Methods Of Women’S Emancipation In The PRC
This paper seeks to examine the status of women in the People’s Republic of China during the Mao era. It examines their role in the revolutionary nation building, and asks what did the revolution do for them? The emancipation of women is linked to Marxist and Leninist ideology, and therefore it became a part of the national agenda during the establishment of the People’s Republic, as the equal rights of men and women were enshrined in the new constitution. The paper reflects on the status of women by considering the women’s experiences during the Mao period with the introduction of the 1950 Marriage Law, the work of the All-China Women’s Federation, and the idealized sartorial landscape of the time. In order to address the issue of women’s exploitation and subordination, the government incorporated women’s rights and equality in the new legal codes of China. The 1950 Marriage Law outlawed the abuse of women, reduced the power of male family members to control their movement in marriage, and allowed divorce under certain specified conditions. The Marriage Law also “abolished feudal marriage and marriage by purchase and established freedom of choice as a fundamental principle” (Hershatter, 2004, p. 999). The law furthermore set a minimum marriage age in order to curb child marriage.
As such, the marriage reform transferred decision making power over women’s bodies from the older to the younger generation, since marriage was traditionally organized by the parents rather than by a person’s individual choice. There was a definite resistance to the Marriage Law from rural parents and prospective parents-in-law, as they were disinclined to lose their investment in obtaining a wife through divorce. As a result, the initial extensive publicity given to the Marriage Law was halted as party officials refrained from enforcing the law due to fears of instigating conflict with the rural community during a critical time of land reform and collectivization. The state was therefore inconsistent with implementation of the law, as even local cadres resisted it. Moreover, while the Marriage Law was intended as a method of liberating women, many Communist women feared that the clause stipulating ease of divorce, because “freedom of divorce was more likely to benefit men with power and money and place divorced women in a predicament” (Zheng, 2010, p. 840). During the collective period, marriage was further affected by marriage migration, as it became a method of improving one’s political and social socioeconomic standing. Collectivized units were generally “comprised of groups of male relatives and their households, reconstituting lineage ties and making it difficult for women to attain positions of responsibility” (Hershatter, 2004, p. 1002). Primary kin groups retained a great deal of control over rural marriage negotiations, which placed considerable constraints on women’s ability to develop political and social networks that would support them in leadership roles (Hershatter, 2004, p. 997).
This in turn made the possession of a coveted urban residence permit a method of upward mobility for rural women to leave. In addition, the Marriage Law concerned itself with the question of land and property inheritance. Women became equally entitled to family property, but since women tended to marry out of the family, and the control of a family’s landholdings remained with the male heads of the household, in practice the inheritance generally went to the sons. Furthermore, women who attempted to claim their land following a divorce were often met with violence (Hershatter, 2004, p. 1004). The Marriage Law also emphasized the prohibition on infanticide, specifically female infanticide being the main issue addressed. Peasants had practical reasons to value sons over daughters, who would eventually leave the family and community during marriage. Census data indicate that female infanticide and neglect decreased in the early years of the PRC (Hershatter, 2004, p. 1004). Another method of attempting to liberate women was the “later, longer, fewer” campaign in the early 1970s, which encouraged later marriages, longer gaps between childbirths, and fewer children through contraception.
However, the main method by which the emancipation of women was to be implemented was through the participation of women in social production. This meant providing opportunities for women outside the home, with women entering professions which were previously regarded as male jobs. The main prognosis of the CCP was that by having woman continue to enter the labour force, they would subsequently be granted economic independence, and therefore gain power and authority in the public and private spheres of society. Yet this was not immediately observed as the conception of women’s inferiority to men (present among both men and women) was still prominent in Chinese society. Gender-specific policies had to continue to campaign for the establishment of a new ideology of gender equality in opposition to the Confucian and feudal ideas of male supremacy over subordinate women (Croll, 1983, p. 3). Slogans such as “Women hold up half of the sky” and Mao’s remark that “Times have changed. Whatever men comrades can do, woman comrades can do” while promoting women’s equality still rested on male achievements as the norm in the revolutionary models, with women being able to attain it by exhibiting revolutionary zeal. Women’s domestic labour and role as housewife were not a glorified revolutionary roles as it was not participating in socialist construction. The modern woman was to measure the importance of her role in society through her production, not reproduction. (Hershatter, 2004, p. 1013).
During the Mao era, women perceived their overall situation to have been improved by the Communist government, as prior to 1949 there were customs and practices which severely penalized women, while with the availability of the new laws which emphasized their rights and equality women were able to enter a new range of employment opportunities. The number of women in political and decision making bodies increased, yet women in positions of responsibility continued to suffer shortcomings in achieving their goals, and overcoming beliefs in male superiority (Croll, 1983, p. 5). Furthermore, the traditional division of labour continued to prevail in the sphere of production. Women were often limited to tasks which reflected women’s traditional nurturing roles and utilized their domestic skills, as opposed to more specialized or higher skilled work. The wages were also unequal, as women tended to be evaluated towards the lower end of the wage scales (Croll, 1983). In instances of equal pay for equal work, women still did not necessarily have equal prospects for promotion, as men were recommended for more prestigious high-paying state sector positions. Women earned fewer work-points than men, which contributed to low moral, and limited workforce participation.
In addition, the work-points were allocated to households, and not individuals (Hershatter, 2004, p. 1022), which played into households preferring sons over daughters, as their labour would not produce the same amount of work-points, and it also meant that women did not necessarily have full control over their work-points in a household. The persistence of gendered division of labour was explained by the Chinese government as due to the backwardness of rural women in adopting new ways, as they continued to embrace conservatism and Confucian ideology. While the government called upon women to contribute their labour to socialist production, women continued to also be expected to be responsible for domestic labour, which was unrewarded. Therefore women had to choose between often conflicting responsibilities of housework and childcare, and production. Croll (1983) argues that the issue was exacerbated by State policies, which prioritized increasing industrial production over economic sectors which could have lightened women’s burden in employment, such as labour-saving machines. The government did invest in collective canteens, and childcare, which could be considered as labour-saving, but those undertakings later proved to be disastrously flawed. For example, it became obvious to the leadership of the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) that “despite the addition of dining halls and childcare, the health of women and children was severely compromised by excessive demands being made of women…as a result of overwork and malnourishment” (Manning, 2006, p. 579). The ACWF was established in 1949 with a mission “to represent and safeguard the rights and interests of women and promote gender equality” (Cheng, 2009, p. 27), with an administrative structure which parallels the PRC’s political administrative divisions.
In 1958, senior ACWF leaders were deeply alarmed when local leaders began to disband or amalgamate grassroots women’s organizations at the county level and below. The ACWF believed that the grassroots organizations were essential as they were necessary autonomous organizations dedicated to the mobilization of women, in order to realize Marxist maternalist objectives. Shi Jian, a former chair of the Jiangsu Women’s Federation, condemned the amalgamation of the provincial Women’s Federation with the labour department and the workers’ union into one ministry at the time. Shi “argued that the communization movement severely compromised the effectiveness of the ACWF by reducing its numbers and curtailing its independence”, which damaged production and compromised the health of women and children (Manning, 2006, p. 580). Yet the hardships endured by women during the Cultural Revolution were viewed in a more positive light by some local officials as they highlighted the raised level of women’s ideological education, which justified their hardships with the accomplishments of the Leap outweighing the losses. This exhibits that the preconditions identified as necessary for women’s liberation by the ACWF and local leaders were different, as Shi Jian attributed it to an ideological division at the apex of the party (Manning, 2006, p. 581).
Therefore there was a conflict in the understanding of women’s liberation which interacted with the revolutionary discourse of struggle and sacrifice at the time. The status of women in Mao’s China can be further analyzed through examining the sartorial landscape of the era. The Mao suits of navy blue, khaki green, or grey are often associated with images of the masses at the time. It was an idealized dress presented by the CCP, which was often used in propaganda materials to depict various societal strata, such as peasant, worker, and soldier. These institutionalized categories were to promote the ideal clothing models of the new society as it undertook the national revolutionary project. The uniformity of the clothes and their subdued colours represented an imagined social homogeneity, with virtually no differentiation by class, gender, or age (Chen, 2001, p. 143). The CCP regarded fashion as bourgeois in origin, and therefore the uniform and subdued clothing were supposed to represent the redressing of the nation from oppression, feudalism, imperialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and revisionism (Chen, 2001, p. 146). The above-mentioned situation was not always the case in Communist China. During the initial years of the founding of the PRC. Printed, embroidered and colourful clothing were often associated with the peasantry, who, while celebrated by the CCP, were also regarded as backwards masses. Yet CCP’s longing for economic prosperity and modernity gave colourful fabrics a new social meaning associated with the liberation of the means of production from foreign and bourgeois ownership, and as such, the state-owned production of consumer goods became one of the symbols of the successful industrialization of the nation.
The CCP proclaimed that while the bourgeoise dressed well to demonstrate their great wealth, nevertheless the people of the socialist society should not dress carelessly. Other than the peasants, women were the main consumers of colourful fabrics. This was also perpetuated in propaganda posters, which depicted men in military, or worker’s clothing, while women were in colourful clothing. The “clothing made from factory-produced printed cloth marked the women who wore it as progressive; they were models of socialist modernity” (Chen, 2001, 150). Therefore, the party considered the ability to meet consumer demands as an indicator of a successful national transition into an autonomous modern nation, demonstrating the superiority of egalitarian socialist policies over exploitative capitalist consumerism. As such during the initial years of the PRC colourful clothing did not yet acquire a negative class label. Subsequently, the PRC began to undertake the selection of model workers, who were supposed to denote the national progressive ideal, which brought those models’ appearance and behaviour under the party’s amplified scrutiny.
In order for a woman to be seen as an industrial patriot she had to replicate the appearance and demeanour of the male industrial workers, as the CCP linked women’s emancipation to work, or industrial development in particular. Clothing reserved for revolutionary work and national construction was by-large androgynous in form, which could be considered as an erasure of gender differences and equalization of class. For women to be able to embody the saying that “whatever men can do, women can do too,” they had to make a conscious choice between whether to dress in colourful clothing to symbolize modernity, or to dress uniformly to appear as revolutionary and industrial model workers. The Mao suit served as a demonstration of one’s “membership in the proletariat and their status as vanguard elements of the revolutionary proletariat struggle” (Chen, 2001, p. 155), which gave it a significant social meaning. Moving into the 1960s and the era of the Cultural Revolution, the model workers gave way to new supermodels, such as Lei Feng. This created a further social hierarchy, with the PLA and their uniform signifying an increased social prestige and political importance. Militarism began to be more valued, making the khaki green PLA uniform accessorized with a leather belt, and a cap with the red star insignia to move up in the hierarchy over the workers’ blue Mao suit.
The PLA uniform became an ideal for the Red Guard members during the Cultural Revolution, who personified Mao’s discontent with the peacefulness of the post-Liberation period and his yearning for past linked with constant struggle and vigilance (Chen, 2001, p. 158). In this period, colourful clothing at best was related to the less disciplined masses, while at worst it signified bourgeois corruption. The adoption of the PLA uniform as an ideal exemplified the masculinization of the national body, and as such, the emancipation of women began to be understood in terms of women becoming equal to men by dressing and behaving like men as the ideal standard. This rendered coloured garments, the bourgeoisie, and femininity to be grouped together as undesirable elements. “Female or feminized bodies, in this context, were susceptible to the lures of bourgeois fashion”, and as such this demonization of bourgeois effeminacy reinforced gendered hierarchies (Chen, 2001, p. 162).
In conclusion, after examining the various aspects related to women and their emancipation during the post-Liberation period in Mao’s China, some contradictory points emerge. The introduction of the 1950 Marriage Law was an important first step for women’s rights, as it moved to protect women from abuse, gave them freedom of choice in marriage and divorce, outlawed child marriage, and addressed female infanticide. Yet when there was significant resistance to the law from the rural community, the government sometimes chose to look the other way as it was primarily interested in conducting collectivization and required the cooperation of the peasantry. In general, while the law was revolutionary when contrasted with the republican or dynastic period of Chinese history, women’s rights were still considered secondary to collectivization, or other mass campaigns. For example, while the ACWF viewed that the availability of grassroots women’s organizations was essential for protecting women’s rights and health, on the other hand the party considered the revolutionary goals of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution to take precedent, which combined women’s emancipation with production, struggle, and self-sacrifice for the greater good of the party. But even in the realm of production, which the party viewed as essential for women to participate in to achieve liberation, work-points were distributed unequally, and women were often employed in low skill positions, with bleak prospects for promotion, as high ranking positions continued to be dominated by men.
As illustrated in the analysis of the sartorial landscape of the Mao era, while initially female consumerism for bright colours and patterns were regarded positively as markers of the successful nation’s modernization, in the latter years femininity acquired derogatory connotations, as masculine militarism was considered as the ideal political aesthetic. Women had to use male references if they wanted to be considered model workers and citizens, as femininity was linked with vanity, and the bourgeois. Therefore, in the course of attempting gender equalization there were some improvements in the status of women, however women were expected to become completely homogenous men and the ideal masculine model, while simultaneously experiencing gendered labour divisions, societal resistance, unequal pay, and disregard for women’s health as necessary sacrifices for the purpose of attaining campaign goals and quotas. Women’s liberation was viewed less in terms of what could the party do for women, but more from the angle of what could women do for the party.
