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The Emancipation of Chinese Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Shelah Gilbert Leader
Shelah Gilbert Leader
Affiliation:
State University of New YorkBuffalo
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Extract

Before Mao Tse-tung joined the Communist Party, he had committed himself to the cause of Chinese women. His belief that women constitute one of the most downtrodden social groups persisted throughout the revolutionary struggle for power. He has continued to believe that the emancipation of Chinese women is an important policy issue.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , October 1973 , pp. 55 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1973

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References

1 “Lines written on a picture of the Women's Militia,” Mao Tse-tung, February 1961, in Schram, Stuart, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York 1969), 339Google Scholar.

2 Roxane Witke, “Mao Tse-tung, Women and Suicide in the May Fourth Era,” The China Quarterly, No. 31 (July-September 1967).

3 Mao Tse-tung, “The Great Union of the Popular Masses,” and “Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan,” in Schram (fn. 1), 239-41, 250-59.

4 In addition to the Witke article, there are several articles by Maurice Freedman on changes in marriage customs; for example, “The Family in China, Past and Present” in Feuerwerker, Albert, ed., Modern China (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1964)Google Scholar, and “The Family Under Chinese Communism,” in Political Quarterly, xxxv, No. 3 (1964)Google Scholar. See also Wen-hui, Chen, The Family Revolution in Communist China (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 1955)Google Scholar; Yang, C. K., The Chinese Family in the Communist Revolution (Cambridge, Mass. 1959)Google Scholar; Meijer, Marium J., Marriage Law and Policy in the Chinese People's Republic (Hong Kong 1971)Google Scholar; Weakland, James, “Chinese Film Images of Invasion and Resistance,” China Quarterly, XLVII (July-September 1971)Google Scholar; Kwan, Rebecca, “The Commune, the Family, and the Emancipation of Women,” Contemporary China, iii (1958–1959)Google Scholar; Huang, Lucy, “Some Changing Patterns in the Communist Chinese Family,” Marriage and Family Living, xxiii (May 1961)Google Scholar, and “Re-evaluation of Primary Role of Chinese Communist Women,” ibid., xxv (May 1963); Kan, Aline, “The Marriage Institution in Present-Day China,” China Mainland Review, 1 (December 1965)Google Scholar; C. T. Hsia, “Residual Femininity,” China Quarterly, No. 13 (January-March 1963).

5 See Soong Ching Ling's frank avowal in “Women's Liberation in China,” Peking Review, xv, No. 6 (February 11, 1972)Google Scholar. The Chinese do not have a word for sexism. Rather, they speak of reactionary, feudal, or bourgeois thought and behavior. They also speak of a “big manism mentality” and refer to women's inferiority complexes and passivity. The word sexism is used here to denote a belief in the inherent inferiority of women.

6 Schram (fn. 1), 257.

7 Engels, Friedrich said, “The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife. . . .” Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (New York 1942), 65Google Scholar.

8 “How the Problem of Women Should be Viewed,” Red Flag, No. 20 (October 28, 1964). This theoretical recognition that women do share common interests apart from their class and from men is important and must be recalled in light of the conflict between Mao and Liu Shao-chi; see p. 72.

9 Weakland (fn. 4).

10 Union Research Service, LV (April 4, 1969).

11 Jen Min Jih Pao (hereafter cited as JMJP), editorial, “Educate Rural Women in the Spirit of the General Line of the State” (January 19, 1954).

12 Schram (fn. 1), 338-39.

13 C. K. Yang (fn. 4), 139, quotes a 1937 survey which indicated that women only supplied 16.4% of all farm labor.

14 “Attend Seriously to the Thorough Implementation of the Marriage Law,” JMJP (October 13, 1951).

15 Current Background, No. 136 (November 10, 1951), 4.

16 The divorce rate was given as 186,167 in 1950, 409,500 in 1951, and 823,000 in 1952. These figures are based on available data on marriages terminated by court proceedings. Lucas, Christopher, Women of China (Hong Kong 1965), 71Google Scholar.

17 Meijer (fn. 4), 127.

18 Lucas (fn. 16).

19 As with most Chinese statistics, the reliability of these figures is unknown. It is likely that these statistics (based on field reports) underrepresent the actual toll of victims. Government officials treated these figures as shockingly high, yet it is possible that they are not atypical. We know that suicide was fairly common among women in pre-liberation China. I have been unable to find any subsequent statistics on this subject.

20 “Outline of Propaganda on the Thorough Implementation of the Marriage Law,” published by the National Committee for the Thorough Implementation of the Marriage Law, Current Background (March 10, 1953), 236.

21 People's Daily (November 19, 1953).

22 Ibid. (July 4, 1952).

23 Madian, Marcia D., The Marriage Law of Communist China, 1950-1953, unpub. M.A. thesis (Columbia University 1962), 36Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

25 China News Analysis, xv (December 4, 1953), 6Google Scholar.

26 JMJP (March 20, 1953), 2.

27 Meijer (fn. 4), 303.

28 JMJP, editorial, “Educate Rural Women in the Spirit of the General Line of the State” (January 19, 1954).

29 New China Monthly, No. 10 (October 1955), 18-23.

30 “How Should Family Women Better Serve Socialist Reconstruction,” Hsin Chung-kuo Fu-nu, No. 10 (October 1955), 18-19.

31 JMfP, editorial, “Mobilize all Women to Build up the Country and Manage Family Affairs by Industry and Thrift” (September 9, 1957).

32 People's Daily, editorial (May 16, 1956).

33 Joint Publications Research Service, No. 2608, 63.

34 Ts'ai Ch'ang, “Party's General Line Illuminating the Road of Thorough Emancipation of Women in our Country,” JMJP (October 7, 1959).

35 Quoted by Tsao Kuan-chun, “Further Liberate Women's Labor Capacity and Channel This Force to Building up Socialism in a Better Way,” JMJP (June 2, 1958).

36 Red Flag, No. 5, “People's Commune—A Very Good Device for the Thorough Liberation of Women” (March 1, i960).

37 Ho Ch'eng, “Who Are to Work in Messhalls?” JMJP (November 6, 1958).

38 Hu Chen, “Domestic Labor is Collectivized and Turned into Social Activities,” Red Flag, No. 7 (September 1, 1958).

39 Yang (fn. 4).

40 Hu Chen (fn. 38).

41 “A New Life in a New Era,” JMJP (August 18, 1958).

42 Fan Jo-yu, “Why We Have Abolished the Feudal Patriarchal Family System,” Peking Review (March 8, 1960), 9-12.

43 Tu Ko-fu, “On the Question of Family,” Kirin Jih Pao (January 10, 1959).

44 Ts'ai Ch'ang's Report to Women's Conference, New China News Agency, Peking (December 4, 1958).

45 “Liu Hsiu-lan, A Model of a Miner,” Women of China, No. 5 (May I, 1961).

46 JMJP (March 8, 1962).

47 China News Analysis, No. 423 (June 1, 1962), 6-7; Union Research Service, XXXVII, No. 24 (December 22, 1964), 363-79; Nan-fang Jih-pao, Canton (May 12, 1962); Chung-kuo Ching-nien Pao, Peking (February 12, 1963).

48 Quoted in Meijer (fn. 4), 150.

49 Ibid., 152.

50 “On the Reform of Our Country's System of Marriage and Family,” JMJP (December 13, 1963).

51 Union Research Service, XLIV, No. 23 (September 16, 1966), 342-57.

52 “What Attitude Should a Husband Take Toward His Wife?” JMJP (October 14, 1964).

53 Malraux, André, Anti-Memoirs (New York 1968), 373–74Google Scholar.

54 Union Research Service, LV, NO. 2 (1969), 15.

55 Ibid.

56 “How the Problem of Women Should be Viewed,” Red Flag, No. 20 (October 28, 1964).

57 Union Research Service, XLIII, No. 2 (April 5, 1966), 25.

58 Ibid., LIV, No. 18 (March 4, 1969), 248-49.

59 Ibid., LVIII, No. 19 (March 6, 1970), 267.

60 Ibid., LXI, No. 21 (December II, 1970), 284.

61 JMJP (March 10, 1970).

62 Soong Ching Ling (fn. 5), 7.

63 See chapter entitled “Women” in Chinal Inside the People's Republic, by the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (New York 1972), for examples of sexism. Most striking are incidents at Tachai where women cooked and served meals, but did not join the diners (266-92, and esp. 283).

64 Levy, Howard, Chinese Footbinding: The History of a Curious Erotic Custom (New York 1966)Google Scholar.

65 Engels (fn. 7), 67, 149.

66 “Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (fn. 3), 258-59.

67 C. K. Yang (fn. 4), 18-19.

68 Meijer (fn. 4), 99.

69 Ross Terrill reports that, during his recent visit to China, an official brought up the subject of sex. Terrill quotes the official as saying, “We notice the obsession with sex (in America). It is a sign of a crumbling order. The late Ming period was the same. Sex was everywhere. Soon the dynasty collapsed.” Ross Terrill, “The 800,000,000: China and the World,” Part II, Atlantic Monthly, CCXXIX (January 1972), 62. The implied belief in the link between sexual repression and a dynamic authoritarian state was appreciated by Reich, Wilhelm, The Sexual Revolution (New York 1969)Google Scholar.