In China transformed by the decadelong rule of Xi Jinping, the role of women in the eyes of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is clear: get married, have more children, and raise families. But women are increasingly resisting the diktat.
At the once-in-five-year Women's Congress last year, Xi made no mention of women at work. In all the previous Women's Congress sessions, it was a norm for the President of China to speak on women at work as well as at home. In the latest session, however, Xi set the tone for his vision for women in the country.
"We should actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture," said Xi. He further encouraged the country's women leaders to "tell good stories about family traditions and guide women to play their unique role in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation". He also said that it was the job of the CPC officials to influence the younger generation's views on "love and marriage, fertility and family".
Xi's emphasis on women leaders and CPC leaders motivating the younger generation is ironic. In an already patriarchal country, which he is further driving down the road of regression, there is currently no woman leader at the top. China has had no women president, premier, or a member of the top decision-making body Politburo Standing Committee. For the past few decades, however, there was a trend to have at least one woman in the larger Politburo, but Xi has done away with that too. There is currently no woman in the Politburo, which can be roughly understood as the Council of Ministers.
Pressure from older relatives and prodding from the CPC officials is not affecting Chinese women, who are increasingly opting to either have one child or stay single. The reasons range from the cost of childcare in a weak economy to prevalent bad marriages and the responsibility to take care of elders. The registration of marriages is also falling in China.
The resistance of women is apparent from markets to schools in China. The Wall Street Journal reports, "New maternity wards were built only to close a few years later. Sales of baby-care products, including formula and diapers, have dropped. Businesses that focused on babies now target seniors. New preschools built to make child-rearing more affordable struggle to fill classrooms and many have closed. In 2022, the number of pre-schools in China fell 2 per cent, the first decline in 15 years."
Here we explain how the CPC is pushing for women to have more children, how women are resisting it, and how the Chinese state systematically excludes women.
Why Is China Pushing Women To Have More Children?
After the failure of the decades-long one-child policy, birth rates have fallen to historic lows in China and the population has started to decline. This has prompted the Communist Party of China (CPC) to push women to have children.
In 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics in China said the population declined by 8,50,000 in population and it marked the beginning of what is expected to be a long period of population decline. China recorded around 9.6 million births in 2022 compared to 16 million in 2012 and the numbers are expected to be 9 million for 2023, according to forecasts. Demographers say, as per the current pace, the Chinese population will decline to around 0.5 billion in 2100 from around 1.4 billion today.
Instead of enabling affordable childcare or creating more economic opportunities for women, the CPC has rolled out a conservative framework for women where their place is in homes and their responsibility is primarily raising a family. Wu Weiting, Director of the Institute of Gender Research at Taiwan Shih Hsin University, told VOA News that the push for women to become home-oriented is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's increasing social control.
Wu sees the CPC's move to return women to more traditional roles as a continuation of its crackdown on gender rights defenders, especially on women's rights organisations, according to VOA News. She further said Xi wants the family traditions restored because he sees gender and human rights as Western constructs.
Even though the CPC has come up with some monetary moves, there does not appear to be a change in the women's position.
"The party desperately needs women to have more babies. China has been thrust into a demographic crisis as its birthrate has plummeted, causing its population to shrink for the first time since the 1960s. The authorities are scrambling to undo what experts have said is an irreversible trend, trying one initiative after another, such as cash handouts and tax benefits to encourage more births," noted Alexandra Stevenson in The New York Times.
"Women's work was once about women for themselves, women for women's sake. Now what they are saying is that women's rightful place in society — where they can do the most meaningful work — is at home with the family," Hanzhang Liu, a political studies professor at Pitzer College, told The Times.
How Women Resist Against Push For More Babies
Living under an authoritarian regime, women in China —or men or anyone for that matter— do not have the means for overt resistance like in democracies. In China, where even top ministers disappear just like that, mass movements are out of bounds. Online campaigns are also restricted amid strict online censorship.
In such conditions, women have taken up what's called 'passive resistance'. The choice of not having children, not getting married early, not getting married at all, or not having multiple children by a large number of women is nullifying the Communist Party's push. The emerging movement by women, dubbed by the Wall Street Journal as "a personal form of feminism", has been ongoing for years.
"Women in China have been alarmed by the trend and have been fighting back over the years. Many women in China are empowered and united in their fight against the twin repressions in China: the authoritarian government and the patriarchal society," said Yaqiu Wang, the research director for Hong Kong, China and Taiwan at Freedom House, to The Times.
In a recent story, The Wall Street Journal features accounts of several Chinese women who prefer to not have multiple children or any children at all. Feng Chenchen, a mother of a three-year-old, says her relatives have been pressurising her to have another child. She bluntly says she will have a child if relatives pay for the upbringing.
"Having had one child, I think I've done my duty. I can have another kid as long as you give me 300,000 yuan," says Feng.
Molly Chen, 28, says the demands of caring for ageing relatives and her job leave her no room for a child or a husband. She is further of the view that most husbands take women only as caretakers for children or parents.
"All she wants to do in her free moments is read or scroll through pet videos. Chen followed the story of Su Min, a retiree who video-blogged about her solo road trip around China to escape a bad marriage. Chen said that the story, as well as online videos that women post about their lives, have deepened her impression that many men choose wives mostly as caretakers — for children, husbands and both sets of ageing parents," reported WSJ, adding that Chen lamented that she has no time or resources to care for anyone other than her parents.
The care for the elderly is a major issue, which is rooted in the failed one-child policy. Decades of the one-child policy of China ensured that the Chinese society would be trapped in a pyramid where a couple has to take care of two parents and a child and that child upon growing up has to take care of parents and two sets of grandparents. Such costs leave little room for personal lives for many.
A large number of Chinese women like Chen and Feng are choosing to not abide by the CPC's diktat. For now, the CPC has not been able to overcome this personal resistance. How this plays out in the long run, only time will tell.
