Theme 4 Flashcards
Women- traditional
Foot binding- banned 1911 crippled women Families killed female babies Inferior No education Not equal or independent Arranged marriage Property of men
Women- 1950s marriage law
Cadres hostile to it refused to uphold Legal changes couldn’t transform lives Legal equality Buying wives made illegal 18 to marry Led to high divorce rate Men lost investment Free will needed for marriage Resented in Muslim areas
Women- collectivisation and communes
Women taken advantage of by cadres
Sex abuse and rape common
Women worked in fields to ^ labour
Mao saw it as equality
Kindergartens and canteens creates to help bad care, poor quality food, illness and death high
Women got less work points for same work as not men
Hoped communes would help but they didn’t
Women 2x work
Mothers apart from kids for weeks
Education- women
Women joined PLA and gained opportunities
Families encouraged to send girls to school
29-49 only 38% girls completed primary school
By 59 100% did
Educated women sent to border as PLA companion
Education- reform
Focus on specialised technical jobs 20 polytechnics & 26 engineering institutes created
New language introduced to simplify traditional
49-57- primary students increased 26-64 million
‘Min-pan’- schools ‘run by the people’ supported by village to improve access
Higher education modelled on USSR
52-58- 600 Russians taught Chinese colleges, 38000 Chinese students were trained in Russian unis
Ministry of Education set up Nov 1952
Uni enrolment almost 4x
Education- pre reform
Rote learning- used books
30% males over 7 could read A simple letter 1% females
Low education levels
45.2% males 2.2% females received any schooling
No practical subjects
Imperial exams abolished 1905
Elitist- wealthy areas, tuition fees, entry exams
Education- Great Leap Forward
Manual labour introduced
Ministry of higher education abolished
Agricultural middle schools ran vocational courses
Peasants excluded from elite schools
Students had to run backyard furnaces
30,000 schools 2.9 million students
Teachers promoted based on politics and practical ability
Education- cultural revolution
Lasting impact on attitude to learning Teachers attacked Offered revolutionary experience Schools and unis closed Collapsed by 1966 Mao complained in 64 that 12 years was too long
Education- failures of reform
Policies didn’t meet demand
Remained elitist
Served urban areas
Healthcare- policy
Doctors trained in modern techniques rose from 40,000 in 49 to 150,000 in 65
60s medical schools graduating 25,000 new doctors
Cadres trained to show peasants how to be sanitary
Focused on preventing disease
Smallpox, cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, plague, leprosy almost eliminated
Great Leap Forward- communes has medical clinics, investment in 800 hospitals
Healthcare- barefoot doctors
Trained for 6 months Provided rudimentary healthcare in village clinics Inequality between rural and urban areas Disrupted by Antis campaign Many denounced in CR Young people sent to train to be them
Religion- Xinjiang
Controlled
Demanded more independence in 55
Named autonomous region
Not independent
Religion- Confucianism
Ceremonies honoured him Ancestor worship condemned Encouraged to replace him with Mao Associating with it= dangerous Temples and shrines made into museums 49 all ceremonies ended
Religion- communist attitude
Denounced religious attitudes
Christianity seen as Western
Religion had no place
Celebrating festivals and honouring ancestors= old thoughts
Religious policy- Christianity
Seems as western
Missionaries forced out by religious affairs department
