births may have been prevented

The One Child Policy

"It officially restricts married, urban couples to having only one child, while allowing exemptions for several cases, including twins, rural couples, ethnic minorities. and parents without any siblings themselves."

Weddings are a prominent part of Chinese society.

China's One Child Policy

Men have always been preferred to women, because men took care of their parents while the women were married off and the parents would have to care for themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q89_yg9iquA

And now, a Video

We think this sums it all up.

Bibliography

Confucianism and its impacts on women

Quotes from the Early times

" A woman's duty is not to control or take charge."

"Woman's greatest duty is to produce a son."

"A husband can marry twice, but his wife must never remarry."

"Disorder is not sent down by Heaven, it is produced by women."

"Those who cannot be taught, cannot be instructed. These are women and eunuchs."

"There are three unfilial acts: the greatest of these is the failure to produce sons."

"Women are to be led and to follow others."

"A woman should look on her husband as if he were Heaven itself, and never weary of thinking how she may yield to him."

Early Times

• Women were to occupy a position lower than men, no matter their level
• Women being lesser than men was considered to be natural and proper.
• They were educated on self-discipline, etiquette, relationships with in-laws, household management, humility, and chastity.

Women's roles according to Confucius

• Women had to respond to the wishes and needs of their closely related men.
• Confucian teachings created a patriarchal society in which women had to obey their husbands and grown sons.
• Many women did not have names
• Concubinage meant that women were married to a man but were not his legal wives, and they were inferior to his legal wife in status and treatment, this was considered okay because it was a sin not to have male heirs to end the family line
• Women had no legal rights
• The most obedient women were illiterate

• http://asiasociety.org/countries/traditions/women-traditional-china
• http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/lesson3.html
• news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/31/content_645831.htm
• www.iun.edu/~hisdcl/g387/Women in China.htm
• http://www.sfmuseum.org/chin/foot.html
• http://www.angelfire.com/ca/beekeeper/foot.html
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
• articles.cnn.com/2012-07-18/asia/world_asia_china-one-china-policy_1_second-child-policy-change-zhang-jian
• www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-14_u-173_t-472_c-1711/act/history/ancient-societies-china/ancient-china-part-ii/daily-life-of-women-
• http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/china/women-in-chinese-culture/article/China/Chinese-Wedding-Culture/1779
• http://static.environmentalgraffiti.com/sites/default/files/images/3815048673cd91032c3dzjpg.img_assist_custom-600x372.jpg
• http://www.google.com/imgres?q=ancient+chinese+women&num=10&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1024&bih=571&tbm=isch&tbnid=_6ia8UgnYXFNDM:&imgrefurl=http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/15Traditions5187.html&docid=BWStqgChOdaQuM&imgurl=http://traditions.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/upload/upfiles/2009-06/24/ancient_chinese_women_a_tinge_of_vermeil_to_please_the_sweethearteadc5dc76511e7df5562.jpg&w=470&h=352&ei=DO1uUPyPOKa-0AH_xoDYCA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=109&sig=116895042688786305208&page=1&tbnh=164&tbnw=221&start=0&ndsp=8&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:123&tx=130&ty=90
• http://traditions.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/upload/upfiles/2010-08/09/subtopics_of_chinese_marriage_traditions022dc09d76f5ea5b17db.jpg
• http://history.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/upload/upfiles/2010-06/07/flashes_from_the_past_four_beauties_in_chinese_history93dcb9c37181e2b78a17.jpg
• http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/img/ss_q06_02_chinese_family.jpg
• http://www.lisasee.com/images/nushu-example.jpg
• http://english.cri.cn/mmsource/images/2011/03/14/office.jpg
• http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01492/china-art2_1492832c.jpg
• http://www.tuvy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/asian-baby-laughing.jpg

Since early times, men have been seen as the head of the family. Ancestors were linked exclusively through men. Women were only in the records if they caused trouble. Their loyalty was often questioned.