Looking at the Qing dynasty to the modern Communist period under Mao Zedong, the extent to which women in China have been ‘liberated’ can be disputed. In Pre-Communist China, ‘a Chinese woman’s identity was defined in terms of her unquestioning obedience and deference to the authority of her husband’s household at marriage’ and even before marriage, women were the property of their parents. Traditional values socially constricted women, who were simply required to fulfil their familial roles. All rights including divorce rights, property rights, work rights and political rights were ‘actually Chinese men’s rights’. Some however argue that ‘liberation’ was never wholly achieved, as they had ‘no sincere intention to fundamentally improve Chinese women’s conditions’. In light of this, this essay will examine the different ways in which the position of Chinese women has evolved in terms of their role at home and within the family, in the workplace, and in the public sphere.
Under the May Fourth Movement 1919, Chinese women began ‘attacking traditional culture and Confucian ethical codes’, including the practice of foot binding, which ‘confined Chinese women to the domestic sphere’ as it restricted movement and freedom. Anti foot-binding campaigns spread throughout China on the basis that ‘society could not afford to have women in the house doing ‘nothing’ in light of new political, social and economic ambitions.’ In 1902, Empress Cixi Dowager issued an edict abolished the practice and whilst this was later rescinded, the Communists officially removed the practice under the Great Leap Forward. The abolition of this physically liberated women, enabling them to participate more widely in social and public life. ‘The anti-foot binding movement successfully challenged Confucian ideas about, and attitudes towards women, changed women’s social image in society and paved the way for their further economic, cultural and political liberation’. This, however, was a miniscule achievement in light of women’s oppression in other significant areas of domestic life such as marriage.
In terms of women at home, the Marriage Law of 1950 demonstrates that women were partially liberated. The Law represented a radical change from existing feudal and patriarchal Chinese marriage traditions, which were largely characterised by forced marriages. The Law aimed to liberate women by giving them the means to ‘loosen the bonds that held them in their families against their will.’ The Marriage Law granted women freedom of marriage and divorce, theoretically allowing them to choose their spouse and initiate divorce proceedings. The law banned marriages by proxy, stating that both parties had to consent to marriage, essentially removing the practice of arranged marriages. Early reports after the implementation of the law showed an increase in both ‘free choice’ marriages and divorce suits, brought mostly by women, ‘showing that people were finding it possible to use the Marriage Law to free themselves from traditional restraints’. For example, one report indicated that ‘one third to one-half of the marriages in a particular locality were free’. Evidently therefore, the Marriage Law did initially pave the way for a ‘more meaningful kind of free marriage’ to occur, representing a departure from previous feudal Chinese traditions.
However, marriage reform in the modern period was not as effective as initially portrayed, proving to be short lived. Whilst divorce rates did initially rise, the practice ‘only flourished from 1950 to late 1953, and subsequently remained dormant until 1979.’ Women who sought divorce based on the Law soon found that ‘there was no state institution willing and able to help them’ as local cadres were often known to the husband’s families and the mechanisms to overcome this were usually too complex for illiterate and inexperienced women. Moreover, rural women found themselves unable to ask for help from their natal families, as they ‘belonged’ to their husbands’ families after marriage. ‘Proactive state intervention is indispensible to women’s empowerment’, and therefore, once the state discontinued its implementation of the law, ‘it ceased to have any further impact’. After the 1953 campaign, ‘the CCP placed marriage reform on a back burner’ which caused a near absence of divorce as divorces were no longer deemed to be socially necessary based on the belief that ‘all feudal marriages had been terminated and that new marriage contracts were consensual’. Furthermore, whilst the aforementioned reasons are significant, an overriding factor that prevented marriage reform from having long lasting liberating effects was that ‘marriage and divorce became very much politicised’. In the modern period, loyalty to the state was placed above allegiance to family’ and women were instructed to ‘consider the broader political implications of their decisions’. Divorce was not therefore a personal decision based on individual happiness, but one that would only be necessary if it ‘advanced the greater goals of the socialist collective’. As a result, divorce was rarely issued and the impact of the Marriage Law was limited. Whilst the Communists took it upon themselves to take steps to ‘liberate’ women, it undermined the actual cause by politicising notions of marriage and divorce and reducing them to actions simply to help the state. Essentially, marriage reforms aimed to fashion appropriately liberated socialist subjects who would reaffirm its civilising power’ rather than to ‘liberate’ women.
The liberation of women can also be seen during the Great Leap Forward whereby the state emphasised women’s equal entry into the public sphere of production and labour. Communist state mobilisation created new labour roles in the workforce for women, outside the domestic sphere. Before 1949, female presence in the workplace was extremely limited as even if educated women were housewives. Under the rapid industrialisation of the late 1950s however, the state required all citizens, including women to contribute to China’s economic development in industry and technology. As such, a considerable expansion of the occupational fields open to women meant that urban Chinese women began to enter employment in fields of heavy industry that had traditionally been considered ‘men’s work’, such as iron and steel production and the chemical industry. In doing so, ‘women broke the traditional employment pattern of female concentration in light and service industries’ and in the workforce in general. The mobilisation of female employment in urban areas ‘created an unprecedented opportunity to realize women’s liberation in China’ as it ‘expanded their social roles, providing new avenues to elevate their social status and for some married women, economic independence’. As such, it did produce some liberating results.
This trend continued during the Cultural Revolution where women’s liberation can be seen through the representation of the ‘Iron Girls’, who were celebrated as the ‘emblem of gender equality’. The ‘Iron Girls’ depicted strong women capable of performing jobs traditionally done by men, such as oil drilling, repairing high voltage lines and bridge building, thereby ‘defying conventional notions of biological weakness and physiological limitations’. ‘State propaganda featured the strong, brave and technically-skilled ‘Iron Girls’, epitomising Mao’s saying that women and men were the ‘same’, embodying the idea that women could accomplish whatever their male comrades achieved’. The Iron Girls partially challenged traditional gendered divisions of labour, which dictated that men work outside whilst women work inside as participating in these brigades ‘not only gave rural women many opportunities to display their talents, but also gave them some space to depart from their traditional gender roles in the family’, showing the ways in which women to some extent, were liberated by their debut in the labour workforce.
Women’s presence in the workplace arose from the policy of equality between men and women, the need for women labour, and the desire of women to work outside the home and contribute to socialist production, which would ‘free them from the fetters of the feudal past’. Women were ‘actively inducted into the public labour force’ and expected to ‘play an active role in building the nation’ as a response to serve the needs of the state in terms of industrialisation and labour shortages, explaining the increasing participation of women. Whilst the employment policy significantly raised the level of urban women’s employment as women became employed in more fields, providing an outlet for their professional development, ‘the provision of this space had a premise that women had to play the role of an auxilliary labour force for industry’. In light of this, women’s participation in the workforce was limited, challenging the claim that their presence in the workplace represented their liberation from the confines of the home.
However, feminist scholars assert that ‘Chinese socialist transformation took place without challenging traditional gender ideals towards family roles’, referring to the way in which women suffered from a ‘double burden’ of work and housework. Domestic labour became devalued as women were constrained by their greater share of domestic tasks, which was diminished by the state in the drive to push women in the public workforce. Therefore, while the state ‘honoured women’s role in the workforce and glorified employment, it took for granted their status as housewives’ , which they believed they should also be responsible for. ‘Equal sharing of household responsibility was never part of state gender projects’ , which meant that working women often suffered from role strain, conflict and poor health. The conflict between fulfilling their socialist obligations to the state while meeting the domestic needs of the family was largely ignored during the modern period. As such, it can be argued that the outbreak of women working in the labour force did not represent women’s liberation and equality as it was done at their expense, creating a conflict of interest for working women.
Women’s political activism can also be seen to demonstrate their liberation. Under the Communists, ‘oppression of women was defined as a problem of social class’ and thus, ‘women’s liberation lay in participating in contributing to the liberation of the people as a whole’. An editorial article in New China publication in 1940 commented that ‘in order to demand their own liberation, Chinese women of today must participate in all movements that benefit the state and nation’ , explaining the role of women as Red Guards during the ‘Great Proleterian Cultural Revolution’, beginning in 1966. This entailed the mobilisation of both young men and women from universities and schools into paramilitary units to purge society of its ‘bad’ elements. Youths searched for ‘enemies’ of the revolution to smash the ‘Four Olds’, attacking authority figures such as schoolteachers and school officials, capitalists and local party leaders. Feminist scholars associate the Cultural Revolution as a period of ‘masculinisation’ as women were encouraged to dress and act like men, which can be seen in the Red Guard movement whereby Mao mobilised both male and female youth to fulfil his political objectives, encouraging women to participate in the revolutionary violence. ‘Violence became women’s identity’ as they wanted to ‘escape from a conventional perception of them as passive and gentle’, which were labelled as ‘bourgeois’ by Mao during the Cultural Revolution. As a result, Red Guard girls dressed like male soldiers, with military uniforms. Essentially, ‘rejecting a bourgeois lifestyle and engaging in aggressive, violent attacks both mandated that girls dress like boys’ , cutting their hair short and wearing trousers with leather belts. As Red Guards, they ‘could not and would not wear skirts, blouses, tshirts, shorts and sandals’ and wore shapeless clothes as well as behaving like men, because anything that made them look like girls was ‘bourgeois’. The media too, glorified women’s public roles as proletarian fighters and political activists and valorised female militancy , denouncing all conventionally feminine appearances and conduct. Femininity became synonymous with a bourgeois lifestyle and was thus rejected. State feminism during this time thus saw the Party ‘’re-moulding’ women according to male standards’ as oppose to ‘liberating’ them. Rowbotham asserts that ‘women were not conceptualised as active agents of their own liberation’ as ‘the legal discourse of the Communists was to put women within a state-defined category of masculinised women ‘liberated’ by the state’. Therefore, it can be argued that the Revolution provided little scope for the patriarchal oppression of women to be addressed as it was overridden by its revolutionary agenda.
In conclusion, whilst the position of women did considerably progress from their traditional, patriarchal role, women’s rights were essentially subjugated to the greater goal of the Communist state agenda, which can be seen in the ‘double burden’ of working women for example. As such, women were ‘liberated’ only to a marked extent as the Communist Party’s female liberation agenda was dominated by the aim to increase women’s participation in socialist projects and their role in the modern period was thus defined in terms of their economic, political and social responsibilities towards the state. Essentially, gender ‘equality’ was never really achieved as female liberation was ‘more obligation-orientated than individual rights-based’ which meant that the Communists did not entirely liberate women. Nonetheless, women were given substantially more rights and their social position was enhanced in a way that their ‘liberation’ became a by-product of their obligations to the state.