Is China’s party newspaper carrying more stories highlighting women’s role as mothers?

“Women hold up half the sky.” This iconic quote attributed to Mao Zedong has been central to Beijing’s messaging about gender equality for decades. It was not just a slogan. After the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the Communist Party passed a Marriage Law that banned arranged marriages, abolished foot-binding and encouraged women to enter education and the workplace. But the party’s stance on where women belong has shifted over the decades, according to a new study. To gauge the...

By Phoebe Zhang