ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the geographical characteristics of major reforms to show how, as development strategies, the reforms have borne gendered values and produced gendered results. It serves dual functions: an analysis of the geographical characteristics of the gendered reform process, and an argument for including gender analysis as a regular component of geographical research on China under reform. Changes in social and economic conditions as a result of reform–including population growth, household formation, education, migration, agricultural production, and manufacturing labor—have affected men and women differently all across China. In the theoretical terms of gender analysis, the reform policies promoting industrialization represent what Elson terms "male bias in the development process," which "operates in favor of men as a gender, and against women as a gender". China's open-door policy laid the foundation for the industrialization drive in export-oriented development and its reliance on a strong manufacturing sector and low-wage labor to produce consumer goods for the world market.
