Visiting Scholar Delivers Lecture on the Evolution of Legal Rights of Women in China
October 7, 2016
On September 14, 2016, Professor Yan Na Liu from the Faculty of Humanities and Law
of Yanshan University, in Qinhuangdao, China, delivered a lecture entitled “Women
in Chinese Traditional Legal Culture.” The lunchtime event was jointly sponsored by
the Asian Studies Institute of The University of Toledo and Toledo Law’s International
Law Society. This is the second year in a row in which the College of Law has hosted
a speaker on the Chinese legal system.
Professor Liu described an arc of progress from the extremely limited legal rights of women in imperial China to emerging gender equality under the basic law of modern China. She noted that Article 48 of the 1982 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China provides that “women ... enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life, in political, economic, cultural, social and family life.” Professor Liu personalized her remarks by recounting several anecdotes regarding married life in modern China and the role of a working wife in a two-career couple to demonstrate the changes in Chinese family life.
Yanshan University and The University of Toledo have a long history of educational exchange. Also, the cities of Toledo and Qinhuangdao have a sister city relationship.