From The View Of Gender: Research On The Development Of Policies Of Chinese Marriage And Family After The Foundation Of People’s Republic Of China

Social gender theory believes that the gender characteristic is constructed by social andcultural systems, and gender differences between men and women has led to different socialroles and social functions. Social policy analysis is fundamentally problematic if it can notdeal with gender as important as class, race, age and other variables. To examine Chinesemarriage and family policy since founding of China in gender perspective, it’s not hard to findsince new China was founded, marriage and family policy has experienced there times ofevolution which at the beginning of founding of china,80’s,and21stcentury.It is at the beginning of the founding of China that marriage and family policy is equalpolicy between men and women. At this time, women get rid of dependency role of man to bean independent individual, at the same time, men and women begin to allocation of rights andobligations equally. Marriage and family policy in80’s is negative gender discriminatorypolicies, which marriage and family policy treat man and women with disparity since itbegin to envisage the physiological differences between men and women, and unequallymastering social resources. Marriage and family policy in21stcentury is active genderdiscriminatory policies. With the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, and aseries of "Development Program for Women" drawn up, the status of women has risenconsiderably. Marriage and family policy in21stcentury which based on80’s not onlyrecognize the physiological differences between the sexes, and the differences in social status,but also to protect women’s marriage and family field and other aspects of the personal andproperty rights by taking measures to make up for deficiencies, drawing up a series of policiesto oppose domestic violence, recognizing the value of family labor, establishing the divorcedamage compensation system, etc.In our country, social gender awareness in marriage and family policy progresssignificantly after half a century’s development, but gender blindness and issues that the essence of inequality under the equality in form between men and women is severe, women’srights and interests of survival and development in marriage and family still face manychallenges. Policy discrimination reflected by marriage age requirement, military marriageprotection provisions, illegal cohabitation defined policy; policy empty embodied in "WomenProtection Act", opposing domestic violence and marital rape; it is reproductive rightsprovisions, divorce property distribution provisions reflects the policy contradictions andproduce a vicious cycle, as well as poor implementation of policy and policy failure in reallife that result in women who at a disadvantage on the physiological and status is difficult toachieve their survival and development rights, but need to bear the economic, emotional andsocial pressures brought by policy.I think that male dominated social and cultural institutional structure of society which isconstructed and strengthen by traditional social policy is the fundamental reason that why it isdifficult to promote gender mainstreaming. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce the conceptof developmental social policy to build developmental family and marriage policy which isaimed to promote awareness of gender mainstreaming in marriage and family field to achievegender equality in marriage and family and harmonious development by promoting genderequality, protecting the development rights of women, reducing marital instability andpromoting family harmony, drawing up developmental marriage and family policy which caneffectively play family function.