Changes for women

Changes for women

1. 1950 New Marriage Law

   • Women received legal equality
     • Hold property
     • Seek divorce
   • Paying of dowries or bride prices were forbidden
   • Child marriage was banned - you had to be 18 years old to marry
   • Marriages could not result from coercion
     • Free will necessary
   • Advocated later marriage and childbirth
   • 1946-49 - 19% of marriages the bride was aged 16-17
     • By 1958-65 - dropped to 2.4%
   • By 1940s - 31% of marriages were arranged by parents arrangement
     • By 1966-76 - dropped 0.8%
   • Enforcement was problematic
     • Rocketing divorce rates - 1.4 million petitions filed in 1953
       • Men lost what they perceived as a financial investment
         • Status of mothers-in-law reduced
         • Widespread violence as armed mobs tried to violently reclaim divorced wives
         • Women attacked in divorce court proceedings
     • Man shackled his wife's ankles, forcing her to cut firewood and dig for food
       • Released 6 weeks later when people realised what he had done
   • Attitudes of the cadres
     • Feared free choice in marriage would 'throw all under heaven into turmoil'
     • Fear only rich men would find wives
     • Refused to uphold the law in their local areas
       • Sided with the local population as they feared resistance and unrest
   • Attitudes in muslim areas
     • Greatly resented the challenge to their customs
       • Non-Han Chinese areas, like Xinjiang, far from Beijing, saw little change for women
         • Despite extensive propaganda campaign, another was needed by 1953
           • High levels of opposition

2. Collectivisation and the communes

   • Great Leap Forward relied on the productive labour of women
     • Before this, few women worked on the fields
       • Only poorest peasants had to farm out of economic necessity
   • 1955 - Mao ordered the mobilisation of women in agriculture
     • 'Vast reserve of labour power'
     • Liberation through labour,earning equal pay for equal work
       • Women who matched me in productivity were the 'Iron Women
         • Like Soviet propaganda of women who broke production records
     • Had to be freed from their domestic roles
       • Centralised kindergartens
         • Mothers were separated from their children for weeks at a time
         • Appalling level of care was provided
           • Priority was economic activity, so ran in ramshackle buildings
             • In Daxing country, children slept and ate on the floor
         • Run by hurriedly trained elderly or young women (only people not on fields)
           • Diarrhoea, measles, chicken pox and worms spread quickly
             • Kindergarten attached to a Beijing cotton factory - 90% of kids sick
             • Shanghai - nappies were unchanged all day
         • Famine meant food supplies for children were stolen by desperate adults
           • High death rates
           • By the end of the Great Leap Forward, the kindergartens collapsed
             • Women had to work, look after them and source food
       • Communal canteens
       • Did not release women from domestic servitude
         • Responsible for both work and domestic chores like cleaning
         • They had to take on unfamiliar tasks like tractor driving
   • Communal canteens
     • Poor quality of food and time it took to get it made things worse for women
       • Based on physical labour performed, so they got less food than men
     • Contributed to the household by selling handicrafts like shoes and hats
       • Worked to exhaustion in fields and furnaces, this was abandoned
     • When food ran low, it was women who were neglected
   • The work points
     • Women got less of these than men, regardless of their productivity or skill
       • Realities of physical strength meantime could get 10 and women 8
         • Disincentive for women to provide labour to the command economy
   • Abuse and discrimination
     • Expectant mothers were forced to work through pregnancy and miscarried
       • In one commune, pregnant women who refused to work were forced to undress and break ice in winter
     • Sexual abuse was rife
       • Women who became separated from their husbands were victims of cadre advances
         • Commune near Guangzhou, 2 party secretaries forced themselves on 34 women
         • In Hunan local factory bosses forced females to work naked
           • In Zhejiang, women accused of crimes had to parade through villages unclothed
       • Family unit collapsed, as well as moral decency
         • Exhausted women were vulnerable
   • Despair
     • Famine forced women to prostitution in exchange for food
     • Double burden
       • Work
       • Domestic chores

3. Political activism

   • Women's Association
     • 40,000 staff in 83 cities
     • Publishing arm to produce books, pamphlets and newspapers
       • Proclaimed communist accomplishments and encouraged women's support for the cause
     • Official membership of 76 million
     • Set up ploughing lessons for women
       • Classes to study literacy and political ideas
     • Financial support to help women weave uniforms or make shoes for the PLA
       • Did reinforce traditional gender expectations
     • Wives and mothers urged to encourage their sons and husbands to enlist for social benefit and economic progression
     • Provided an avenue for social and political progression
     • Campaigns against issues such as prostituion
   • The Cultural Revolution
     • Politicised to the same extent as men
       • Wore the same Maoist uniform
       • Many women led Red Guards to their violent denunciations
     • Women made up 8-12% of party cadres between 1958-66
       • 21% between 1970-74
     • Heroes in revolutionary ballets like 'the Red Detachment of Women'
       • Females fighting nationalists in the war

4. Education and employment

   • 1929-49 - only 38% of girls completed primary education
     • 100% starting in 1959
     • By 1978, 45% of primary school children were girls
   • Autumn 1949 - PLA enlisted unmarried, educated female students 18 to 19 for military academies
     • Sent to the border region of Xinjiang
       • Become wives of the soldiers stationed there
         • Needed female companionship
           • Could not marry the local, non-Han women
   • February 1951 - New Hunan Daily advert wanted to recruit professionals, skilled workers and female students
     • Form a female work team to go to Xinjiang and exploit natural resources (oil and gas reserves)
       • Paid study in the Soviet Union
       • Teaching of advanced technology
       • Actress in PLA entertainment troupes
       • Rural women could escape poverty
         • Middle school graduates promised the appointment of platoon leaders
           • College graduates would be company commanders
       • Women from rich families could prove their commitment to the new regime
         • 'bourgeois family became a revolutionary soldier's family'
     • When they finished their time, they returned to stereotypical duties

5. Problems of changing traditional views

   • Women still had less influential jobs
   • Expected to take on the double burden of chores and work
   • Modern contraceptive methods were rare
     • Desire for a large population to make China a strong nation