Empowerment in a socialist egalitarian agenda: minority women in China’s higher education system

Abstract

Socialist egalitarianism and empowerment represent two different routes for realising equality of group differentiation. The former is pursued through top-down enactment by state apparatuses, while the latter closely relates to autonomous social movements, such as those occurring in liberal democratic societies. Using the experience of minority women in China, the paper examines socialist equalisation through state education through the lens of empowerment. Higher education is drawing special attention because it is regarded as a strong path for addressing inequality based on gender and ethnicity, as well as promoting individual empowerment. The data were collected through interviews at three Chinese universities. Based on deconstructions of these two concepts, the paper suggests a complicated interweaving of socialist egalitarianism and empowerment. The experiences of minority university females are embedded in a matrix of empowerment, which is mediated by three patriarchal relationships (shaped by the state, the majority and males) in a socialist regime.

Keywords:

• empowerment
• patriarchy
• socialism
• women
• ethnic minorities
• university

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Robert Arnove for his encouragement and support. Thanks are also due to Gregory Paul Fairbrother and Li Jun for their valuable comments on the early manuscript draft. I am deeply grateful to anonymous reviewers and the editors of Gender and Education for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Notes

Traditionally, the Chinese term minzu has been translated into English as nationality. For example, the name of a university dedicated to ethnic minorities is translated University for Nationalities. Because of its implicit relevance to citizenship, however, the term nationality has been replaced by the term ethnic group in official documents since the mid-1990s.

Besides Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which was established in 1947, China’s other minority autonomous regions are Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, established in 1958; Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, dating from 1955; Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, created in 1958; and Tibet Autonomous Region, formed in 1965.

Additionally, 15 Mongol students at a university for nationalities (including those in the pilot study and interviewed for fieldwork in Beijing), two well-known Mongol scholars, and two government officials were interviewed. The number of interviewees totalled 141.