Chinese Birth Control And Village’s Women

Since the Republic of China was founded,there have been countless ties between fertility problems and the construction and development of Chinese modernization all the time.From the middle of1950s,Chinese Communist Party began to carry out the birth control in China,so that population growth can adapt to economic development.In the process of constantly making achievements,a large number of rural women were not only the important mobilized object of birth control,but also the main practitioners and motive of the policy. In this dissertation, the rural women were placed in the historical context of the development of modernization and women liberation.Combining dictating materials, field research and the interactive use between archives and document literatures,it attempts to show that the birth control,a historical event had an impact on the daily life of rural women and how birth-control policies were brought into women’s own path of life.Meanwhile,the dissertation also attempts to reveal that how Chinese gender system is linked with birth-control policies and will investigate the conflict and integration between public and private sphere.In this dissertation,the main structure is divided into three parts introduction, text and conclusion, And the part of text contains four chapters.Firstly,it summarizes the local system of politics,economic and culture in Xi village,emphatically investigates social convention in village:the gender division of labor system,the family structure,the women status and population composition.In the second chapter,it begins with the fertility culture of traditional Xi village.By analyzing the understanding of the villagers of Xi village toward body,life value and production mode,we can see the transformation of traditional fertility culture under the impact of the birth-control policies in fifty years.Thirdly,in the following four aspects of "women’s conditions","beginning of birth control","spread of birth-control knowledge" and "unsatisfactory outcomes",it demonstrates the developing conditions of family planning work in Xi village during the1950s and1960s.In chapter Four,it contains four aspects:"work group of birth control into village","friction and stress:implement of birth-control task","control of body:use of various birth-control ways","the story behind the two sterilization women". And elaborates the influence of "married lately,four-year birth interval,bear less than two" of birth-control policies in the1970s.Originally,owing to villager’s burden of poverty and raising,the birth-control policies of "wan,xi,shao" were popular among villagers to some extent.When the families had different comments,women themselves had more positive attitudes toward birth-control policies than their own husband and mother-in-law.Women were not only the passive receiver of policies.Under the background of complicated power relations in village,they either accept or refuse the policy.Therefore,in the campaign,women made an alliance with the policyconsistently resisting the idea of more children of traditional patriarchy.As a result,controlling birth efficiently,let the birth control of the village make quite remarkable achievements.Finally,in five ways:"the household contract responsibility system with women of Xi village","before the storm:the only-child policy come on stage","heavy body:stress of the women","’weapon’ of the second sex:measures of women " and "transformation of family structure with the formation of new ideology on childbearing". It analyses the implement of only-child policy in Xi village in the1980s.In all these efforts,the family structure and scale of Xi village had both been about to change due to the only-child policy and the household contract responsibility system.They were not only linked with changing marriage patterns in the1980s,but also were related to the improvement of women’s status.However,they resulted in the formation of the new ideology on childbearing.Through the cross-over study of historical anthropology,the women history and the social life history,as well as the dialogue of The transformation of the private life:a Chinese village of love.family and close relationships(1949-1999) written by Yunxiang Yan.The dissertation considers that the implement of birth control in Xi village made little change in Xi village traditional fertility culture such as "more children will result in more fortune". There fore,we should revaluate the effect of birth control in order to change the indifference to the right of body and life of women;meanwhile,in the birth-control policies led mainly by government,ways of birth control methods should incline for man in order to change the traditional body culture of "men are superior to women"; certainly, in terms of investigating the transformation of woman status,we can’t just investigate the family system by patrilocal residence,the same family name as father and patrilineal inheritance which is also called patriarchy.But we should consider it in the field of private life.Only in this way can we find that the status of women are continuously changeable,and women play a more and more important role in family decision;as for women,if they want to improve their own political status,the fatal step is that participating positively in village public affairs,adding the percentage of women in village committee.