Zhang, Nana (2010) Reworking gender roles - the 'inside' and 'outside' spheres of rural migrant women in contemprary. In: BSA Annual Conference 2010 - Inequalities & Social Justice, Glasgow Caledonian University, 7-9 April 2010 (Unpublished)

Abstract

Through the use of in-depth interviews with women migrants, their families and fellow villagers in both sending and receiving areas, the author examines the changing boundaries of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ spheres of rural women migrants in Beijing and Shantou. She attempts to redefine the division of ‘skilled/unskilled’, ‘heavy/light’ and ‘outside/inside’ work by introducing ‘men’ and ‘men’s work’ as a pivotal point and argues that when the content of men’s domain of ‘skilled, heavy and outside’ work changes, the content of women’s domain of ‘unskilled, light and inside’ work will have to change accordingly. The research shows that the tradition of devaluating women and women’s work in a patriarchal society remains intact, in spite of the fact that women migrate to work in the city and are engaged in the ‘outside’ spheres of industrial employment. As well as the broad gender division of labour in different occupations, sufficient evidence also reveals distinctive gender division of labour in both working and living spaces. Because women migrants’ work often takes place in the ‘inside sphere’ left by men, women themselves also devalue their own labour, as well as men. Women’s bargaining power gained through migration does not necessarily change their subordinate status in the family. The author argues that migration redefines gender inequality and class differences among women migrants and overall, rural women are triply subordinated through gender, class as well as their peasant status.

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