GENDER relations in rural China in the post-Mao era are the result of a complex blend of continuities and discontinuities with the more recent past, that is the Maoist era, and with pre-revolutionary society. Therefore, before examining the reforms introduced by the state in the late 1970s, and the impact these reforms had on gender relations, it is necessary to step back for a longer perspective, which puts the contemporary period in the context of the history of gender relations in twentieth-century China.

This chapter aims for such a perspective. Rather than attempting a comprehensive history, however, it focuses on certain issues of lasting significance for the discussion developed in this book. The first section of the chapter provides a brief outline of gender divisions of labour in rural China in the early twentieth century, and of the key values and structures that shaped those divisions. The second section outlines the origins of the CCP's theoretical approach to gender issues, and the ways in which that approach was moulded by practical experience and expediency in the early years of CCP power. The final section of the chapter sketches the fluctuations in state policy toward women between 1949 and 1978, and indicates in broad terms the changes in gender relations, especially in gender divisions of labour, that occurred in rural areas during this period.