ABSTRACT
"Women hold up half the sky" was one of the better known slogans of the Chinese Communist revolution; Chairman Mao himself was frequently quoted as saying "Times have changed. Women in China today are unquestionably more visible and engaged in the political, economic, and social life of the nation-state than they were during the years of the Republic or the previous imperial dynasties of the past two thousand years. Since the late 1970s, China's economy has undergone profound modification. Since the late 1970s, the egalitarianism of the Maoist era has been under strong attack by the state and replaced by praise for individuals or communities that are markedly richer than their neighbors. Since the early 1980s there has been considerable discussion about women's place in modernization and nation building. During the Republican period and early socialist period, new images emerged that seemingly departed from the virtuous wife and good mother model.
