Questions and discussions on the social status changes of Chinese women

  1. In feudal society, within families where the inheritance of paternal property was based on patrilineal kinship, the means of production were generally also owned by men, right? Women were considered accessories to men’s property, women laboring using the means of production possessed by men, and their labor products were ultimately not controlled by themselves but under male dominance?

  2. I think that figures from Legalism in feudal society were generally representatives of small and medium landlords. To protect their own interests, these landlords demanded the development of production. Women, as half of society, were also a significant labor force. After the Legalists came to power, to serve their own class interests, they advocated for women’s participation in agricultural labor and active production, and politically, they did not impose severe restrictions on women. During this period, women in peasant families also participated in agricultural production, and their economic status improved. Does this mean that during a certain period, women’s social status was approaching that of men? The conflict between Confucianism and Legalism related to women actually reflects the struggle between social production reform and conservatism, between progress and backwardness?

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Is the concept of male superiority and female inferiority also part of Confucianism? :thinking: How does Legalist theory view the social status of men and women?

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It is thought that in feudal society, the poorer the peasant family, the relatively more equal the status of men and women. Due to poverty, peasants often had no means of production, no land, and no farming tools; they rented land from landlords and used tools owned by the landlords. The vast majority of the fruits of the peasants’ labor after cultivation were taken by the landlords as rent. In such families, there was no concept of inheritance of private property. The productive labor of poor male peasants did not dominate the domestic labor of women in the family. Moreover, women in these families were also laborers directly engaged in productive labor as poor peasants and, together with their fathers, brothers, and husbands, were exploited and oppressed by the landlords. Their respective labor results, regardless of gender, were consumed jointly as the necessary living materials for all family members. Such production relations somewhat determined the basic equality of status between men and women in poor peasant families in society. Is this understanding correct?

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I think it is correct :thinking:. I suddenly recalled that I had seen some bourgeois families where there is also “gender equality,” but this does not align with Marxist conclusions. Is this phenomenon false, or what?

The higher the economic status of the bourgeois family, the more severe the phenomenon of gender inequality, especially in cases where there are both sons and daughters. The eldest son is always the heir to the property, while females and even younger sons are considered mere blood bags for the eldest son. This is because the bourgeois private property is the largest, and what you usually see is generally a middle-class revision and beautification.

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If women participate in labor and their income becomes the main source for society, their status will be somewhat higher. The fundamental reason for women losing status is that their labor no longer has a social nature and is not recognized by society, thus losing social status. Of course, this is not absolute, because women influenced by Confucian ideas, or whose husbands earn more than they do, may also have lower status within the family. Even among the non-working exploiting class, women who personally engage in exploitation and have independent income have higher status than those who are completely dependent on men at home, which also illustrates that the economic base determines the superstructure; women’s status depends on what position they occupy in society and which class they belong to.

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