Should women be at home or in the workplace? Should they be
housewives or career women? This ancient issue, against the
backdrop of increasing unemployment in China, was raised again at
the Fourth Session of the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese
People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Married working women should be encouraged to leave their jobs to
be full-time housewives, proposed CPPCC National Committee member
Wang Xiancai at the meeting. To guarantee the rights of housewives,
he suggested the revised Marriage Law include this stipulation: In
the case of single-income families, couples will share all family
properly.
The proposal has angered many feminists, who believe that sending
women home is totally prejudicial against women and represents a
reversal in social development. They even decided to make a
counter-proposal, which will recommend the Government help laid-off
female workers find new jobs and delay the retirement age for
women.
Because the Government has been encouraging women to work outside
the home ever since 1949, most urban Chinese families earn a double
income. There are lots of problems with this type of family, said
Wang, a father of four children and the husband of a college
professor. “It’s not good for the upbringing of the children, which
I have learned through my own experience,” he said. Wang first
raised the issue two years ago and met sharp criticism from women’s
groups.
Today, the question of whether women should stay at home has moved
out of the CPPCC debating room and been dropped in front of
ordinary Chinese people. At a time when both urban unemployment and
the costs of childcare are rising, women’s choice between home and
job has become a real issue.
“Ladies, Please Go Home”
Wang Xiancai (male, CPPCC National Committee member and Deputy
Secretary-General of the CPPCC Jiangxi Provincial Committee):
Encouraging working women to return home is basically not aimed at
resolving the unemployment problem, but is out of concern for the
well-being of families and children. If grandparents don’t help
out, double-income families with children will really have a
difficult time. It is especially hard for the wives, who may be so
constrained that they cannot make business trips, work overtime, or
even go to work on time.
In
such cases, the only option is to get household help, which costs
at least 500-600 yuan a month. If the wives cannot make that much
at their own work, it would be better for them to stay at home
taking care of the kids and houses by themselves rather than paying
someone else to do the work. There are quite a lot of laid-off
women workers in society. Women’s associations, in a bid to get
them re-employed, have been, without exception, persuading them to
take such jobs as housekeepers and nannies. But actually women
should recognize that taking care of their own houses and children
is also a kind of job and responsibility as well as the
manifestation of a mother’s commitment to her children. Given this,
we should encourage laid-off female workers to return home to be
homemakers, which I don’t think is prejudicial against women at
all.
When I advocated this two years ago in Jiangxi Province, the
women’s association expressed strong resentment and took it as
prejudicial against women. They asked: Why shouldn't men go home?
Of course men can go home, but men are inferior to women in terms
of housekeeping. As for equality, I don’t think it means women
should do whatever men do. I have noticed that the more
economically developed a country is, the more clearly the couples
divide family responsibilities, with many women leaving their jobs
after childbirth to raise children. How to educate our next
generation is an issue facing all of us, and many parents feel they
have done far from enough in their children’s education. Given
this, I think it is a good time to raise this issue to working
mothers.
However, the choice has to be made completely voluntarily because
women are not required to go home at all. They don’t have to return
home if their parents can take care of the grandchildren very well,
or their incomes are essential to their families, or they have no
problem with the pay to household help. What I am trying to say is
that we should establish a new concept, that is, staying at home
and taking care of their husbands and children is also an honor for
women and a part of social responsibility.
How shall we understand equality between women and men? I think
some ideas, such as women doing whatever men do, are too extreme. I
remember in the 1960s there was a drama produced on the theme that
“the times have changed, and men and women are equals.” The drama,
set in a meat-packing plant, tells how some “progressive” women
workers overcome physical difficulties to become butchers, work
that used to be exclusive to men. When I watched the drama, I
wondered: Is that what gender equality means?
Women’s groups protest against the proposal that married working
women, especially those in the low-income bracket, should leave
their jobs to become housewives, saying that it is prejudicial
against women. But if what they are doing-encouraging laid-off
female workers to lower their job expectations and take on
housekeeping jobs-is right, how come it becomes prejudicial against
women to encourage women to stay home keeping their own houses? I
think it is something good for the country, the society and
families as a whole to encourage female workers to return home
voluntarily and take good care of their houses and kids. In this
way, more children will be able to grow up under the wings of their
own mothers since no social service can replace a mother’s
role.
Actually for some time in the 1950s Chinese women were called upon
to do the same. Many women workers, including some who had started
working before 1949, quit their jobs voluntarily. Today we have
again raised the proposal, which, instead of being a measure of
expediency, conforms to the needs of social development.
Basically speaking, equality between women and men is manifested in
terms of personality as well as political, legal and economic
status. This is not necessarily linked to whether the wives have
jobs. Actually it is social progress to rationally divide family
responsibilities between husbands and wives on the basis of
upholding gender equality and recognizing the differences between
men and women. Such division of responsibilities will make it more
efficient to organize social life and production.
To
free women from worries associated with staying at home, we need to
provide them with more social and legal guarantees. For instance,
if a wife leaves her job to become a full-time homemaker, her
husband should get from his work unit a 50 percent increase in his
original salary, which would be the total of the husband’s salary
and half of the wife’s salary. Since this is impossible for the
time being, I suggest the new Marriage Law specify in the article
on family income that in the case of single-income families the
couples share all family property. In this way, spouses without
jobs will be ensured certain financial security. Since childcare
and housekeeping in themselves are also contributions to society,
housewives deserve the same social and economic status as their
working husbands.
“No Way Should Women Be Sent Home”
Wang Yujue (female, CPPCC National Committee member and President
of Guangdong Academy of Arts): I am strongly against the proposal
that women should go home. Sending women back home will waste all
our efforts since 1949 in realizing gender equality, which is a
reversal of historical development. Without economic status, women
won’t get any guarantee for other rights, leaving their own fates
in other people’s hands. With regards to the problem that laid-off
female workers have difficulty getting new jobs, several CPPCC
members and I are drafting a proposition suggesting the Government
help them get re-employed through various measures. For instance,
we will point out that it is an unfair practice to refuse to extend
the job contracts of female workers once the term has ended. It is
also improper to apply double standards in terms of the retirement
age. I think women, especially those engaged in mental work, should
retire at the same age as men.
Our government has made tremendous efforts over the years to
improve women’s social status. If we ask women to go home now, all
the efforts we have already made will be written off. Without
economic rights, women will have nothing. We should never give in
on our position that women should be ensured economic rights and be
allowed to participate in politics. Most Chinese men would prefer
their wives stay at home. I think such a concept is wrong. Besides,
it is not feasible given our current social condition-the husband’s
income alone is not enough to raise a family.
Even when such social constraints no longer exist, we still should
not encourage women to go home since they will lose their social
status and suffer more prejudice. Currently, there are indeed some
women who prefer to be married to a rich man so that they can just
stay at home and care for their husbands and children. This,
however, will cause lots of social problems. For instance, these
women, without social and economic status, will not be able to have
their rights guaranteed. As for childcare, I don’t think that is a
problem. If you cannot handle it, why should you have so many
children in the first place? And today there are so many
kindergartens and day-care centers, which can help take care of the
children.
Quite a number of women, after getting out of college, give up
their pursuit of a career and choose to become appendages of men.
This is really a social phenomenon that calls for attention. Except
for being inferior to men physically, women are on a par with men
in terms of their intelligence. Instead of encouraging them to go
home, I think we should let women retire at the same age as men do.
I am not a feminist, but I just don’t like dividing social
responsibilities by the line of gender difference.
“Household Work Should Be Recognized as Work, Too”
Zhu Tianhui (female, CPPCC National Committee member and President
of the Medical School at Nankai University): I agree with Mr Wang
Xiancai. Some people say that once back home women will lose their
economic status, which is the basis for gender equality. I hold a
different view on this. Actually I think this is a question of
whether society recognizes household work as a type of work or not.
If household work is seen as a contribution to society, women’s
status, including economic status, will be raised, too.
Another point is that children need their mothers’ care. There’s a
big difference whether children grow up under the care of their own
mothers or that of somebody else. It is a great pity that some
Chinese children growing up without adequate love have turned out
to be psychologically unhealthy. A family, instead of being simply
a house, has many elements. I feel it will do the kids a lot of
good if their mothers stay at home. However, I am not encouraging
all women to stay at home. For those who are both capable and
willing to work outside the home, they have every reason to stay
where they are.
The practice in some developed European countries is like this: If
the husband works and the wife stays at home, the wife gets 70
percent of her husband’s insurance when he dies. Such a system, in
addition to providing a certain guarantee to housewives, shows that
society recognizes a wife’s lifetime of doing housework. Actually,
what the housewives have contributed to society can never be
measured in the form of numbers. Given this, I think the women who
are willing to go home should be encouraged to do so, instead of
being forced to stay on at their jobs in the workplace.
A
step-by-step approach should be taken to encourage women to stay at
home. It should coincide with the improvement of our social
security and welfare systems as well as the progress of society. As
a result, the situation in which most urban Chinese families earn a
double income will change in the future.
Today, people’s understanding of household work has changed a lot
compared with two decades ago. Some women have started thinking:
“Since what I do at work contributes less to society than what I do
at home, why shouldn’t I just stay at home?” I hope society will
let these women make their own choices.
(Beijing Review 04/25/2001)