集体化时期“男女同工同酬”的制度化:基于田野调查的再认识

The Institution of “Equal Pay for Equal Work between Men and Women” in the Period of Collectivization of China (1953-1983):A New Understanding Based on Historical Research

“男女同工同酬”作为集体化时期保障妇女经济权利最重要的制度安排,在实践中演变为“不同工不同酬”“同工且同酬”以及“同工不同酬”。既有研究忽略了相互矛盾的现象实际上是同一制度、相同逻辑使然。本研究基于湖北省中部开展的历史田野调查,尝试从“制度化”的过程视角对这段历史展开新的认识和解释。研究发现:“男女同工同酬”在借助既有文化和政治结构实现制度化的同时,也使自身陷入“平等与差异”困境,在推进男女平等的同时又固化了性别差异。与此同时,底层民众基于对公平的朴素理解,通过建立“公平—平等”内在联系、共享“公平”的内在逻辑,探索出既能激发妇女劳动热情又能平息性别争论的本土方案。因此,主导集体化时期劳动与分配的实际规则是生产效率与“性别公平”。通过“公平—平等”的路径推进性别维度的现代化虽然曲折,但在中国具有延绵持久的文化根基,同时也能对接现代社会的正义原则,这段历史为我们积蓄了实践经验并打开了进一步思考的空间。

As the most important Chinese institutional arrangement to guarantee women’s economic rights during the collectivization period(1953-1982),“equal pay for equal work” evolved in practice into “different pay for different work”,“equal pay for equal work”,and “different pay for equal work”.What existing research has ignored is that the apparent contradictory phenomenon was actually caused by the same institution and the same concern.Based on a historical field investigation conducted in central Hubei Province, this study attempts to provide a new understanding and explanation of this history from an institutionalization perspective.The study finds that the institutionalization of “equal pay for equal work”,while it gained legitimacy through existing cultural and political recognition, had also put itself in a dilemma of “equality and difference”.This reinforced gender differences while it was believed that the policy was to promote gender equality.At the same time, based on a simple understanding of fairness, people at the bottom of society explored local solutions that could both motivate women’s labor and calm gender debates through establishing an inherent link between “equity and fairness” and sharing it among them.Thus, the actual rules that governed labor and distribution during the collectivization period were efficiency and “gender fairness”.This pathway of “fairness-equality”,with which to advance the gender dimension of modernization, though tortuous, does have deep cultural roots in China and may indeed be bridged with the modern rules of justice.This historical research has provided us with practical experience and room for further reflections.