Pathways to Safeguarding Women’s Rights Under the Patriarchal Ideology in Impoverished Areas: A Discourse on Substantive Equality Versus Equality of Opportunity

Abstract

Patriarchal ideology, as a deep-rooted social and cultural phenomenon in contiguous poverty-stricken areas, remote rural areas with low economic development and weak public service capacity in China (hereinafter referred to as “impoverished areas”), has become a core obstacle to the realization of women’s political rights, leading to a more severe gender imbalance in the political power structure of these regions compared with other areas. Formal equality of opportunity in the legal sense has failed to effectively break the practical predicament of women’s political marginalization in impoverished areas. Taking the women’s political quota system as the research core, this paper focuses on the theoretical controversy between substantive equality and equality of opportunity, specifically analyzes how patriarchal ideology restricts women’s political participation in impoverished areas through family role binding, resource allocation bias and social cognitive stereotypes, combs the global status quo of gender imbalance in the political power system and the supporting role of global quota system research for this paper’s argument, analyzes the realistic characteristics and special dilemmas of women’s political rights protection under the dual constraints of poverty and patriarchal ideology, and explores the practical value of the quota system in safeguarding women’s political rights in impoverished areas. Based on the experience of the European Union in improving the quota system mechanism, the paper puts forward specific and operable targeted paths for optimizing the women’s political rights protection system in impoverished areas. The study holds that in the context where patriarchal ideology in impoverished areas cannot be fundamentally changed in the short term, the quota system, as a practical carrier of substantive equality, is an essential and feasible means to correct systemic gender discrimination and guarantee women’s equal participation in politics. Only through localized institutional design, strict implementation mechanisms and multi-dimensional supporting measures can we promote the transformation of women’s political participation in impoverished areas from formal equality to substantive equality, and truly realize the effective safeguarding of women’s political rights.