Need a 2,000 - 2,500 word argumentative research paper

To this day, China holds the world’s largest population with 1.42 billion people. The country is known for its rapid growth in size; however, China has probably received more attention on its 1979 one-child policy that was abolished on October 29, 2015. Due to the country’s rapid growth in population, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping mandated that each couple could only have one child. This essay intends to explore how the elimination of the one-child policy advanced gender equity and liberalized views on the “ideal family.” In terms of context, the essay plans to discuss the events leading up to the abolishment of the policy.

In order to effectively discuss the elimination of the one-child policy, this essay will need to introduce the reasons behind implementing the law back in 1979. With the help of my sources, the essay will be able to address the government’s main goal in its policy and why it was deemed necessary for the country. In addition, the paper will aim to address the effects of the policy on females. Mothers suffered greatly and became victims of discrimination. The government mandated IUD and sterilization programs for women after giving birth. Furthermore, statistics prove to show the policy led to sex selective abortions and abandonment of many children, which were predominantly girls. It was common for a family to prefer a son, which leads the essay to examining stories on the 100,000 children adopted from China in the 1990s, such as Ricki Mudd. In order to argue that the 2015 elimination advanced women’s and girls’ place in Chinese society, I will first need to illustrate how the policy lowered their status and limited their human rights. Furthermore, the paper will have to study advancements in gender equity in China to get a clear grasp of what it was like as a woman or a girl before the policy, during the policy, and after the elimination of the policy. When the policy was abolished in 2015, this accelerated the movement towards gender equity. Studies have found that women accounted for 52% of undergraduates, which increased the chances of career advancements for women. This is just a taste of what it was like after the abolishment of the policy. I plan to dive deeper into how the ending of the policy demonstrates progress for gender equity.

Course materials will be used to support how culture and traditions affect women’s role in society. The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective will be of use when discussing China’s known sex selective abortions. Another example would be from the United Nations’ convention. In part three of the convention, it outlines special protections for rural women and the problems they face, and interestingly enough, this connects to the area the essay plans to explore on all the children who were abandoned in rural areas of China. Also, I plan to explore The Essential Feminist Reader’s table of contents to locate essays written by women in China about their life.

In conclusion, the essay intends to answer how the eradication of the 1979 one-child policy advanced gender equity and loosen the ideal views on family. To reiterate, this essay intends to portray how eliminating the policy is a step towards eliminating the idea that men’s and boys’ lives are more valuable than women’s and girls’ lives. Explaining the problems created by the policy is evidence on why the policy’s elimination is a struggle to end sexist oppression. Researching China’s one-child policy is important when it comes to feminism because not only is gender equity a struggle nationally, it’s also a challenge internationally.

Annotated Bibliography

Carrie, Liu C. "Investing in the Future: The One Child Policy and Reform." Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, vol. 29, no. 3, 2007, pp. 365-393. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.depaul.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/213895321?accountid=10477, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15544770802206077.

Carrie examines the benefits and the negative effects on women after the lifting of the one-child policy. This journal will be used in helping me illustrate how the ending of the one-child policy advanced gender equity and loosen the ideal views on family.

Cullingford, Elizabeth. “Abortion and the Environment: China’s One-Child Policy in Mo Yan’s Frog and Ma Jian’s The Dark Road.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, vol. 45, no. 1, Oct. 2019, pp. 75–99. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1086/703635.

Cullingford describes China’s one-child policy as an “indefensible violation of women’s human rights.” To help her main point, Cullingford includes two high-profile Chinese novels that describes the one-child policy and its connection to coerced late-term abortions. I will use this source on how the one-child policy affected women’s human rights and how this event impacted our current state of gender equity internationally. This source also guided me to two primary sources, which are books. The novels are called “Frog” by Mo Yan and “The Dark Road” by Ma Jian.