society Flashcards
what was mao’s impact on women?
marriage reform:
- arranged marriage discontinued
- paying bride price became forbidden
- concubinage abolished
- husbands couldn’t insist on wives having bound feet
- all marriages have to be officially recorded and registered
impact of collectivization:
- women gained the right to own and sell land and property in the 1950s
- during land distribution, women granted land in their own name
whilst this was undermined by collectivization programme because ended holding of private property - people had to live in communes
- women no longer has to find food and prepare it for their family daily
- however, they had to do the same work as men and face the threat of dangerous physical labour PROPORTION OF WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE INCREASED FROM 8 TO 29%
- ingrained notions of female inferiority remained in the peasantry. people still wanted to have male babies
- new marriage laws interfered with their way of life. muslim population in xinjiang, women still treaty like the property of their husbands
- marriages made harder to maintain because of communes
women in the ccp: soong qingling complained that her colleagues didn’t treat her equally. female membership was only 13%, jiang qing said in her trial that she was maos dog and barked when he said to
what was mao’s impact on the family?
- collectivisation was a direct attack on the family: mao said he wanted to destroy the peasant family by making women go to factories and the army
- very few women were happy with their natural role of mothers being taken away
- because of communes men and women could only meet for conjugal visits and so birth rates declined
- mao wanted to take the emphasis away from the family because he wanted people to believe that the ccp had given them everything and personal love was unimportant
- women found themselves distanced from their traditional ties, distanced them from ancestor worship
- divorce dramatically increased, in gansu province for example, divorce increased by 60% because the family ran out of food and it would be better for the women to find a husband elsewhere
- the poorer the region, the more bride selling there was. wives who has been sold often refused to go back to their husbands and these cases would be heard in court
- birth control bureau was set up by the CCP to reduce the birth rate: teams of medical doctors to urge wives to use contraceptives and husbands should be sterlised. this was met with resistance by the peasants.
what was mao’s impact on children?
- households in which women left, children were left motherless
- children were abandoned or sold as workers/slaves
- originally only girls were abandoned and then as the famine grew worse boys were too
- abandoned children were obvious targets for exploitation and secual abuse
- the party was also involved in the spread of prostitution as became more widespread as the famine went on, women exchanged sex for food. ccp workers in anhui set up brothels for the use of party members.
what were the causes of the boxer rebellion?
- POVERTY:
- a series of harvest failures and droughts in the north. peasants veacme poorer as they had to contribute to indemnity payments to Japan. boxer rebels mainly workers from the north
- boxer rebels began to attack western factories, railways, missionary schools
- cultural and religious issues too
- turned on local officials who were collecting taxes due to the taxes going towards indemnity payments
LINKS TO COURT:
- first thought that the rebellion was anti manchu so sent shikai to suppress it. realised tey weren’t.
- qing joined them because they provided a conservative approach without having to reform and helped them to reach beijing.
- boxers approached beijing in 1900 she stated she supported them and asked the southern provinces to send troops to fight against the west, none of them arrived as the southern provinces made money from the west
HATRED OF THE WEST
- hated the west taking more concession cities, bays and ports
- boxers wanted to attack the three hairy men: foreign Christians, Chinese Christians and Chinese who worked for westerns
- believed 3 hairy men had made the Chinese gods angry and this caused natural disasters
- believed they had damaged the veins of the dragon by building the railways and wasted the breath of china by opening mines
- first attacks on foreigners in shangdong in 1898 and massacred thousands. by 1900 boxers established a high degree of control in shangdong
- all hated foreigners
CHINA ALWAYS LOCALISED PEASANT REVOLTS:
- many peasant revolts
what were the events in the boxer rebellion?
- boxers attacked the hairy men in 1898 in shangdong. peasnats and workers rebelled - who were mainly from poor families. chinese gentry also rebelled - who hate the west
- by 1900 boxers controlled most of shandong and approached beijing
- foreign forces invaded to attack the boxers because the boxers were tacking foreigners
- cixi joined the boxers. appealed to south for help but they didn’t because they made money from the western powers and made informal alliances with the west promising to protect western nationals
- boxer qing army got to Beijing and managed to kill more foreigners and besieged foreign litigations.
- wests’ first rescue force was defeated by the boxers. second force had 50,000 men from 8 nations. boxer-qing army defeated
- cixi fled to xian as she was called a war criminal
- west ruthlessly oppressed the boxers, killed without exception
why did the boxers lose?
- the southern chinese didnt offer help to cixi
- boxers weren’t very united
- boxers lacked effective leadership
- boxers were easy to disperse
- boxer- qing army didn’t have enough firepower and weren’t as developed as the west: boxers still using muskets whilst western forces using rifles and maxim guns
what were the cconsequences of the boxer rebellion?
- imposed the boxor protocol 1901: £68 million in reparations to the different countries in relation to how much they suffered
- Chinese arsenals destroyed
- foreign troops permantly stationed around Beijing -
Boxer leaders and government officials who helped them would be executed or deported, Cixi declared a war criminal – later this was reversed - Chinese gentry punished by cancelling the state examination, Chinese government had to erect monuments commemorating foreigners who died
- The West’s anti-Chinese rhetoric strengthened – the yellow peril, frightening characters in comic books and novellas - they criticised the actions of the Boxers against the Westerners, but ignored the actions of the Western army against the boxers.
- The West occupied former Boxer held areas and ruled with a reign of terror. Chinese civilians were raped and killed, and premises were destroyed. Women and girls by the hundred committed suicide rather than experience horrific abuse by the Western soldiers.
- The Manchu court lost what little remaining prestige it had. The Chinese saw the imperial government as incapable of leading the people to liberation. They tried to reform again so they could resist the West in the future, but could not gain support.
