FERTILITY CONTROL AND THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN CHINA
                              by

          MARTHA E. GIMENEZ AND ELIZABETH MOEN MATHIOT          
                   Department of Sociology
               University of Colorado at Boulder
                   Boulder, Colorado 80309
                             1978

[In case the paragraph indentations get lost in the translation into ASCII, they will be signified by the first two words being in all caps. Underlines will also be replaced by all caps.]

IN APRIL, 1978, we toured the People's Republic of China in the company of other U.S. demographers and sociologists. We visited factories, communes, hospitals, and schools where we learned a great deal through briefings, question sessions, and interviews. Equally valuable sources of information were our long walks in Shanghai and Peking, exploring shops, neighborhoods, big and little streets, and following the rhythm of the crowds in an attempt to get as close as possible to Chinese urban everyday life. Since days off from work are staggered throughout the week, we had ample opportunity to observe the Chinese in domestic and recreational activities as well as work.

WITHOUT AN interpreter, our encounters with the Chinese were limited to looking, smiling, shaking hands, sign language, and the few words of Chinese and English which we shared. But when one member of our group who grew up in Peking and speaks Chinese was with us we were able to have conversations and short interviews. Perhaps the most amazing feature of these walks, especially in Shanghai, was the friendly curiosity of the people who would often gather around us whenever we stopped to take a photograph, to look at a shop window, or to examine something of interest to us. Every time we stopped we found ourselves quickly surrounded by a crowd of smiling faces, everyone keeping close to each other without jostling, close to us without touching us, everyone as interested in us as we were interested in them, and we would spend a few minutes in silent conversation, attempting with smiles and exchange of greetings to bridge the language barrier and reach out to each other. In many other countries in the world we would have reacted with fear to such behavior, but the gentle and polite curiosity of the Chinese people made us feel at ease and welcome.

WE WERE especially struck by the women and children. The children seemed healthy, happy, physically fit, graceful, calm, self-disciplined, talented, and loved. The women seemed selfconfident, assertive, independent, strong, and attractive, albeit unadorned. China's official policies and emerging ideologies value women as citizens, workers, and mothers, not as sex objects. The demeanor of the women we encountered suggests that such definitions of women's social significance might have already acquired a reality in the lives and self-perceptions of Chinese women today.

THE WOMEN and children are quite a contrast to before the revolution when children often suffered from malnutrition and girl children were often sold or put to work in brothels. And if poor girls survived childhood they could look forward to little more than a slave-like existence of hard work, hunger, illiteracy, and continuous childbearing made even more painful by high infant death rates. Even the well-to-do women, though materially better off, had few rights (except to brutalize their daughters-in-law) and little identity except as the property of their husbands or fathers. We cannot but add that the women and children today are also an extraordinary contrast to what is generally the case in most developing nations where prostitution and domestic labor are the main alternatives open to most poor women, where poor children barely eke out a meager livelihood in the interstices of the urban subsistence economy, and where begging is the last refuge of those left behind by the capitalist strategies of "modernization" and industrialization. To those of us who have seen little children scramble in the dust for a few coins tossed by tourists, and for those of us who have seen entire families begging in the streets of some of the most "sophisticated" capitals of the world, the dignity, the health, and the obvious well-being of China's people bring joy and hope for the possibility of a better future for the world.

THE NEW Chinese children and women (and there cannot be either without new Chinese men) were made possible by the deep structural changes brought about by the revolution. In this essay we will explore two of those changes, China's policies for fewer and better children, the status of women in China and the relationship between the two. As the status of women in itself is a broad topic, we will limit our attention to those aspects most directly related to marriage and childbearing, i.e., the relationship between the sexes, and the working conditions of employed mothers.

The Relationship Between Men and Women in China

PERHAPS THE single greatest influence on the improved position and condition of women in China was the Marriage Law adopted in 1950, one year after the establishment of the People's Republic of china, and reflected in the 1978 Constitution. The 27 articles of the law made impossible the continuance of the patriarchal form of family organization, and the Confucian ideology regarding women and the family. Some reforms had been initiated before 1949 at the insistence of Socialists within China and Western governments wishing to prevent a revolution, but implementation was limited and unenthusiastic.1 The major provisions of the Marriage Law, which have been thoroughly discussed elsewhere,2 outlaw bigamy, concubinage, child betrothal, bride price and dowry; conceptualize husband and wife as partners with equal status in the home who have free choice in employment and other forms of social participation; allows wives to petition for divorce, and forbid husbands to do so if a wife is pregnant or if they have child under one; allow women to own and manage property and to have custody of children; and allow a wife to keep her name and children to use the family name of either parent.3

THUS ON paper women do have equal status with men in the domestic domain (and the Constitution has extended equality to all other domains). The question is, how well is the law working in practice? Arranged marriages do seem to be a thing of the past, although it is common for couples to have been introduced by relatives. A divorce initiated by the wife or husband is also possible although not as simple a matter as in the early 1950s when the rush of unhappy wives to the divorce courts caused the Marriage Law to be nick-named the "Divorce Law." Today, according to judges from Shanghai Municipal Court, divorce requests are less frequent because of the improved domestic position of women and the divorce proceedings are more complicated, requiring negotiation and arbitration between the couple and their neighborhood and work organizations. It is believed that the offending partner should be given the opportunity for self-criticism and education which should lead to correct thoughts and behavior. But if problems are not resolved the divorce will be granted so both husband and wife are better able to "contribute to production and the revolution."

BESIDE FREEDOM in marriage and divorce, the law, as well as political writings, imply a sharing of domestic tasks and management as well as a shift in the relationship between women and men from one based primarily on sexuality and reproduction to one based on respect and caring.4 The Chinese say both of these goals are being achieved and from our observations of the public behavior of people and the public image of women (i.e., how they are represented in the media, arts, entertainment, etc.) in China it seems to be so.

OTHER VISITORS to China have commented on the good relationship between children and adults.5 We were also struck by the absence, in public, of overt conflict between adults and children. The familiar scenes of crying children and disciplining adults so common in our public milieu was conspicuously absent in China. Instead, children, parents and grandparents all seem to enjoy being out together. The same was true for the population in general; we didn't see anger or irritation. People were relaxed, happy and gentle with one another. Even in the most crowded streets and stores they did not jostle, bump or push. The relationship between men and women is also one of respect, courtesy, and camaraderie.

SINCE YOUNG people are encouraged to marry late and devote their energy to study and work, dating and romance are not top priorities for teenagers and young adults, who tend to socialize in same-sex groups rather than couples. This does not mean that love and sex are outside the scope of young people's concerns and experiences. It simply means, in our understanding of Chinese culture and priorities, that love and sex might not have the same central role which they play in Western culture. The widely discussed split between the private and the public spheres of life characteristic of advanced capitalist societies which reflects the exploitation and alienation of labor leaves only the realm of "personal life," i.e., love and sex, as the main or only source of meaning for people's lives.6 In China, social processes appear to have reversed that trend and their latent consequence seems to be a push towards restoring the unity of people's lives by infusing all dimensions of human existence with overtly public, social significance. People in China, young and old, seem to feel part of a larger social whole in whose process of development they play an active role. In that context, the obsession with love and sex that is so pervasive in advanced capitalist culture becomes an objective and subjective obstacle to the process of development. The fact that in China today, people in their middle to late twenties who do not date and remain still unmarried are not considered social failures indicates that a new basis for social and self-esteem must have emerged in the process of socialist construction. Once the pressures to fulfill sexual and parental roles as early as possible if lifted, people are free to develop their potentialities more fully and with greater dedication. Having the time to develop as individuals in their own right and to participate actively in the building of a new society must have surely contributed to the independence and self-confidence we observed in women. Rather than worrying about their apparent lack of sexual interest and involvement as many in our group did, we wondered, instead, about the effect that the early experience of independence and active social involvement may have upon the ability of women and men to develop sound and strong sexual and loving bonds.

THE PUBLIC appearance and the public image of women confirm what seems to be a major change in the way men and women interact with one another. In the United States it is not uncommon to hear derogatory remarks about Chinese women's simple, uni-sex (read un-sexy) clothes, lack of make-up and jewelry, and plain hair styles. What could be more liberating than freedom from concern about looks? Chinese women are healthy and attractive. Their public image is not "sexy" and they are not treated as sex objects in the course of public social interaction or depicted as such by the media and cultural events. The emergent cultural definitions of male and female success are based upon the attainment of social and political collective goals rather than performance in the marriage and sexual markets. Although all young people do expect and are expected to marry and form families, parents are no longer eager to marry daughters off at a young age, and attracting men or marrying up does not seem to be a major source of self- or public esteem.

WE DO not know what occurs in the bedrooms of China, but in public there is a complete absence of sexploitation and violence (which seem to go together). The public image of women corresponds to their public appearance. Farah Fawcett-Majors does not have a Chinese counterpart. There are not sex/violence movies or "girlie" magazines; about the sexiest movie poster we saw was one for "Woman Transportation Worker." In China there are no ads showing bosomy women draped over tractors, in fact there are no ads (which does not mean there is no variety or choice in consumer goods). The closest thing to advertising is the ubiquitous political poster which shows women as citizens-- industrial workers, farmers, members of the army, teachers, parents--not playthings. What contrast to Hong Kong and Tokyo, or the United States.

IN CHINA our night time entertainment included acrobatics, an opera, a martial arts competition and a performance by a folk song and dance troupe. In tokyo the Greyline night tours feature Geisha House, topless clubs and show bars. (Perhaps the female tourists are expected to behave like Japanese women and stay in at night.) A book in our Hong Kong hotel room described the night life. There are topless places: "Up until the mid-1970's no one would have believed Chinese girls could be induced to be topless barmaids, but Hong Kong did join the rest of the world in this respect." There are girlie bars: "...you are naturally expected to buy drinks for the bar-girls who have amazing capacities," (note the double meaning), and "If you wish to take the girl out of the bar, the ransom charge ranges around HK$50/100." Or if you want to begin the evening with a woman or just stay in your room with one, there are 'escort services': "The easiest way to find a charming partner at a fair charge is to choose one of any nationality" from the eight-page picture catalog in the book.7 In the section on shopping in Hong Kong the book describes the Cheongsam, the traditional Chinese dress (no longer worn in China) that is "...world (in)famous and needs no description other than a long low whistle." Regarding the side slit, some "...as all men notice on a windy day, have that slit stop at just below the hip, hence cometh the saying: "It's an ill wind that shows no good thighs."8

MOST CHINESE women in Hong Kong do not wear Cheongsams, but the many in make-up, elaborate hairstyles, tight clothes and spike heels bear little resemblance to their sisters in China. We do not know if they are trying to be modern, Western, or sexy but their public appearance also corresponds with their public image, a sex object and plaything rather than a citizen who fully participates in all spheres of society.

ANOTHER INDICATOR of the status of women in China is the way we were treated there. We, as well as the men in our party, constantly found ourselves stared at and even surrounded by people. But we never felt we were being leered at or appraised, and we were never touched, pawed or grabbed as we have been in other countries. We felt a new freedom in being able to stare at, smile at and say hello to Chinese men, knowing our actions would not be interpreted as anything more than the curiosity and friendliness they felt toward us.

PERHAPS THE most liberating thing for us as it must be for Chinese women, was experiencing freedom from fear. There is crime in China, but not enough to cause concern. Hotel rooms are not locked unless the staff thinks some of the guests might be troublesome. The police are unarmed and are mainly seen directing traffic. The army is quite evident, but only during the day, and it is hard to tell if they are on or off duty.

IMAGINE HOW exhilarating it is in China, especially for a woman, to be unafraid--to be able to sleep in an unlocked hotel room, to be able to walk in any area of a major city even at night, when the streets are barely lit, and not to feel "...the terror that every woman carries within her body."9

IN CONTRAST, a sign in our Tokyo hotel room had so many warnings and safety precautions that we were afraid to stay in or go out. While in Hong Kong we were indirectly warned of hazards with the promise that the "...very efficient Hong Kong Police...will ensure your safety."10

IT WAS only six years ago that the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars was almost always told whenever they asked who did the housework and child care, "The wife, of course."11 Today the answer is "Both of them, of course." We do not know how much indoor housework is being done by men, but since housing is crowded and there is a strong feeling of neighborliness, a great deal of domestic activity occurs outdoors. Young children were rarely seen without the company of an adult and this task was shared fairly equally by parents and grandparents of both sexes. Hanging of laundry, sweeping around the home, and most kinds of shopping also seemed to be shared fairly equally by men and women. The only place where women were highly overrepresented (about 70%) was at the early morning outdoor food market.

BUT IT is likely that women still perform more than their share of domestic tasks, since we saw only groups of men playing cards or chess, while women were more likely to be knitting, sewing, or preparing food, and more men than women were in the parks, in movie lines, or at the night time entertainments we attended. Women did participate equally in morning outdoor exercises.

SINCE WE had only short visits to communes we could not observe if these men and women shared domestic tasks. We were told that, as in most countries, change occurs first in the cities, so it is likely that rural women still do carry the largest share of the household workload.

WE MUST conclude that on paper and in practice the public and domestic relationships between men and women in China have changed so as to enormously improve the status and condition of women. There may not be full equality but in less than thirty years Chinese women and men have come closer to it than in any other country. To more fully understand why this is so, it is necessary to examine the nature and consequences of China's population policies, a topic which we will explore in the following section.

CHINA'S PLANNED BIRTH POLICIES

POPULATION POLICIES, in China as well as in any other country--capitalist or socialist--are extremely important because of their implications for the relations between the sexes and the status of women. Because of the unique characteristics of China's approach to socialist development, its population policies and their implementation are of great interest although (perhaps of) doubtful applicability in other countries. In China, as well as in any other country aiming to humanely control the growth of its population, effective policies must go beyond either making contraception available through the voluntaristic family planning approach, or engaging in coercive and/or manipulative measures to sterilize the population and increase the use of contraception. Effective and humane policies would have to include not only a redefinition of men's and women's roles at the ideological level but also the implementation of radical structural changes making possible the actual practice of those new self-concepts. China has adopted the latter road and her population policies are inextricably linked to the overall changes in the social structure fostered by the leadership and the masses. The leadership's commitment to lower population growth is startlingly expressed in the fact that such matters have become included in the constitution. According to Article 53 of the New Constitution of the People's Republic of China adopted on March 5, 1978, "The state advocates and encourages family planning."12 Essentially, the policy advocates late marriage, child spacing, fewer children, and better children. As the status of women in China has been traditionally attached to marriage and childbearing, deep changes in the social structure would have to occur to induce them to marry late and to bear fewer children in longer intervals of time. How are young people induced to postpone marriage? How are married couples induced to have fewer, well-spaced children? What follows are tentative answer based on what we learned during our visit.

FIRST OF all, late marriage can be considered as an unanticipated consequence of social and economic processes now taking place in China as well as the effect of material constraints upon people's options. Among the latter, the relative scarcity of housing might be an important factor. The effort to industrialize the country requires the allocation of capital to production; although housing is an important priority, it has been affected by the current industrialization drive. Among the former, perhaps the most important might be the patterns of sociability and socio-economic and political participation evolved because of deliberate efforts to combine intellectual and manual labor and to close the rural-urban gap. During the Cultural Revolution, young people routinely spent time away from their families working in factories and communes while engaging in studies and political activities. Although this process has been attenuated by the present leadership as a reaction to what they claim were the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, the pattern established during the last 10 years remains, and young men and women seem to spend a great deal of time in activities that, while integrating them into political and work settings, do not encourage sociability except in collective forms. For example, in a conversation with a young male student from the Shanghai's Teacher's University, we learned that students spend at least one day a week doing physical labor, and every year several weeks in a commune, several weeks in a factory and two weeks with the People's Liberation Army. When we asked about students' social activities, we were told that they generally spend their holidays and weekends with their parents and once in a while, they invite a friend of either sex to visit them there.

THE ISSUE of collective forms of sociability raises a variety of questions which we cannot answer in a definite way, for we do not know the extent to which they may reflect already existing cultural patterns, new forms of relations developed after 1949 and especially after the Cultural Revolution, or deliberate policies designed to keep young people busy in collective undertakings. When asked specifically about courtship, young people (in their early and middle twenties) consistently told us that they were too young for such things. Women, even in their late twenties, seemed embarrassed, and blushed when we discussed dating and courtship in general.

WHILE HOUSING scarcity, patterns of sociability, and organizational changes brought about by the aim of combining physical and intellectual labor and bridging the gap between town and country may indeed lead to late marriage as an unintended consequence, there is a clear-cut policy to urge young people to postpone marriage as long as possible. The minimum legal age at marriage is 18 for women and 20 for men, but both sexes are encouraged to wait about 10 years longer. Once people marry, they are expected to carry on the tradition of having a child right away, but they are advised to wait at least four years for the second child. While the family size considered adequate at the present time includes only two children, we saw a new poster for family planning stating that "One is not too few," which leads us to believe there might soon be a campaign supporting the one-child family.

THE CONTENT of birth planning policies vary depending on the marital status of the recipients. Different rationales are advanced to justify late marriage, family planning and smaller families. A general and recent policy statement of Chairman Hua Kuo-feng included in his report on the work of the government delivered at the 5th National People's Congress states:

     FAMILY PLANNING is a very significant matter.  Planned
     control of population growth is conducive to the planned
     development of the national economy and to the health of
     mother and child.  It also benefits the people where
     production, work and study are concerned.  We must continue
     to give it serious attention and strive to lower the annual
     rate of growth of China's population to less than one
     percent within three years.13