英语论文网

Then, social advancement was crucial to women, who were denied the involvement in politics, the possibility of improving their status through hard work and there was little generally perceived need for them to receive a higher education. In old China, things were similar. Especially, China was a country in which the feudal society lasted for several millennia. The traditional feudal ideologies on women had deeply rooted and women in old China experienced a bitter history. For example, Confucian philosophy preached the male superiority conception and women were to obey—first, their fathers; after marriage, their husbands; during widowhood, their sons. They were completely excluded from social and political life. Economically dependent, women were robbed of property and inheritance rights and possessed no independent source of income. Having no social status, women were considered as the private property of men, was to please their husbands and to bear their children. They had no personal dignity or independent status, and were deprived of the right to receive an education and take part in social activities. They enjoyed no freedom in marriage but had to obey the dictates of their parents and heed the words of matchmakers, and were not allowed to remarry if their spouses died. They were subject to physical and mental torture, being harassed by systems of polygamy and prostitution, and the overwhelming majority of them were forced to bind their feet from childhood. For centuries, "women with bound feet" was a synonym for the female gender in China. But things were different to men. Men in old China held virtually all the powers, social status, respectability, wealth, and the privilege to choose their wives and a man could marry more than one woman who didn’t have the well-matched background as he. Also, the most important thing was that the wife who was married must be a virgin. Men could treat women as their private property or attachment, even slave, depending on their wills. A. Social Reform as the Precondition of Women’s Emancipation In China, the feudal society lasted several millennia and in the subsequent century of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, Chinese women experienced a bitter history of prolonged oppression, degradation and abasement. From the first half of this century, masses of women plunged into an undaunted and heroic struggle lasting several decades They struggled for the protection of their own rights and the enhancement of their status. This was a quest for their emancipation. Social reform is thought as the precondition of women’s emancipation. It was not until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 that brought a historic change for Chinese women. And a new era in the emancipation of Chinese women was ushered in. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was a surge of mass movements throughout the country to quickly change the backward economic and cultural outlook left over by old China and eradicate the antiquated system and outmoded customs that fettered, discriminated against and humiliated women. This effected an earth-shaking historic change in the social status and condition of women. Then again, after experienced series government reforms, such as, campaigns for gradually wiping out illiteracy in 1952, 1956, and in 1958; publicity and implementation of the Marriage Law, reforms on women’s political and working life, and so on. Women’s status was enhanced