Research On Modernity Of The Women After Transition From “Villager To City Dweller”

China now is going through the social change of transformation from tradition to modernization. We are all striving to realize the social modernization, but the modernization of the society in the final analysis is the modernization of people, namely the process that people acquires modernity. Women exert an indispensable role in this process, and in some sense, women’s level of modernization represents level of modernization of the whole human race. The development of women is closely related to the social progress and development. Therefore, the acquirement of the modernity of women also reflects the social degree of modernization.The research object of this study is the women after transition from “villager to city dweller”, who are now living in the village-in-the-city communities where tradition coexisted with modernization. They are the very representative of the typical group with both tradition and modernity, so they constantly feel the urban civilization and continuously realize the modernization of themselves, playing an important part in the process of China’s modernization. With conservation in the village-in-the-city communities and in-depth interviews with ten typical cases, the study shows that the women transferred from village to community still have both some traditional characteristics and some characteristics of modernity. It is indicated in the study that women’s defense and fear of traditional concepts, their living environment of half-acquaintance community and the direction of mainstream gender consciousness in the society prevent the women after transition from “villager to city dweller” from acquiring the modernity.On the basis of the analysis on the level of modernity of women after transition from “villager to city dweller”, the study presents some reflections on the modernity under the circumstances of Chinese culture and suggests that China’s modernity lacks understanding of social gender and never breaks up the patriarchy cultural tradition, which makes the modernity a double-edged sword and forms a new hegemony to the women while promoting women’s liberation. Such a kind of pressure pulls the women transferred from village to community back to the tradition.Therefore, this study argues that the acquirement of modernity requires profound thoughts on social gender, cultivation of women’s subject consciousness and reflections on mainstream gender consciousness in the society so as to break up the patriarchy cultural tradition formed for thousands of years in China and cultivate women’s modernity and finally promote the women’s further liberation.