A Study On Contemporary Chinese Women 's Political Participation Awareness

Female political participation consciousness refers to the cognitionof political affairs and the attitude towards political participation afemale citizens’ possessing. Women’s political participationconsciousness is also a motive when it comes to the behavior of politicalparticipation. The consciousness of female political participationdevelops accompanied by the change of status of women, it is a dynamicprocess.Female political participation consciousness of China sprouted inthe modern times, which is closely related to the development ofChinese society in history. During the development, female politicalparticipation consciousness in China shows characteristics of native,cognition, distribution and obedience. The characteristic of native bothreflect in the national identity and the nature of ethnicity, which exist inthe sprouting of female political participation consciousness in China. InModern China, participated in political affairs, female concerned thepolitical objectives of the time, namely the opposition to theauthoritarian monarchy as well as the imperialism.Cognition reflected inthat Chinese women gradually break through the traditional conceptabout female. With the development of self-awareness, women’sself-consciousness gradually sprouted and eventually developed aswomen’s political participation consciousness. In Modern China,women’s self-consciousness reflected in their care and solicitude fornation-state. Distribution refers to that restricting by social division,Chinese women’s political awareness is still limited. Female citizens arestill a group of people who take part in political affairs passively in China. Both social cognition of women and women self-awareness arestill in the influence of traditional ethics. This lead to the obedience offemale political participation consciousness in China.The main factors affecting Chinese female political participationconsciousness include gender differences, identity, social division oflabor and political culture.Gender differences can be simply used toexplain division of labor. But it also leads to gender stereotypes. Afterputting forward of the concept of "gender", there comes a newinterpretation of the causes of status of women. These factors canelucidate the distributive of female political participation.Femaleidentity is equivalent to gender identity. In contemporary, womenidentity evolved on the basis of traditional social values. It is anacquiring conception more than a nature. On one hand female identitycan explain the existing of gender stereotypes, on the other hand itreflects an obedience of women political participation consciousness.Social division of labor, mainly refers to women allocate their timebetween social work and family work. In contemporary, women spendmore time than men in family labor. This fact provides women anintuitive experience on political participation consciousness, but it alsoconstrained women’s willingness on political participation. Socialevolution theory gives an explanation on social division-altruismbehavior by women. As a result, social division causes social cognitionabout women, besides, it has an influence on female politicalparticipation consciousness. Political culture affects politicalparticipators’ attitudes and actions. In tradition society, China showed aself-isolated political culture, while in the new-born age of People’sRepublic of China, it shows a mobilized political culture. Meanwhile,foreign political culture and feminism kept permeating on domestic cognition. All these factors above have impact on political participationconsciousness of Chinese women.The political participation consciousness of Chinese womenrequires a further development. It is a process. As for a furthercultivation, the pathways include, the construction public opinionenvironment for female political participation, the equality of women’srights with men, he improvement of women’s employment reliefprogram against discrimination, and learning experiences of women inpolitical participation in other countries.