Feminism Comparison

A West verses East Comparison of Feminism History
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A west verses East comparison of feminism history
Equality across gender has and continues to be a target yet to be met. Although several strides have been made towards its realization, the specific changes to this effect were not manifested simultaneously on a global scale. Different regions have for over a century now been independently adopting various lifestyles and regulations regarding gender equality. This paper intends to look at the evolution of feminism making an elaborate comparison of the same between China and the US.
Little is documented concerning the history of women rights in China before the beginning of the 20th century. However, the role in undermining women played by Confucianism which was widely accepted in ancient China cannot be downplayed. A girl child’s probability of getting an education was slim at best during this period. To make matters worse, they had no say as to whom they would be married to, with some of them ending up as concubines against their will. The tenth century marked the adoption of a practice known as foot binding which despite its supposed value of beautification was in reality some form of torture among young girls.
For the United States, 1830 marked the beginning of the Victorian era. During the mid-19th century, the average number of children per woman was approximately five. Employment of women, though still largely unpopular began with a number of them being employed as sales clerks in retail stores.

Demonstrations for gender-based equality became rife a couple of decades towards the beginning of the 20th century. In China, similar demonstrations occurred over a period of two decades from the start of the 20th century. By this time, the demonstrations had ceased to become a reserve for just the females since intellectual males began to join as well.
As early as 1910, some regions, such as Utah and Colorado in the United States had already accepted and adopted the women’s right to vote. A similar political revolution in China was realized forty years later when women were deemed men’s equals in all aspects be it political, social, cultural, economic or educational. Forced and planned marriages were abolished around this time. This forty year difference in time mirrors the forty year difference between the periods during which revolutions for equality erupted in the regions, America’s 1870s and China’s 1910. This similarity in time-lapse suggests that the achievement of these rights was a direct result of the revolutions.
The first half of the 19th century in the United States witnessed a gradual increase in the number of women joining the workforce. This increase was gradual for the years before World War II when there was an exponential increase, and the number of employees hit an all-time national high of six million. In 1920, the momentous 19th amendment accorded women the right to vote. President Roosevelt was one of the beacons in championing equality as was evidenced by his pioneering appointments of women to fill up some of the most lucrative positions including in his cabinet. Most of this period in China was spent in demonstrations culminating in the 1949 adoption of article 6 which stated that; “The People’s Republic of China shall abolish the feudal system which holds women in bondage. Women shall enjoy equal rights with men in political, economic, cultural, educational and social life. Freedom of marriage for men and women shall be put into effect.”
Upon the adoption of these laws, the instances of divorce increased significantly in both regions. In the United States, the rate of divorced doubled over a period of roughly two decades between the 1920s and 1940s. A similar surge in divorce instances was observed in China when the years after the 1950 adoption of the marriage law. Article six protected women’s right to work thereby their numbers in the workforce increased after this period. Furthermore, this rise in women employment was boosted further by the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. Around this time, women began scaling their career ladders to occupy some of the most lucrative positions in business. There was a significant percentage increase of female students in higher education leaning institutions by the year 1975. A similar trend took place in the United States as more and more women completed college and university education. Women employment rate rose by seven percent from 33 percent to 40 percent between the years 1945 and 1960. This simultaneous rise in females in the workforce was as a result of the embrace of female education in both the United States and China.
The last quarter of the twentieth century marked a lot of similarities in the two regions. Birth control to curb population increase was adopted in the US in the early 1960s. Its equivalent in China, the one-child policy, came into effect almost two decades later in 1978. Over this period and through to the 21st century, both regions marked a further rise in female employees, female students and adopted laws to further foster equality such as the US 1963 equal pay policy. This comparison establishes that the west pioneered in most of the changes that have to this day marked gender equality with the East seeming to trail by a margin of roughly 20 years.

References
1. Eagly, Alice H., and Wendy Wood. “Feminism and the evolution of sex differences and similarities.” Sex Roles 64, no. 9-10 (2011): 758-767.