Personal voices : Chinese women in the 1980's

Bibliographic Information

Personal voices : Chinese women in the 1980's

Emily Honig & Gail Hershatter

Stanford University Press, 1988

  • : pbk.

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Note

Includes translations of letters and articles published in the Chinese press

Bibliography: p. [363]-380

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Dramatic and far-reaching changes have occurred in the lives of Chinese women in the years since the death of Mao and the fall of the Gang of Four During the decade of the Cultural Revolution, attention to personal life was regarded as 'bourgeois'; in the post-Mao decade, abrupt turns in public policy made discussion of personal life imperative, and nowhere has this been more evident than in the debate about the role of women in Chinese society. This book is based on extensive personal viewing of urban women and study of contemporary literature and articles in the periodical press that touched on the problems of rural women. It is not only about the changes in women's lives but also about the excitement, confusion, and anxieties that Chinese women express as they contemplate the future of their society and their own place in it. Each chapter is devoted to one aspect of women's Lives: girlhood, adornment and sexuality, courtship, marriage, family relations, divorce, work, violence against women, and gender inequality. Giving a personal dimension to the issues discussed, the chapters close with a rich sampling of excerpts from the newly thriving women's press and other contemporary publications. Although many women in China still suffer discrimination in working life and mistreatment in the family, they can now raise questions that would have been unthinkable even ten years ago. Most notably, they can and do use the press to voice complaints, expose injustices, seek advice, and support or deplore the social changes of the 1980's.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Growing up female 2. The pleasures of adornment and the dangers of sexuality 3. making a friend: changing patterns of courtship 4. Marriage 5. Family relations 6. Divorce 7. Violence against women 9. Feminist voices Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index.

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