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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
FACTORS THAT SHAPED WOMEN’S POLITICAL POSITION IN CHINA
This chapter looks at the factors that shape women’s political status of women in China. I will analyze how women’s low political access to top level politics is positioned within the socio-cultural, economic and political discourse from scholars who work on Chinese politics. In other words, I will examine the literature about factors responsible for women’s political underrepresentation in top political institutions especially the PB, PBSC, CPPCC and the NPC, among others.
Of particular interests are the works of Zeng (2014); Attané (2012); Zheng, Yongnian and Zhao (2009); Howell (2006, 2003, 2002); Hershatter (2007); Edwards (2007); Ma (2009); Lin (2003) and Rosen (1995). The selected works are from diverse scholarly backgrounds covering history, anthropology, sociology, politics and feminism, among others. With the founding of the PRC, sixty five years ago, the ambition of emancipating women from a position of political irrelevance was an important item on the national agenda of the communist leaders. However, Attané (2012), Hershatter (2007), Edwards (2007), Howell (2006) and Su (2006) claim that women’s empowerment especially in political terms, was more of a party propaganda and gender-based difference existed almost throughout the communist regime except during the radical anti-identity period of the Cultural Revolution.
In fact, Hershatter accuses the Communist Party of using women’s position as an appeal to win the public’s confidence. People were made to believe that the best strategy of modernizing the nation was through women’s liberation. This, she says was an essential way of justifying the 16
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party’s demand for power. She has this to say: “the Communist Party, in particular, drew much of its power from its promise to rescue the nation from feudalism, imperialism, Japanese invasion and Guomindang oppression. [However] it subordinated the fate of women to that of the nation, and whenever raising the status of the nation, or its prospects for revolutionary transformation, gender equality was deferred” (Hershatter 2007, 80).
Even though a large pool of literature has surfaced since China’s beginning of liberal economic reform but concentration on the political impact on women has been minimal says Howell (2006), although this is now changing. Anyway, the gender dimension in scholarly works has either taken a provincial-based research or only focused on selected villages like the works of Wang and Dai (2010); Su (2006) and Howell (2006). It is noticed that much focus has not been devoted to extensive studies on the most important political institutions of the Party-State, except in few cases such as Zeng 2014; Edwards 2007, Yu and Liu 2010 and Guo and Zhao 201012 and how this situation affects the lives of the millions of women within such a system. It is also noted that studies on the elite political institutions are not extensive by scope and the most detailed study was done by Rosen almost twenty years ago. Hershatter’s 2007 work is not entirely devoted on elite level politics but she touches on the subject by devoting a whole section (88-93) that analyzes the relation between the CCP and women, but again, she too did not dwell on women’s access to top political institutions as much as needed.
Support for a grassroots political activeness is indeed relevant as it fosters equality in the democratic process right from the ward or village. Secondly, it also challenges the stereotypes that have isolated women from the governance of their own communities. Finally, women can
12 I categorized works based on contents that have touched high ranking political institutions even in a minimal context within a section or an entire section devoted to it.
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have greater proximity to their political representatives and this provides an opportunity of articulation of their needs more directly and practically. It is needless to argue over the importance of these points but it is reasoned in this paper that there could be greater impact when women are able to take up more opportunities at the highest level of politics and not stationed to village cadres for their entire lives.
While I argue that high level political participation of women has a potential of breaking away from the norm of placing them in proximal grassroots politics that do not directly challenge masculine domination at top national institutions, Zeng (2014, 136) maintains that “… a broader participation in politics from grassroots female population is more important and fundamental”.
To an extent, Zeng’s argument is relevant especially in a large population like China with a vast land scape of different levels of development needs and investment modalities. Perhaps she believes that micro-level participation of women carries more pragmatic response to their needs and justly represents their interests as discussed above.
In addition, she also argues that the ratio of women active in politics might only be reflective of their statuses and not representative. I quite disagree with this interpretation because political participation and accessing governance institutions freely without socially constructed barriers is first of all a fundamental right of the members of a society and this additionally shows how fair that society stands out. For the second reason, I partly agree that inasmuch as women’s representation is encouraged, it does not always result to immediate results yet this will not stop the demands for equality in the determination of the society one belongs to.
Additionally, it is apparent that women’s power base in rural China will unlikely create tremendous effects on the elites in Beijing. Further, it also mostly extends women’s domestic
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responsibilities into the public realm where they hardly compete with men over more prestigious responsibilities or positions. In those village committees, women’s likelihood of serving as assistants or subordinate officers is more apparent than their greater and assertive control of real power in the face of more evident traditional limitations. In a similar vein, Hearshatter argues that village committee membership grants women to execute assigned familial roles of health improvement, child welfare and sanitation among others into the public arena. O’Brien claims that, village elections have shattered the political ambitions of women and those that manage to serve in committees are mostly assigned “the thankless job of enforcing family planning”
(O’brien 2006, as cited in Edwards 2007, 382). Su (2006) shares a similar position as she argues that high level politics allow women to directly engage in the formulation of laws and policies that have bearings on their lives while they are able to exert “accountability” from the executive in their positions as parliamentarians for instance.
In other discussions, Jude Howell (2006, 2002) says that women at village level politics do not carry with them overwhelming power that could cause dramatic changes of state policies to their advantage, talk-less of their declining opportunities to serve in those committees since the introduction of competitive village elections at the end of the 80s. In fact, in as much they intend to challenge certain policies that undermine women’s liberty and integrity, there is little opportunity of doing what is not assigned by the state or its agencies to some degree but worst with policies that might be perceived politically conflicting to the party’s interest. This situation might be changing but the fact is that the CCP retains its political interests and in an extremely authoritarian way.
At the end of the 70s, China was led by Deng Xiaoping and opened its doors to the international community by reforming its economic structure (Whyte 2012; Ma 2009; Su 2006;
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Lin 2003; Rosen 1995 & Fernandez n. d). This caused some radical changes in many aspects of living patterns in a society that once closed its borders to the international community for decades. It is evident that changing to a “state-led” liberal economy has indeed far reaching effects on the status of women as a class that has for long been disadvantaged even within a communist system than any other group. There is a near coincidence of China’s opening and a global women’s movement that left only few countries immune from the demands for a global emancipation of women. The women’s movement is shaking the walls of our world, moving beyond national borders and crossing frontiers into even closed societies no matter how little a size could be. China was among the first countries that in 1980 enacted the CEDAW (1979) of the UN, which is mostly seen as the “International Bill of Rights” for women (Attané 2012).
Anyway, this was preceded by national laws such as the 1954 constitution that guarantees equality for all citizens (Zheng, Guo & Zhao 2009; Yu & Liu 2010; Edwards 2007 & Su 2006).
It is stated in Article 96 of the 1954 constitution that “women in the People’s Republic of China have equal rights with men in all spheres of life including the political, economic, cultural, social and family spheres” (Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 1954)13. In the same vein, Article 86 appropriates the eligibility of women to vote and be voted for when qualified. An additional law specific to women’s human rights was enacted in 1992 and not ignoring the fact that China has initiated at least two national gender policies on women’s advancement between 1995 and 2010 (Zheng, Guo & Zhao 2009).
In addition, affirmative actions were said to be initiated by the regime that urged women’s inclusion across all strata of political organizations to strengthen their representation in
13 A version of the constitution in English and Chinese is available here: http://e-chaupak.net/database/chicon/1954/1954bilingual.htm
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politics. To achieve “more than one woman at the leading bodies of governments at all levels”
(Yu & Liu 2010, 312) became the common rhetoric on affirmative action to place women at political ranks both satisfying a domestic political need and posing as a modern responsible state.
As a result, China holds a mid-level position on the IPU global ranking of women in parliament14 remarkably because of the regime’s mandatory increase in women’s representation at provincial bodies. The proportion of women representatives to the NPC has increased from 20.2% to 21.3% from 2003 to 2008 due to such intervention (Zheng, Guo & Zhao 2009) and an additional rise to 23.4% in 2013 thus giving it sixty first position on the parliamentary ranking (IPU 2014).
There is still a wide gap in the political domain which is either treated as a reserved echelon for men and or women seen not to be prepared enough to face such responsibilities. This situation is worst in the highest political institutions of the country. China has sent at least two women to space but reaching its political high power-base has become almost out of vision for women for many years. Even though these affirmative actions are initiated and implemented to some degree, women’s active participation and access to elite structures are not encouraging. In addition, this increment is not a satisfactory trend for China, considering the widening gap between it and other nations (Zheng, Guo and Zhao 2009; Edwards 2007) it perceives itself to be equal to in international relevance. Similarly, Zeng (2014) argues that, overall the regime has not significantly improved its commitment of political parity but has initiated programs that will improve women’s status.
14 Selection to the NPC according to the 1982 Constitution is done through elections at provincial, municipal and regional autonomous levels and the armed forces once every five years. For more details, see Article 59 of the constitution here: http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372965.htm 21
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As discussed above, the CCP is criticized that it brought immense changes in the socio-economic advancement of China but it continues to do this in a masculine way. As cited in Li (2000), Stacey (1983) argues that the party has ushered new socio-economic and political systems since it came to power but it has failed to replace the existing traditional notions of men as natural leaders while women act as keepers of families. In addition, Hershatter also believes that the party is more concerned with its modernization mission than the improvement of the status of women. In fact, she says that the CCP was never interested in raising women’s status but concerned with the relation of the state and society. This is a result of the party’s interest of national development and creating a new state considered wealthy and modern where citizens are empowered through a socialist ideology. As a result, when women’s emancipation conflicts with the interest of nationalism, it is women’s interest that is forgone. In the words of Ma (2009, 21)
. . . [T]he CCP tie women’s interests with class interests and put the struggle of gender equality in the broad context of class equality. Although one could argue that the CCP appropriated Chinese women’s interests to advance its own political agenda, regardless of the motivation of the CCP in promoting gender equality, Chinese women’s acquiescence legitimized the CCP’s merging of the gender and class struggles.
This position of the Communist Party has historical connections to the country’s feminist movement but perhaps this is less utilized as a theoretical framework for analysis. Women’s empowerment in the Chinese perspective did not begin with an aggressive civil movement as in the United States, United Kingdom or France. The beginnings of Chinese women’s struggle for emancipation is traced to the May 4th Feminist Movements when few urban elites predominantly men, demanded for a revival of the gender division of their society (Ma, 2009; Hearshatter 2007;
Li 2000 & Rosen 1995). This singular historical incident has perhaps shaped the state-gender
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relation in no small way. Because unlike the movements in other countries led by women that challenged existing political disparity and traditionally gender structured ideologies, China’s movement has been a peculiar one mostly led by men. This masculine and elite-centered approach is often accused of having other ulterior motives perceived to be achievable through increased female capability. This will enable them to pose China to the outside world as a modern and equal nation with liberated women who participate in national development (Hershatter 2007) than the aim of guaranteeing women gender equality in a society that has condone inequality and suppression for thousands of years.
Furthermore, Ma (2009) asserts that the very notion of tying women’s liberation to the achievement of another objective (in this case, building a modern and advanced China) is a classic case of exploitation. This very vision of socialist view of women’s empowerment is challenged by some Western Feminists also. Notable among the critics was Catherine MacKinnon who argues that Marxist thinkers have not done any better than the Capitalists with regards to the emancipation of women as Marxism or Communism is a male dominated ideology whose concept of class does not alter inequality between men and women. “Feminists charged that Marxism is male defined in theory and in practice, meaning that it moves within the world view and in the interest of men” (MacKinnon 1982, 518). In fact, she says that the “working-class” movements undervalue women’s economic contribution. Their labor contribution in the society is often ignored and women are vulnerable in capitalism in the same way as in Marxism.
Conversely, Marxists also accuse the feminist movement of a class struggle that seeks to empower urban and educated (elite) women at the expense of others- the very practice against the Marxist idea of a classless society. The communist party saw women’s empowerment whether in politics or otherwise to be imbedded within a larger engagement of national 23
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development, where women’s status will automatically improve through a national achievement of progress. What the State-Party still does not grasp is the fact that women’s liberation is achieved through gender-responsive strategies at all levels of governance and not a mere achievement of economic growth results to the full empowerment of citizens. Placing women in the center of power will enable them to better represent their interests especially in a liberal economy that is still state controlled.
On the other hand, Zhao and Guo (2010) say that China does not lack ‘high-profile’
female politicians. The authors justify this claim because of the ranking of former Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi in Forbe’s “100 Most Powerful Women” at second position in 2007. Indeed this achievement is worthy of recognition but it could also be argued that a single woman’s position as an influential figure does not provide enough justification to assume that Chinese women have equal political footing with men. The use of Wu as an indicator of women’s political achievement in China only provides a blurred reality of the political irrelevance millions of women face daily either as deputies or assistants to men superiors or designated to positions related to social welfare. In a similar vein, such an assertion could have been applied to the
“Mother of the Nation”, Soong Ching-Ling (wife of former revolutionary leader Sun Yat-Sen) who was named an Honorary President of the country shortly before her death (Snyder 1999). As emphasized above, it is indeed worthy of recognition for women who have reached important political positions especially in traditionally male dominated positions or institutions but without caution, it could blur the reality about the under-representation that many others faced in the same society.
Furthermore, the authors add that there is advancement in the proportion of women’s participation at all levels of politics due to the immense change the economic reform brought 24
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along. “The progress in the level of women’s political participation can be attributed to the economic reform and open door policy introduced in China in 1978. Women’s political inclusion has greatly benefitted from various gender-related institutions and policies . . . . and specific rules spelt out in various documents relating to personnel appointments by the Central Organization Department of the CCP” (Guo and Zhao 2010, 51). These achievements, they argue are a result of the reform that enabled women to be more aware of their individual human rights which inevitably results to the granting of political rights due to their economic status within a liberal competing economy. Despite these arguments, authors like Bo (2010), Howell (2006), Su (2006) and Rosen (1995) have pointed that; relatively China has not advanced quite well in the representation of women in high level political institutions.
In addition, Zeng (2014), Guo and Zhao (2010) and Zheng, Guo and Zhao (2009), say that the Party-State initiated a human rights program in 2009 that specifically promotes women’s participation in politics. An allocation of 20% of reserved cadres in the provinces, cities and counties was initiated which has great impact on the NPC and CPPCC for instance. However, there was no establishment of a similar initiative at the very core of power such as the Politburo or its Standing Committee. If there should be a genuine political empowerment of women, it has to be across all levels of the governance structure and not merely at provincial levels or below with little power over the policies that might be of interest to the male dominated central power in Beijing. Su (2006, 147) has this to say:
“. . . Chinese politics are quite resilient. The Party-State remains highly centralized and bureaucratized. . . Political leaders in the Party-State establishment are the real movers and shakers. Their preferences and interests determine what kind of issues are on the agenda, how policies are designed and
“. . . Chinese politics are quite resilient. The Party-State remains highly centralized and bureaucratized. . . Political leaders in the Party-State establishment are the real movers and shakers. Their preferences and interests determine what kind of issues are on the agenda, how policies are designed and