Retreating back Home Willingly or Being Unwillingly Sent Home? ——Debates on "Women-going-home" and the Ideological Transformation in the Course of Marketization in China
SONG Shao-peng
Department of History of C.P.C at the Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
Abstract:This paper argues that key reasons for "women-going-home" reside in the gradual separation of public and private spheres in the course of marketization of the Chinese economy, in which activities related to 'reproduction' have been pushed back to family, resulting in women becoming 'less valued' labour in the market. To explain this trend, it is therefore important to examine institutional constraints in addition to the question of whether or not women are willing to go home. Recognizing that separation of public and private spheres forms a core concept in political liberalist ideology, the paper examines the four major periods in which debates on "women-going-home" since the 1980s and asserts that the mainstream ideology in China has shifted from an emphasis on Marxist theory of women's liberation to that of liberalism. Feminists need to respond to probable structural/institutional oppression of women arising from such a shift.
宋少鹏. “回家”还是“被回家”?——市场化过程中“妇女回家”讨论与中国社会意识形态转型[J]. 妇女研究论丛, 2011, 0(4): 5-12.
SONG Shao-peng. Retreating back Home Willingly or Being Unwillingly Sent Home? ——Debates on "Women-going-home" and the Ideological Transformation in the Course of Marketization in China. , 2011, 0(4): 5-12.