Of women and washing machines : Employment, housework, and the reproduction of motherhood in socialist China

It is argued that social and economic policies since the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party have created conditions which impose on women (and men) sex-differentiated roles in production and reproduction. These new public policies sustain the traditional definition of women as household labourers and reproducers of men. Rather than blaming feudalism or China's lack of development, the author suggests that contemporary political and economic decisions have reinforced sex inequality in China. (DÜI-Sen)