Mao's policy on women

• Mao focused a lot on equality from the moment he gained power. This was also one of the reasons why he won over GMD
• The initial years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
• In the beginning Mao wasn’t extreme, and for some time, different parties were also members of the government
• In his Little Red Book (1945) he wrote that he wanted to ‘ensure freedom of marriage and equality between men and women’ and that ‘women hold up half the sky’
• ‘In order to build a great socialist society it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for the equal work in production. Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realised in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole’
• However:
• Mao complained that China had an excess of women; he suggested sending tens of thousands to the US, later increasing his offer to 10 million; Mao also meant women gave birth to too many children; and stated women didn’t know how to fight
• Marriage reform
• Made in 1950
• Both genders were equal and both had to agree on getting married - the elimination on arranged marriages had two benefits: 
• 1) Mao gained support of many women 
• 2) Life was improved for many young people who feared arranged marriage 
• Further human rights were installed (women couldn’t be sold into prostitution, foot binding, unwanted babies couldn’t be disposed), the government abolished foot binding, rehabilitation programmes introduced to aid women
• Women could own their own property and land 
• However it was replaced in the First 5 Year Plan in 1953 
• Even though the new marriage reform tried to get rid of the traditional China some Chinese in the West were Muslim and felt it went against the Koran. 
• This created more equality between the genders
• The First Five Year Plan
• Main aim was to industrialise as rapidly as possible 
• All private businesses and commercial enterprises were nationalised under state control 
• Human Report 1927: he saw the peasants as leading China forward towards socialism – men and women should work equally hard
• Mao believed that while the peasants were leading the way forward, the CCP was becoming too reactionary and that many members ‘were tottering along like a woman with bound feet, always complaining that others were going too fast’ – suggesting men were still important than women
• Women were able to be employed in all kinds of areas and were considered to be equal in that sense just like men 
• However prejudices against women were still present as social values and attitudes cannot be changes in such a short time
• The new constitution of 1954
• Article 86 of the Constitution, for example, stated “all citizens of the People’s Republic of China, who have reached the age of 18, have the right to vote and strand for election, irrespective of their nationality, race, sex, occupation, social origin, religious belief, education, property status, or length of residence”. 
• Article 96 declared that “women in the People’s Republic of China enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, social and family life”. Provisions for maternity leave and childcare also made workplaces more accessible for women. 
• The All-China Women’s Federation, formed in 1949, helped deliver some of these new freedoms to women 
• However historians Lily Lee and Sue Wiles argue that Chinese women were still largely excluded from the all-male party hierarchy. They note that women continued to work on issues related to women, traditional gender segregation making it easier for them to have contact with other women. 
• The All China Women’s Federation (formed 1949 and retitled eight years later) was more about rubber stamping government policies than developing into a politically significant body
• However, CCP operated a very much male-dominated system where the domestic chores were carried out by female comrades 
• Education of women
• According to the United Nations figures from UNIFEM, women made up 39% of the workforce, 39% of students in secondary education and over 20% of the parliament
• By the 1970s almost 50% of China's doctors were women and 30% of engineers and scientists
• The “Great Leap Forward” program had many benefits in women’s movement, in china. Because of their extreme low status in china, they had suffered seriously just like many women in other parts of the world. 
• The “filial piety” of the women, in china, subjected them in total abuse of their rights as equal citizens. They experienced abusive practices like wife beating, female infanticide, and sale of women. 
• At the time, china was considered to be the most brutal towards women in the world. In the cause of time, educated women in china began advocating for democracy, which would provide for equal rights. Their main motivation in advocating for women liberation was to revolutionize the Chinese society, and make it stronger and equal for both genders than was before.
• They apportioned blame of poor Chinese economy to poor a family structure that undermined women. Women without education as Ebrey argues could not “bring up a healthy family”. Their future was also grim and hopeless without education. 
• Consequently, the need to liberate women against humiliation was developed with the few educated ones spearheading the push. 
• The “Great Leap Movement” in china was a landmark season in Chinese women history. This season brought profound benefits and developments to women. 
• On February 1960, women federation of china convened the second executive delegation of women. In this conference, women’s role in “The Great Leap” was improved and adjusted
• The Cultural Revolution
• The Cultural Revolution officially sought to deconstruct gender inequality. 
• The official policy towards women in the 1960s clearly expected women to sacrifice themselves for the revolution. During this time, there was an ambiguous policy towards women in simultaneously emphasizing the duty of women to participate in production but also to keep their duties at home. 
• The policy had a one sided emphasis on production without taking into consideration the dynamics of the family. Additionally, the Red Guards included both male and female students, showing no gender bias in who was participating in Mao’s mobilization. 
• However, feminism was severely criticized as being a bourgeois manifestation and counterrevolutionary; women were urged to become like men in terms of political activities and labour. 
• Thus the Cultural Revolution proclaimed to achieve gender equality but in reality, women’s roles were merely reformed to allow them to have traditional male roles and state policy focused on how women should emulate men in joining the revolutionary cause.
• During the Cultural revolution, women gained the right to health care (which had only been for men before)
• According to a study by Bauer et al., of women who married between 1950-65, 70% had jobs, and compared to 1966-76: 92% had jobs