Introduction
After reading, analyzing and marking a difference in the topic under consideration in the article “Women’s Organizations and Civil Society in China” by Jude Howell, the question of the role of non – governmental institutions (that still, despite acting apart from the Party-state during the period of reform in China, should be regarded at the beginning of the essay as the structural component of the Chinese Communist Party –CCP) in the development of China, with the regard to its civil society, arises.
Main text
It might be stated that old and stiff gender cultural traditions, as well as economic discrimination, devious and inequality, are the basis of the problem of the interest. It would be relevant to regard the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) that is subject to CCP within this context. It is the officially designed widespread organization that represents and protects women’s interests and rights. However, the given organization’s motive is not a political change. But according to the author of the article under consideration – Jude Howell, it is indeed doubtful that Chinese cultural traditions can be changed easily just by time of occurrence, “even the ACWF faces limitations on the authority that it can exercise over policy or legislative changes” (Howell, 2003, p. 192).
So referring to the article of this scholar, there can be made a suggestion that the women’s organizations in China are actually unable to target and fight the basic issues behind the problem of gender discrimination.
Still, following the development of the non – governmental institutions, like ACWF, within the civil society of China, it is possible to portray the changes in the process of the development of China. Howell studies and analyzes the reasons that caused the creation of women’s organizations; she analyzes the degrees of such organizations’ autonomy and takes these indices as a measure of the development of China’s civil society as a whole.
Thus, author of the given article concludes that “although there are differences between women’s organizations and other social organizations in general, the growth of women’s organizations [mainly in the period of the early 1990s] in both numbers and diversity was not a standalone phenomenon but rather, reflected a widening of “intellectual and organizational space for non-governmental actors” and “different social interests”” (Howell, 2003, pp. 204-6, 208).
Referring to the above-provided information it would be relevant to mention that, in the process of the development of China, within the context of its civil society’s changes, since the second part of 1990’s the ACWF publicly declared itself as a non – governmental organization in order to be legitimized internationally and what is more important to and to distinguish and divide itself from government organs and cooperate with people with the view to “associate beyond the family” (Howell, 2003, p. 192).
As a conclusion, it should be stated that the author regards non – governmental organizations as a means of preventing government to interfere with the violent expectancies in the social affairs of its population. But there also possible the questioning of the Howell’s statement about the majority of women’s organizations among Chinese social organizations, and the totally apolitical position of those organizations as well as their recognition by the government as a trustworthy representative of the entire civil sphere of the Chinese society.
Summary
Another important issue that should be outlined within the problem of our interest is the influence, of the rise of cultural pride and conscious polarity encouraged by the government (with the help of some NGO) against Western values of liberal-democratic order, on the development of China. However, this factor is considered to be hard to control, thus it is indeed difficult to foreknow the degree of its direct influence.
References
Howell, Jude. 2003. “Women’s Organizations and Civil Society in China”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 5:2, 191–215.