Divorce Litigation and Gender Inequality in Rural China

• In Event: 424 - Regular Session. Law and Society I - When Reforms Meet Routines

Abstract

How do women fare as they embark on a journey in search of justice? What shapes their experiences of legal mobilization? Do they come out ahead in courtroom battles or not? Through a multi-method study of divorce litigation in rural China, I show that court decisions generate highly unequal outcomes for women and men. Taking litigation outcomes as a point of departure, I then travel upstream to examine dispute processing conducted by the legal profession. I find that, in everyday divorce law practice, legal professionals routinely dismiss and violate women’s spousal, custodial, and property rights. Consequently, women’s marital grievances and rights claims fall through the cracks long before they can make way into court proceedings. By illuminating the gender disparities in dispute processing and litigation outcomes, this study foregrounds the process whereby legal mobilization engenders inequality between women and men. It also exposes a great irony in contemporary China: as women turn to law in hopes of obtaining redress, the legal profession and the court system reinforce their subordination at home and in society at large.

Author

• Ke Li, Indiana University-Bloomington