《全职太太与中国城市中性别秩序的转变》.pdf

Fang and Walker The Journal of Chinese Sociology (2015) 2:4 DOI 10.1186/s40711-015-0006-x RESEARCH Open Access “Full-time wife” and the change of gender order in the Chinese City Ying Fang1* and Alan Walker2 * Correspondence: Abstract smileandme2000@ 1Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, No.230 Wai Huan Xi Work and family are the most critical of the contested terrains that determine the Road, Guangzhou 510006, Peoples status of women in the gender order, the differing pattern of inequality between Republic of China men and women. “Full-time wife” is a relatively new label in China, emerging only Full list of author information is available at the end of the article in the late twentieth century. It corresponds to the term “housewife” used in the 1950s and 1960s. Based on 59 in-depth interviews carried out between 2006 and 2007 in Guangzhou City, this article focuses on “full-time wives” and the dilemma they face in the conflict between family and work, an issue that is essential to an understanding of changing gender relations in China. The paper argues that a combination of the traditional Chinese gender order, improving wages of the family under the “socialist” market economy, and the rolling back of state protection was a key reason for the emergence of the full-time wife phenomenon. The analysis of the position of the full-time wife demonstrates how rolling back state protection affected women and specifically how it undermined