Editor's Introduction

Abstract

Six of the selections in this issue of Chinese Sociology and Anthropology review questions pertinent to the role of women in contemporary Chinese society. The first two selections, "The Working Women's Struggle Against Confucianism in Chinese History" and "Struggle for the Thorough Liberation of Women," treat the historical conditions that set the stage for the liberation of women. The next two selections, "Mao Tse-tung Thought Guides Us Women to March Forever Forward" and "Strive to Train Women Cadres," deal with women in contemporary leadership roles and proffer a role-model for women's emulation. "Women In the Villages Are a Great Revolutionary Force" shifts the focus from leadership roles to the multifarious productive roles women have assumed in rural settings, the obstacles to assumption of major productive roles by women, and the conditions in the late sixties that led to a greater role for China's rural women. "Men and Women Should Receive Equal Pay for Equal Work" and "How to Bring About Equal Pay for Equal Work for Men and Women" pinpoint one source of conflict that continued to plague full sexual equality among rural laborers—discrimination in the relocation of work points. The final selection, "Continually Consolidate the Socialist Battle-ground in the Villages," though superficially an example of role-model literature, provides a context for the articles on women in rural work by describing, in detailed form, the sources of bourgeois behavior in rural work settings. We hope our readers will find these articles both of intrinsic interest and of research value for the light they shed on rural social relations, particularly between the sexes.