ABSTRACT
The status of women in Asia is more closely linked to their exercise of power than to their much rarer exercise of authority. Rural women feel competent to hold political or village leadership office and able to solve community problems, feel that they are as "smart" as men, but also that men should lead and women follow. Economic dependence implied inferior status. The rural New Territories of Hong Kong show consistently rising status for young women, based on the availability of jobs, especially in city factories, and an independent income. Women enjoyed relatively high status in early China when it has been assumed that they were food-gatherers and in the early stages of agriculture and pottery-making before the invention of the plough and the potter's wheel gave these tasks to men.
