Women in China make up approximately 49% of the population. In modern China, the lives of women have changed significantly due to the late Qing dynasty reforms, the changes of the Republican period, the Chinese Civil War, and the People's Republic of China. Like women in many other cultures, women in China have been historically oppressed. For thousands of years, women in China lived under the patriarchal social order characterized by the Confucian teaching of "filial piety".

Achievement of women's liberation has been an agenda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the 1949 proclamation of the People's Republic of China. Following the Chinese Communist Revolution, Mao Zedong replaced the common use of the term "女人" [nüren] with "妇女" [funü] as he famously said "妇女能顶半边天" (Women hold up half the sky). "妇女" [funü] is a term for labouring women, which signifies the revolutionary role that women play in the liberation of China. The first celebration of "妇女节" (International Women's Day) in 1950 consolidated the representational strategies associated with the labouring women concept.^{[page needed]}

During the Mao era, many policies were carried out to promote gender equality. The New Marriage Law passed on May 1, 1950, outlawed forced marriage and concubinage. The last few regional practices of foot-binding died out, with the last case of foot-binding reported in 1957. The Great Leap Forward, while focusing on improving total productivity, created work opportunities for women. However, they still remained as peripheral roles and rarely climbed up to positions of decision-making. The representation of women as "iron women" who worked restlessly in workplaces dismissed the unalleviated domestic burden that women were still forced to take and homogenized the individuality of women. Women are systematically underrepresented in Chinese politics.

In contemporary China, although women's rights in China have improved tremendously, women still suffer a lower status compared with men. Under CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, the gains of women have dropped compared to previous leaders. After witnessing growing feminist movements in China, the Chinese government shut down many activist NGOs, detained feminists, and censored feminist platforms. Feminism has increasingly been viewed by many pro-government nationalists as a Western ideology. Xi Jinping has promoted pro-natalist policies and encouraged women to "actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture." Abortion and divorce in China have been increasingly restricted in the 2020s.

Pre-modern Chinese society was predominantly patriarchal and patrilineal from the 11th century B.C. onward. The freedoms and opportunities available to women varied depending on the time period and regional situation. Women's status, like men's, was closely tied to the Chinese kinship system. From the ancient Chinese views, the family structure is the micro-system of the political system. Therefore, loyalty towards the Emperor is the same as the women inside the family who should obey their husbands to fulfilled the rule that had been set up for a long tradition. A prejudiced preference for sons has long existed in China, leading to high rates of female infanticide. There was also a strong tradition of restricting women's freedom of movement, particularly that of upper-class women, which manifested through the practice of foot binding. However, the legal and social status of women has greatly changed in the 20th century, especially in the 1970s, after the one-child and reform and opening up policies were enacted.

Older Chinese traditions surrounding marriage included many ritualistic steps. During the Han dynasty, a marriage lacking a dowry or betrothal gift was seen as dishonorable. Only after gifts were exchanged would a marriage proceed; and the bride would be taken to live in the ancestral home of the new husband. Here, a wife was expected to live with the entirety of her husband's family and to follow all of their rules and beliefs. Many families followed the Confucian teachings regarding honoring their elders. These rituals were passed down from father to son. Official family lists were compiled, containing the names of all the sons and wives. Brides who did not produce a son were written out of family lists. When a husband died, the bride was seen as the property of her spouse's family. Ransoms were set by some brides' families to get their daughters back, though never with her children, who remained with her husband's family.

According to classical patriarchal social mores, women should be quiet in public and not participate in public affairs. In the 1880s and 1890s, both male and female Chinese reformist intellectuals, concerned with the development of China to a modern country, raised feminist issues and gender equality in public debate; schools for girls were founded, a feminist press emerged, and the Foot Emancipation Society and Tian Zu Hui, promoting the abolition of foot binding.

In the late Qing dynasty period, extramarital sex by women and fornication (a label typically used to refer to pre-marital sex) by women were criminalized.