Unit 4: Social and Cultural Changes Flashcards
What were the ‘three obediences’? Who were women expected to obey?
A woman should obey her father before marriage, obey her husband once married, and, after her husband dies, obey her son. The “obediences” included obeying, agreeing, serving, and following.
What was marriage like for: Poor women? Rich women?
- Many women were forced into arranged marriages
- Poor women would marry poor men to have another labourer in the household
- Rich women would often have to share their husbands with concubines.
What was foot-binding? Why was it practiced? When was it officially banned?
- Foot binding was the Chinese custom of breaking and tightly binding the feet of young girls in order to change the shape and size of their feet; during the time it was practiced, bound feet were considered a status symbol and a mark of beauty.
- After the Nationalist Revolution in 1911, foot binding was outlawed in 1912. However, the practice did not truly end until the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
What was a dowry? Why was it such a financial burden? What did some families resort to?
A dowry is a transfer of parental property, gifts or money upon the marriage of a daughter. A dowry is the money or goods that a bride’s family gives to her new husband and/or his family when they are married. Was a financial burden as it benefited the groom.
Some families resorted to infanticide (intentional killing of infants) if a woman gave birth to a daughter and if there was a burden of finding a dowry.
What was a bride-price? How did it influence the relationship between husband and wife?
- The groom’s family would provide gifts for the bride’s family
- This reinforced the sense of the bride being property that had been purchased
- Many husbands treated their wives as private property and expected them to carry out domestic duties
What treatment did many wives get from their mother-in-laws?
- Mother-in-laws would be very close to their sons as their sons would look after them in old age. This meant that they were jealous of their son’s wife and would be petty
- New brides would be given the most backbreaking chores by mother-in-laws; mistakes often resulted in beatings
What level of education did girls receive? Could they own property?
- Girls were not provided with educational opportunities
- One survey in the 1930s suggested that 45.2% of males and just 2.2% of females had received schooling
- Women could not own property.
What was Mao’s attitude towards the traditional role?
- Mao had been critical of the attitudes held
- Mao stated how ‘women hold up half the sky’
What were the terms of the new marriage law 1950?
- Legal equality: women could hold property and seek divorce
- The paying of dowries and bride-prices was forbidden
- Child marriage was forbidden (women had to be 18)
- Free will was required for marriage
What evidence is there that the New Marriage Law was effective?
Between 1946-1949, in 18.6% of marriages the bride was aged 16-17. By 1958-65 this had dropped to 2.4%
What were the problems with enforcing the New Marriage Law?
- Men who paid bride-prices were angered (they lost what they had perceived as a financial investment)
- Widespread violence broke out as armed mobs attempted to violently reclaim their divorced wives
- Husbands would attack their wives in divorce court proceedings
- Many cadres were hostile to the reform. They feared chaos and feared that only rich men would be able to find wives - many cadres refused to uphold the law in their local areas
- Traditional Muslim communities greatly resented the challenge to their long held customs
What was Mao’s vision for women on the communes? Think about their contribution to work, childcare and household chores.
- Mao claimed that enabling women to work would bring them ‘liberation through labour’ and argued that this was a form of equality
- Childcare would be centralised by the creation of Party kindergarten, while the burden of food preparation was alleviated by communal canteens
What was the reality of work for women on the communes?
- Quality of life was not improved
- Although more women now worked they would still take on domestic responsibilities such as childcare and cleaning
- Forced to carry out backbreaking labour
What was the reality of the Kindergartners?
- Children could be separated from their mothers for weeks at a time
- There was an appalling level of care for children
- Kindergartens were often housed in ramshackle buildings
- Kindergartens were staffed with hurriedly trained elderly or very young women
- Disease spread rapidly in the poorly maintained kindergartens
- Food supplies for children were stolen by starving adults.
What was the reality of the Canteens?
- Women were likely to get less food than men due to food being allocated on the basis of the amount of physical labour performed
- When food supply was low, it was often women who were neglected on the grounds that men needed to have strength to go out and search for food for the family
How did family life change on the communes?
- Family time was limited due to the excessive amount of work people had to perform
- Children would be separated from their parents
- The giant mess halls meant that families couldn’t eat together
How did the work points system reinforce women’s social inferiority?
- Women received less ‘work points’ than men regardless of their productivity or skill
- The realities of physical strength meant that men could reach ten points whereas women were limited to eight points
- The lower earning power of wives meant that it made sense for them to sacrifice their paid labour in favour of domestic chores
Find some examples of abuse and discrimination women suffered at the hands of party cadres.
- Expectant mothers were forced to work leading to miscarriage
- Pregnant mothers who refused to work were forced to undress and break ice in the middle of winter
- As women were separated from their husbands, they became victims of advances from cadres
- In one commune in Guangzhou, two party secretaries of a commune forced themselves upon 34 women
- In Hunan, local factory bosses forced women to work naked
- In Zhejiang, women accused of crimes were forced to parade through their village unclothed
Why were some women forced into prostitution?
Due to the famine. They would trade sex for food.
What was the role of the Women’s Associations? How many women became members?
- To encourage political activism and mobilise the population behind the regime
- 76 million members
How did the women in the associations support education? The PLA? The Campaigns?
- They organised classes to improve literacy and for the study of political ideas
- Women would weave uniforms and make shoes for the PLA
- Wives and mothers were urged to encourage their husbands and sons to enlist for social benefit and economic progression
What successes did these Women’s Associations have?
Provided women with an avenue for social and political progression, as well as assisting in the campaigns against issues relevant to them, like prostitution
What % of women became party cadres by 1976?
21%
What limitations did women face if they tried to pursue national political careers? Find an example.
Glass Ceiling
What role did women play in the Cultural Revolution? How was family life attacked during the CR?
- Many women and girls led Red Guards in their violent denunciations
- Women were exalted as revolutionary heroes in ballets like ‘Red Detachment of Women’ that described female soldiers fighting against the Nationalists in the Civil war
How did education for girls improve between 1949 and 1976? Give some statistics.
One sample of rural girls who started school between 1929 and 1949 showed that only 38% completed their primary education whereas 100% did so for those starting after 1959. By 1978, 45% of primary school children were girls.
What career opportunities became available for women? Give some examples.
- Military service - In autumn 1949 the PLA enlisted unmarried, educated female students aged 18-19 for it’s military academies, specifically to be sent to the border region of Xinjiang in order to become wives for the soldiers stationed there
- In February 1951 an advertisement in the New Hunan Daily aimed to recruit female students to form a female work team to go to Xinjiang to exploit it’s valuable natural resources
- The advertisement offered a range of formerly unattainable incentives such as paid study in the Soviet Union, teaching advanced technology or becoming an actress in PLA entertainment troupes.
Distinguish between the ‘role’ of women and the ‘status’ of women. How do these terms differ?
The role of women is the work they were able to attain in society
Status is their place in society and the views placed on them
How far did the role of women in China change between 1949 and 1976?
The role of women changed significantly as Mao gave young Chinese women a sense of personal identity and emancipation and equality. Their involvement in politics improved their self-esteem.
What hindered bringing change to the status of women?
Long held attitudes and traditions. In Non-Han Chinese areas such as Xinjiang which was prodemoninately Muslim, life for women in many rural communities continued largely unchallenged and unchanged. Opposition was at such a high level that the party launched a second campaign in 1953 to try to promote it.
Where was change more successful? Where was it least successful? (Role and Status of Women).
Most successful in the cities as women were provided with more food and a better lifestyle - women were poorly treated in communes while women in the city had room for opportunity.
How far were Mao’s attempts at reform successful?
- Mao gave young women a sense of personal identity and emancipation and equality.
- Even though his reforms had problems it did start a change for women’s future.
- Not the victims of policy or targets of propaganda.
- Improvement in equality (better than before).
What traditional medical techniques were frequently used?
Acupuncture and herbalism
When had Western medicine been introduced to China? How widespread was it?
- 1920s and 30s
- Rural areas of China had practically no healthcare
What was healthcare like in rural areas compared to urban areas?
Healthcare in rural China was practically non existent and public health spending was not a priority for the regime
What % of the state budget was spent on healthcare between 1949 and 1956?
2.6%
What was the focus of healthcare policy in the 1950s?
Prevention over cures
What was the Patriotic Health Campaign? What methods were used?
- Teams of party workers were sent into the countryside to educate illiterate peasants
- Lectures, films, posters and radio broadcasts were used
What types of diseases were reduced as a result of the Patriotic Health campaigns?
- Smallpox, cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, plague and leprosy
- Cases of tuberculosis and parasitic diseases were greatly reduced
How were the number of drug addicts lowered?
Through terror campaigns
How did healthcare improve on the communes?
Communes established medical clinics
How did healthcare improve in urban areas?
- 800 western type hospitals were built
- The number of doctors trained in modern techniques rose from 40,000 in 1949 to 150,000 in 1965
