Women in Mao's China: Status and Change (Edexcel A Level History: Route E: Communist states in the twentieth century): Revision Note

Summary

• Traditional Chinese society treated females as second-class citizens

  • They were expected to serve and obey males of all ages, and only a tiny minority received any education

  • Marriages were often arranged, and it was common for a husband to keep a mistress, known as a concubine, in the family home

  • Some were subjected to the traditional practise of footbinding in childhood, which restricted foot growth and left them with disabilities

• The 1950 Marriage Law was the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) attempt to improve the lives of women in China

  • It outlawed arranged marriage, concubines and infanticide

  • It also enabled widows to inherit property from their dead husbands

• Many of these advances were undone by the move to collective farms and communes

  • As private property was outlawed, women lost the right to inherit

  • Women were also expected to perform the same physical tasks as men in the fields

  • Children were left in filthy creches while their mothers laboured

  • Women routinely received less food than men and were subjected to sexual abuse in the communes

• Despite the treatment of women in the communes, there were advances in wider Chinese society

  • The number of girls being educated increased

  • Many women escaped unhappy marriages when divorces were made easier

  • Many women pursued careers and opportunities in the military

  • Some women rose to important leadership roles in the Red Guards and the CCP

• However, many traditional attitudes towards women remained and domestic chores and child care were still viewed as being exclusively female roles

Foot binding, 1950 Marriage Law and legal rights for women in China

• Traditional Chinese society before 1949 was patriarchal

• Women were expected to be completely subservient to men

  • Women were expected to obey their fathers, husbands and then sons

  • The birth of girls was not celebrated, and many newborn females fell victim to infanticide

  • Only 2.2 per cent of Chinese females received any education in 1949

    • This compares with 45.2 per cent of males

• Many marriages were arranged, often from childhood, and the woman had no say in the choice of her husband

  • Husbands commonly kept concubines, or mistresses, in the family home

  • The concubine would be kept to have sex with, and the wife would be expected to raise children and complete domestic chores

Foot binding

• This was the practice of breaking the toes of young girls and then binding them tightly under the foot

  • It took place before the foot was fully grown, usually between the ages of 4 and 8

  • Foot binding severely restricted the growth of feet, which was considered sexually desirable by many Chinese men at the time

  • It immobilised the women and left them with disabilities

  • Although foot binding had been made illegal in China in 1911, it was still commonly practised in rural areas

    • After 1949, the communists took active steps to try to stamp it out completely

The 1950 Marriage Law

• Mao had spoken out strongly about the position of women in Chinese society

  • He described arranged marriages as 'indirect rape' and argued there should be more equality in marriage

  • As a result, he passed the 1950 Marriage Law shortly after the Communists came to power

Collectivisation and the communes: Impact on Women's Lives and Labour

• During the agricultural reforms (opens in a new tab) of the 1950s, farm land was taken out of private hands and became the property of the state

  • Later, rural peasants were moved to enormous communes (opens in a new tab) that contained thousands of families

• These changes impacted women's lives in several ways:

  • The property rights gained in the 1950 Marriage Law were lost as all private property was banned

  • Women were forced to undertake heavy physical labour in the fields

  • Mothers were forced to leave their children with inexperienced staff at unhygienic creches where disease thrived

  • Expectant women were required to work in the fields deep into their pregnancy

    • Miscarriages were common

  • Women frequently received insufficient food as it was provided in communal mess halls, which allocated rations based on the amount of physical labour performed

  • Women were expected to sleep away from their families in the communes, and rape and sexual abuse were common

Women and the family in China: how much did gender equality actually change?

• There is evidence that suggests that substantial progress was made towards gender equality in some areas

Education

• More girls attended school and received an education under the communist rule

  • By 1978, 45 per cent of primary school students were girls

  • Before 1949, many people argued that there was no point in educating girls, as they would soon marry and leave home

    • For that reason, young girls were put to work rather than being educated

Military

• Young women were encouraged to join the People's Liberation Army (PLA)

  • This enabled them to train, travel and become promoted to the rank of officer

  • This level of opportunities and status was not available to women before 1949

The Women's Association

• This was created to encourage political activism amongst women

  • Its membership grew to 76 million

  • It campaigned against prostitution and domestic violence

  • The Women's Association encouraged women to confront and denounce wife beaters

Marriage

• The number of divorces increased as women escaped unhappy marriages

  • Arranged marriages and practices such as concubinage became very rare

Politics

• Women became increasingly politicised, especially during the Cultural Revolution

  • Women held important positions in the Red Guards

  • Some women, like Jiang Qing, held important leadership roles within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Traditional attitudes to women: obstacles to change, especially in rural China

• Communist ideology was more progressive than the traditional views on women held by many Chinese men

  • Although the Communist regime expected women to work and fight alongside men, many people still saw childcare and domestic chores as purely women's work

    • These views existed within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

  • Many people complained that the 1950 Marriage Law was not enforced

  • Arranged marriages and foot binding, although much less common, continued to exist in Mao's China

To what extent did the status of women in China genuinely improve in the years 1949 to 1976?

• The status of women in China between 1949 and 1976 can be looked at in different ways

  • Some historians argue that genuine improvements were made

  • Other historians argue that underlying attitudes remained that kept women subservient

Genuine Improvements

• Mao passed laws that improved the lives and conditions for millions of women in China

Key historians

Indeed, a cornerstone of the Maoist notion of a strong family was women, who were happy and secure enough in their marriages to be productive members of society and strong bulwarks for family unity. As such, in early 1950, one of the first laws passed by the CCP state was the new marriage law, guaranteeing freedom of choice in marriage, as well as divorce on demand and property rights to women. Thus addressing a concern formed at least since the time of Miss Zhao’s suicide in 1919, Mao delivered part of the legal conditions for women’s equality, even though these conditions were to tie women more firmly than ever to the family structure. With Mao’s proclamation ‘‘women hold up half the sky,’’ the Women’s Federation became a symbol of the PRC’s commitment to a particular form of feminism sponsored and guaranteed by the state.

Rebecca E. Karl, Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World, A Concise History, 2010

Sexist Attitudes Remained

• Although the Marriage Act introduced new laws, it did not remove old attitudes

Key historians

Politically, all this has had a great effect at a local level, but at the centre of power, women are still under-represented, although a few women like Mao’s wife have emerged through the Cultural Revolution into positions of great significance. This is part of the more general problem of revolutionary democracy. Moreover, it is apparent that the old ideas of women’s place still persist. Some young girl graduates from a junior middle school who went off into the country in the summer of 1969 found they were still regarded with scepticism by the comrades there when they announced they were going to be a herding team. ‘In all my years here,’ one peasant said, ‘I’ve never seen a herdswoman. These girls don’t even come up to the stirrups. How can they herd horses?’ Another comrade was of the opinion that ‘If they can herd horses then the sand-grouse can fly up to heaven.’ The girls retorted, ‘Women have flown planes.… Why can’t we herd horses?’ They kept falling off and were laughed at a great deal but they persisted.

Sheila Rowbotham, Women, Resistance and Revolution: A History of Women and Revolution in the Modern World, 2014