Gender, Sexuality and Social Change
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a strong and enviable record of promoting policies that advance women's rights and promote equality between the sexes since before the formation of the PRC in 1949.
The CCP's All China Women's Federation has devoted energies over many decades to these causes.
Researchers in the Centre explore the historical and contemporary politics of gender and sexuality including women's engagement with politics, business and the arts and explore their experiences of prostitution, sexual violence and discrimination.
Centre academics are committed to understanding how Chinese women interact with global and regional feminisms and how they participate in regional and international bodies.
Current projects being undertaken by researchers in the China Research Centre in this area include:
China's invisible economic leadership: women in family enterprises
Researcher: Professor David Goodman
Chinese women are generally regarded as not having been in the leadership of economic reform. In contrast, the Chief Investigator's recent research on the new rich in North China suggests that the wives of new entrepreneurs may play significant, though unacknowledged, leadership roles in enterprise development. In particular, it suggests that women often act as business managers and accountants alongside their husbands, especially in family based enterprises first established in the private sector. It is now proposed to test the wider applicability of these findings, and explore the consequences for the development of enterprises, families and local politics.
Jiaocheng, Shanxi, October 2004
Governing sex-related bribery and corruption in the PRC
Researcher: Dr. Elaine Jeffreys
This project examines the emergence of the category xinghuilu (sex-related bribery and corruption) as an object of public debate in present-day China. It will assess the implications of this debate in terms of rethinking the focus of anti-corruption campaigns and the parameters of China's existing prostitution controls. The project is supported by a 2005 UTS Early Career Researcher Grant.
Warriors, Patriots, Traitors and Opportunists: Chinese Women and War
Researcher: Professor Louise Edwards
This project furthers our knowledge of the workings of the political, military and security scene in one of our most strategically important neighbours, the PRC. The better we understand the PRC and how it responds in times of military disruption the more likely we are to be able to further Australian interests within this large market and ensure continued national security. The project also enhances Australia's strong reputation as leaders in scholarship in Chinese Studies by producing research publications of high impact that present new perspectives on old projects. This project will keep Australia at the forefront of research in Chinese Studies.
Gender, Politics and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage in China
Researcher: Professor Louise Edwards
At it broadest level, Edwards’ project examines women’s engagement with formal politics in China over the course of the century since 1900. A large component of the project has been its exploration of Chinese women’s campaigns for equal voting rights with men in the first half of the twentieth century. Part of this aspect includes an examination of the evidence of a non-party political feminist voice in China. The dominance of two major political parties, the Nationalists and the Communists, has obscured those struggles that worked within, around and between these two groupings—including a sometimes-antagonistic feminist movement. The project brings China into the extensive literature on international women’s suffrage struggles. It was generously funded by an ARC Discovery grant.
