Gender Inequality in China...
"Women have not recieved their fair share and this has hurt business and society not to mention women themselves"
-Julia Broussard,
Country Program Manager of UN Women's China Office
Gender inequality has deep roots in China. In Ancient China, a woman's role in society was to serve her husband. They did not hold steady income jobs and had very few rights. A girl's entire life would be focused on marrying a good husband. Only women part of noble families had any rights. These beliefs that women were lesser than men lasted far too long. In 1965, Mao Zedong's famous Cultural Revolution began. By the end of it in 1968, the role of women had changed to be one similar to men's. However the issue was still not solved.
In 1979, Deng Xiaoping created the "One Child Policy" in order to limit the overwhelming population growth of China. Since at that time, men were the ones providing for the family and the old Chinese traditions, sons were preferred to daughters because parents wanted to have children that could care for them when they were old. They did not believe women could do this. Because families could only have one child, parents began to give up, abandon or, in extreme cases, kill their infant daughters. Today, the orphanages of China are filled with unwanted baby girls.
In 1979, Deng Xiaoping created the "One Child Policy" in order to limit the overwhelming population growth of China. Since at that time, men were the ones providing for the family and the old Chinese traditions, sons were preferred to daughters because parents wanted to have children that could care for them when they were old. They did not believe women could do this. Because families could only have one child, parents began to give up, abandon or, in extreme cases, kill their infant daughters. Today, the orphanages of China are filled with unwanted baby girls.
Many of these abandoned girls are adopted by American families that take them from their native country, leaving the boy to girl ratio far out of balance. This population gap is clearly evident almost everywhere, especially schools and in the country. It is predicted that by 2020, there will be 30 million more men than women that reach adulthood. Accompanying this growing split is an increase in violence, crime, and agressiveness. Some speculate this is because of so much competition in the male population to get a mate. Lena Edlund says that for every one percent increase in the male population will lead to a six percent rise in the rates of crime. This leads many to believe that China will soon become roots of strife and terrorism.
Mao once said "Women hold up half the sky." Around the time he was in power, 90% of working age women were employed. However, despite the government enforcing that women be treated equally in the workplace, the unfair views still held. When an attempt was made to restructure China's economy was made in 1990, millions of workers were fired. Most of the workers were women. Recently, the percent of work-ready women currently employed has dipped dramatically. In 2010, only 60.8% of these women had jobs.
Also in the 1990's media encouraged women to quit their jobs so as to give men a better opportunity to beat the growing unemployment rate and get a job. This led to the reviving of many old Chinese beliefs that said that women's only role was to marry and were not able to do anything else. Even today, the media is telling women that they shouldn't pursue an education. They should just drop out of college and find a suitable husband before they are too old. These ideas are not only tremendously unfair, they are robbing China of great workers, thinkers, and innovators and corrupting the people's view of the world.