When we think of full-time mothers, we think of Gu Jia in “Thirty Only”, Kim Ji Young in “Kim Ji Young Born in 82”, and the “Shunyi Mom” and “Haidian Mom” in Beijing. Haidian Moms” in Beijing. We are talking about the unpaid labor that is divided into the private sphere – housework – and about unseen women and their needs – women who are expected to make the home a sanctuary of peace and rest for everyone but themselves.
But when we look to the urban fringe, to the rural areas, to the deeper depths of the great Sichuan mountains and coastal rice paddies further afield. This relationship of exploitation becomes more complex when gender narratives are mixed with urban-rural exploitation, class and geographical differences, and systemic inequalities. We must admit that rural full-time mothers are destined to be more helpless, more vulnerable, and less able to escape the dark and unproductive isolation than their urban counterparts.
So when Zhang Guimei, the principal of Lijiang Huaping Girls’ High School, refused to let the “full-time wife” student return to the school to make a donation, scolding her to In addition to objecting to Zhang’s neglect of the contribution and value of housewives, we need to understand her anger. To dispel the fog of “silencing” and “masking It is time to look at the fog of “silencing” and “obscuring” together: what it means to be a “full-time mother” in rural areas. What does it mean to be a “full-time mother” in the countryside?
One
Suixi County, Zhanjiang, in southwestern Guangdong, is a “backyard of Zhanjiang city” with ample rainfall and year-round wetness. In Suixi’s Lingbei town, the growth trajectory of different fruits divides A Yun’s calendar: sainted fruit is planted in September, dragon fruit is sifted and picked in October, strawberries are plucked in November, and the sweet fragrance of red fruits comforts A Yun as she works through autumn and winter.
In September, before the autumn sowing of sainfoin, the ground needed to be prepared. When it was slightly light, Yun and her husband had already driven the “four unlike” (four-wheeled tractor) filled with a cart of organic fertilizer into the field. A Yun wore a pink apron with cooking, wearing the same old pink cuffs and gloves, a pair of black paddy boots on the soles of her feet, and a straw hat on her head, and a shovel and a shovel to pour the organic fertilizer into the field.
By the time it was light, Yun’s hair under the straw hat had been wet with sweat, a wisp on the cheek. When doing farm work the least mustard is the sun and dirty, she took off her apron and straw hat, wearing only a black short-sleeved, the tools in her hand from the shovel to the hoe. The sun was fierce and the light cut the four acres of land under her feet into two parts: shade and sunshine. A Yun’s children have already woken up and run to play in the field, two children, one 5 years old and one 2 years old, jumping around with a small shovel in the shade to shovel the ground to play. Standing in the light, with crossed straps across her chest, Yun is slightly hunched over, repeating the hoeing motion, carrying her youngest daughter, who is only 5 months old, on her back.
After plowing the seedbed, the sun began to slant in the west. Sunny afternoons are a good time to set up the monopoly, pull the drip tube, apply the film, keep an eye on the two playing children, and coax the crying child in her arms. Ah Yun did not stay idle for a moment. All the mulch is laid, the cloud finally brought a wind, a full day of sweat has been cool, A Yun wipe clean face for a pink short-sleeved, in the sunset a long breath of relief, “the next step can be planted sage fruit. “
In China, with a large number of male farmers in the countryside going out to work, most of the farmland is now cultivated by women. Data show that rural women like Yun make up 65 percent of the total rural workforce. In the agricultural areas of modern society, the gender division of labor is no longer limited to the traditional model of “male heads of household and female heads of household,” but in addition to the traditional division of labor for reproduction within the family, women are also responsible for In addition to the traditional division of labor within the family and the unpaid domestic work similar to that of full-time urban mothers, rural women must assume the productive functions of the family and participate in social production work. Taking care of the family’s 4 mu of sage fruits, 10 mu of strawberries, and the 40 mu of dragon fruit forest that she borrowed money to invest in, is a burden that Yun cannot avoid.
It rains a lot in Suixi, and after the rain, the mud sticks thickly into a block, so you can’t use machines, you can only start the monopoly manually. After the strawberries were planted, they needed dry fertilizer, so Yun carried a small bucket with one hand and took out a handful of dry fertilizer from the bucket with the other hand and put it evenly on each strawberry. Walking from one end of the field to the other, her bent back was already sore and her knees trembled when she stood up straight. When pulling weeds, she always squatted, and Yun turned the child behind her to her chest and held it on her lap, shaking her legs while pulling weeds, humming intermittently.
Farming is very tiring, but Yun can’t say which is more tiring, farming or housework. In a year, 12 months of Ah Yun’s life are crossed by the farming time steep of fruit growing and picking. Every day, the endless housework runs through Yun’s days and nights.
Every day at 6:30 a.m., Yun wakes up, takes her 8-year-old daughter to school in town, and then returns to start her busy day. After washing clothes, drying clothes, going to work in the fields after drying clothes, and coming back to make lunch for the family. Sometimes the children have to be picked up from school before the meal at hand is finished. When the meal is served, feed the younger children to finish eating, A Yun can not care about their own mouth, they have to put the children to nap again. Then she washes the dishes, feeds the dogs and chickens, takes her eldest daughter to school at 2 p.m., and returns to the field to tie the branches of the sage fruit. When the light fades through the leaves, Yun knows it’s time to go home and make dinner.
No matter what she was doing, fertilizing or drying clothes, no matter where she was, in the cramped, dimly lit kitchen or the wide, bright orchard, Yun’s feet were surrounded by her two-year-old baby, always with a carrier wrapped around her chest and a baby who only swayed and cried in it.
Perhaps what is more difficult is not the exhaustion and suffering. A Yun said that sometimes the food is not well done, will be nagged by the family a few times. The child is hungry, go to the mother, the child is sick, it is the mother’s care is not good. The food is not good, it’s mom’s fault, the floor is not clean, it’s mom is too lazy.
When Yun talks about this, her tone is so flat that she seems to be telling someone else’s story, “I believe that most rural mothers are like this, no friends, no holidays, and no wages, day after day, year after year. What’s worse is that your husband and mother-in-law think you are at home to enjoy the blessings, that the rice will cook by itself, that the floor will be clean by itself, that the children will grow up by themselves. “
Two
A Yun is a native of Suixi Lingbei town. The family of six children, A Yun the youngest, up are five sisters and one brother. The oldest elder sister and A Yun 12 years apart, A Yun was brought up by the eldest sister. This is a family bent on having more boys. The parents worry about their livelihood and regret the gender of their sisters and Ah Yun, and have neither the heart nor the ability to give more attention to their daughters.
Yun is smart, silent, and accepts this regret early on, naturally feeling inferior for her gender. Gender pressure and a sense of predation existed in a very light way, and from the age of eight, Yun began to help out around the house: cutting rice, pulling weeds, washing vegetables and peeling beans, washing dishes, sweeping the floor …… and doing everything. Keeping a distant distance from her parents, she did not dare to pamper herself or make any demands, and grew up in this way in a good manner.
From childhood to junior high school dropout and leave home, A Yun did not experience any explicit violence or abuse, and certainly did not perceive any definite affection. Because he was not a good student, he felt even more guilty at home, and showing happiness or carefree would seem shameless. At home, Yun hardly said a word, but repeatedly decided in his heart that he must leave home.
At the age of 15, Ah Yun followed her second sister to Foshan to work as an apprentice in a beauty salon. After two years of learning, began to work officially.
Beauticians focus on skin care and wellness, A Yun’s skin has the meticulous southern girls, almost invisible pores. Moisturizing lotion, essence, cream, not much expensive skin care products, but bottles and jars were cherished on the table, and none of the complicated process would be missing when skin care at night. During the daytime, Yun will put on some light makeup, draw a slightly raised eyebrow along the brow bone, draw a thin eyeliner along the introverted single eyelid, light up the sleeping silkworms with bright eye shadow, then curl the eyelashes and apply a coral lip gloss. Dyeing her hair burgundy, Yun looks spirited, beautiful and innocent-eyed. “There’s no woman who doesn’t love to look pretty. ” Yun said.
Yun is 30 years old. life before the age of 22 is a blank slate of deliberate forgetfulness for Yun. She does not remember when she first arrived in Foshan, the city to what face to unfold to themselves, and forget whether they are tweedy, do not remember working in a beauty salon, whether they have expectations of a new life. Ah Yun fell in love twice, perhaps avoiding, perhaps too tired to think more, Ah Yun said, forgetting what they are like, but also forget the reason for separation.
At the age of 22, Ah Yun met her husband through a blind date. A Yun thought he looked okay, and his family conditions were better than their own, so they got together. Three months later, they registered their marriage at the Civil Affairs Bureau. Without a white wedding dress and even a modest wedding, Ah Yun moved into her husband’s home, lived with his parents and brother and sister-in-law, and became his wife. Then came a quick pregnancy and the birth of his first daughter.
Time is a straight line forward, A Yun did runaway daughter, about Foshan, her taste buds are clearer than her brain, she remembers a small store beef stew tasted fresh and delicious. Time is again a reincarnation, after seven years away from home, Ah Yun returned to Lingbei town, gave birth to four children, and became a wife and mother who could not escape.
Skincare and cosmetics are both expensive and useless. I can’t remember how long I’ve been without skin care, the face wash on the table has expired, skin care products have fallen into a layer of dust, and cosmetics have long since become dry and hard. Some of the expired things Ah Yun threw away, some can not throw, put slowly sealed dust. Since the beginning of winter, the weather is gradually dry and cold, sometimes, Ah Yun will apply some children’s baby cream.
Every second, fifth and eighth day of the lunar calendar, is the town’s market day, the temporary tents set up on both sides of the trail, is a small store selling clothes. A Yun will take advantage of this time to flow among them, to buy themselves some new clothes. A Yun will not be spirited bargaining, a pink long-sleeved price of 35, A Yun carefully asked the boss’s wife, 25 line, the boss said not even into the boss, and finally did not talk. After much hesitation, she selected an orange hoodie with sequined letters, a blue long sleeve, a pink sweater, and two dark jeans. She took it off the hanger, folded it up and put it on a stool, put it back again, and repeated it several times, with Yun muttering, “You don’t even give me a bargain,” but finally The five pieces of clothing cost 165 dollars. These five pieces of clothing, cost 165 yuan.
The decision to buy a cell phone, or a washing machine or other home appliance can still be made by Ayun for 165 yuan, but Ayun must go through her husband’s consent. She does not have her own separate bank account, and she is not the owner of the land under her feet where she works all day long.
An old villager who watched a video of Ayun buying clothes at the market said to Ayun, “The clothes I wear are work clothes, worn and old. “I work all the time in the fields, so my clothes are dirty too,” said Ah Yun. “Ah Yun said, full of apologies like.
Three
For the most part, Ah Yun is gentle, sympathetic and understanding. Sometimes after picking dragon fruit overnight with her husband, watching his back as he pulled a cart of fruit and rode away, a sourness welled up in her heart. On this day, her husband came out to work at five in the morning and did not return home at 12 at night. Yun posted a photo of her husband’s hands on her social media platform. Because of years of farming, her husband’s skin is rough and gray, which cannot be washed away.
A Yun said, “This is probably the reason why I didn’t even ask for the bride price to be with him. Although he has no money now, but he is willing to fight for the future life, it is enough. “
The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public. Except I want you, no one will want you! “A Yun told the cause of things: the morning farm work, a child crying, she hurriedly put down the work at hand to coax the child, this moment was seen by her husband, and then is the head of the accusation. “You are lazy over there and don’t go to work. The grass is growing taller than a man! “
After a day of back-breaking work, she was ridiculed for “not doing anything and being lazy”. “The child does not need to be coaxed? When she cries, let her cry to death! Work, I work every day, and take care of the children and laundry and cooking, you have said a hard! I just sat down and said I was lazy, robots also need to charge ah …… Moreover, I am a human being. “
The breakdown was followed by aggravation, followed by self-loathing and doubt. These words, Ayun no way to tell others. In July this year, A Yun in today’s headlines secretly registered an account in a corner of the network world belonging to their own, A Yun asked, “headline friends, I really so bad? “
In the comments, a netizen named “home is the base of education” replied: bear with it, married such a husband, for the sake of the children we women are aggravated themselves. Find a way to go to work when the child is older, to make money on their own, even if only 2000 or 3000 per month, at least live a hard life. Yun replied to her, “the child is still too small, and so the child is bigger first. “
There are also netizens to Ayun trick, “the more virtuous and capable the more everything let you do, but also feel that not good enough to do not enough, everywhere dislike. A little more aggressive, and then scold him, he certainly do not dare to put a fart. “A Yun said,” Yes, my character is too weak. “
As a daughter of the countryside, A Yun’s future other half is not much romantic dream imagination, “I want to marry a good family conditions. But after becoming a wife and a mother, Ah Yun could not avoid suffering from everything in the family: domestic work, emotional work, leaving the workplace, raising children, caring for the elderly, and the violence that could come at any time within the family.
The importance of women’s work was articulated by Beauvoir, who believed that no matter how demanding and exhausting women’s work was, it still opened up possibilities for women’s development. By stepping out of the home and working alongside men, a woman “regains her transcendence”: she “concretely affirms her status as a subject, she is the one who actively charts the voyage of her destiny”.
The child is still too young, so let’s wait until the child is older. “Yun knows she needs to enter the workplace, but she doesn’t know if the day she can finally go out and work will come in the future. Under the traditional division of parenting, women leave the workplace to nurse their babies, sacrificing the wages they should be earning while paying for their parenting labor. A direct consequence of this parenting responsibility is that it makes Yun, and many more full-time mothers, a marginal figure in the labor market.
“If you had continued to work in the beauty salon, would you have stayed in Foshan now? ” Such a question is too sharp for A Yun, who replied with a faint, “There is no if. “
Four
Yun was born into a poor family, deprived of both educational opportunities and the will to learn. The book “Female Poverty,” produced by the NHK TV special report team in Japan, refers to the “intergenerational transmission of poverty” and “solidification of poverty”. The problem of female poverty has existed since the time when women did not move into society. For a long time this situation was not taken seriously. This is because it was generally believed that even if wages were low and life was hard, this was only temporary until marriage. Sooner or later, women would get married, return to their families, and not have to earn their own money to support themselves.
But now, gender inequality in the public and domestic spheres is increasing, and the distribution of wealth and economic resources is increasingly skewed in favor of men. Social stratification is solidifying, and women’s poverty is creeping in. Focusing on rural areas, rural women like Ah Yun are at a disadvantage in terms of education, land and property ownership, and political participation, and the feminization of poverty and feminization of poverty in rural areas is becoming increasingly prominent and serious.
As a daughter growing up in a family with 1 son and 5 daughters, Yun becomes the mother of 1 son and 3 daughters. In some huge black clock, the endless past and the future are coiled invisibly in its internal mechanism, and Yun, like a drop of water, cannot escape and has no choice, falls into this fate.
Yun labors hopefully and anxiously under the weight of sorrow, anxious for her daughters.
The eldest daughter is naughty and wild like a boy, and on nights when she tutors her children on homework, Yun is so angry that she gets a stomachache, “I’m going to die of anger. She’s in second grade and she doesn’t know how to do phonics! She scored only 38 on the last test! She refuses to learn what she can’t teach and never takes the initiative to learn! Every time she is coerced, she refuses to learn. Whenever she goes on vacation, she is like a cow! Catching bugs, catching fish, not a girl! What can not do anything, eat what is not left. To you, I have to live a few years less. “
After losing her temper, her heart was filled with regret, and Yun apologized to her daughter and secretly blamed herself. Having become a mother in ignorance at the age of 22, Yun felt that she did not know how to love people at that time and felt guilty about her eldest daughter. Now, when she looks at her little girl in her arms, Yun can’t help but feel the softness of love slowly overflowing and flowing. She whispers to her, saying to her so many things, “Mommy loves you so much. Mommy loves to kiss you. “The little baby in her arms had clear eyes and seemed to feel safe in love.
What Yun can do is not let her child see her crying or arguing with her husband. “I was also lack of love as a child, so I don’t want my children to be lack of love too, I want them to know that mommy loves them very much. “
Sometimes, her eldest daughter would help Ah Yun pull weeds in the strawberry patch. Yun complimented her, “Sister, with you helping my mother to work becomes fast eh. The daughter pulled the weeds sharply and smiled shyly at the compliment. “Are you tired of working? Yun asked her, “Tired of working or tired of going to school? “”School is not tired. “, “Then do you like to work or go to school? “, my daughter did not stop pulling weeds, smiled and said, “like to go to school. ” and then covered her face in embarrassment.
A Yun said she was relieved to hear her daughter say she likes to read and learn knowledge. “I work hard now, just don’t want them to do farm work later. “
Yun remembers that when she was a child, she would pass a eucalyptus forest on her way to school. The eucalyptus trees were tall and leafy, their roots were gnarled, the sound of wind and rain was hidden in them, and danger was panting along with transpiration. Adults always said that there were bad people in the woods, traffickers and people who dug up children’s organs to sell. Whenever he passed through these woods, Yun rode his bike as fast as he could, fearing that at some point, bad people would rush out of the dark, dense forest.
Now, this fear, projected distantly from years ago, still exists without being soothed. In October, typhoon “rainbow” landed in Zhanjiang, and Suixi was affected by the typhoon, with heavy rain. The rain was so heavy that it lifted the mulch of the orchard, washed away the watering pipes and brackets, and flooded the fields with rivers of rainwater, which wasted months of busy work. A Yun stood barefoot in the field, the water flowing over her calves and still continuing to flow. Yun was drenched by the pouring rain, feeling the utter sadness and irreparable loss.
It would have to be done again. When the rain falls, the soil will become dry again. sainfoin will be planted in September, dragon fruit will be sifted and picked in October, and now it is November, and strawberries will be plucked from the leaves. two months later, strawberries will be ripe, and Ah Yun will reap a sweet harvest. Ah Yun said that after two more months of busy work, she will go to the town of Chengyue to sell strawberries.
Recent Comments