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Mao’s China 1949-76: Edexcel A-level History > Women > Flashcards

Women Flashcards

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1
Q

Main issues facing women:

A
  • women had subservient role
  • baby girls victims of infanticide
  • arranged marriages and concubinage
  • the three obidences
  • no education
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2
Q

The three obediences

A

Subservient to:
- father when young
- husband when married
- sons when a mother

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3
Q

Literacy rate for women vs men in China (1930s)

A

Men = 30%

Women = 1%

basic literacy skills over 7 years old

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4
Q

The issue of foot binding

A

Women often rehabilitated/physically crippled by foot binding.

Small feet seen as more sexually appealing, so suitors willing to pay a higher ‘bride price’

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5
Q

Mao called arranged marriages:

A

‘Indirect rape’

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6
Q

Mao quotes on marriage:

A

‘Rottenness of the marriage system’

‘No freedom of choice in love’

‘Women hold up half the sky’

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7
Q

When was the NEW MARRIAGE LAW introduced?

A

1950

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8
Q

What did the New Marriage law do?

A
  • banned arranged marriages
  • banned concubinage/polygamy
  • ‘bride price’ AND dowry prohibited
  • wives could inherit their husbands property
  • divorce easier
  • bastard children given same rights as all other children
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9
Q

How effective was the NEW MARRIAGE LAW?

A

Gave women rights they had not ever experienced BUT:

-divorce rates soared

-husbands lost their perceived ‘financial investments

-violence broke out in poorer families to reclaim wives

-everyone lost their inherited land in collectivisation years later

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10
Q

What did the communes system do?

A

Property rights wives gained in the NML(1950) were lost.

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11
Q

How did collectivisation/communes increase/double work load for women?

A
  • forced to work on the land AND were solely responsible for household chores still!
  • physically ill-suited for some tasks like ploughing but still forced
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12
Q

Child care in the collectives

A
  • while mothers worked in the fields, children placed in communal kindergartens

-staff untrained

  • dirty so diseases and death were common
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13
Q

Little food in the communes especially for women in the 1950s, lead to:

A
  • women turning to sex-work to buy food
  • many died from suicide
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14
Q

Why was food so little for women?

A

Food allocated based on work points:

Women were ill-suited for many tasks, so men would often outperform them in physical labour.
So women often couldn’t provide enough for them or their families

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15
Q

Sexual abuse and pregnancy

A
  • sexual abuse common in the communes
  • women forced to work during pregnancy so many miscarried
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16
Q

CCP on women

A

‘And indispensable force in defeating the enemy and building a new China’

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17
Q

How was maos belief on mobilising the masses applied to women

A

The Women’s Association was set up to encourage political activism from women

18
Q

Womens association membership

A

76 million

19
Q

Main objectives of the Women’s Association

A
  • campaigned against sex work
  • against domestic violence
  • encouraged women to denounce men who had beaten their wives
20
Q

Success of the New Marriage Law

A

By 1960s child and arranged marriages are extremely rare!

21
Q

Increasing number of women in education

A
  • sucess in encouraging sending more girls to school instead of working in the home
  • up until 1949 only 38% of girls finished primary education and after 1959 100% did!
  • 1978 45% of primary school students were female
22
Q

The Military and women

A

PLA encouraged women to join! To escape rural poverty!
Even able to be promoted to officers.

23
Q

Evidence for improvement in the status of women

A
  • took advantage of the NML - courting who they want, escaping abusive marriages etc
  • confidence (empowerment) and freedom of speech increased - able to air out grievances by the speak bitterness campaign
  • given opportunities for leadership in the RedGaurd during the Cult.Rev. And officers in PLA
  • Jiang Quing even a party leader (part of the Gang of Four)
  • pro woman propaganda like the ballet: Red detachment of Women
24
Q

Problems with changing views of women

A
  • traditional male attitudes prevailed (chores and childcare are women’s jobs)
  • some areas didn’t enforce legislation like the marriage law
  • Song Qingling (high ranking official) complained her views weren’t being treated as equal
  • arranged marriages and foot binding continued in far-off regions
25
Q

Why did women have unequal status to men before 1949?

A
  • traditional ‘feudal’ Chinese society was PATRIARCHAL
  • based on Confucian values
26
Q

Key Confucian value regarding women

A

OBEDIENCE to men.

Hence 3 obediences.

27
Q

Clause in Communist Common Program (1949) which promised equality of the sexes.

A

Clause 6

28
Q

Clause Six of the Communist Common Program (1949)

A
  • promised to lift restrictions affecting women in social, political, economic, educational and cultural spheres.
29
Q

Why did the communists want to destroy the concept of Family?

A
  • embodied Confucian values of respect and obedience to elders (and ancestors)
  • family encouraged BOURGEOIS mindset (tempted people to acquire personal possessions - inheritance and heirlooms etc…)
30
Q

‘Feudal’ meaning

A

Refers to the time of the emperors (pre-1911), a blankety term for everything wrong with traditional Chinese culture.

31
Q

Example of foot binding horrors:

A

Wild Swans: Jung Chang

32
Q

Wild Swans, Jung Chang: Footbinding

A

Her grandmother had her feet bound at 2:

  • gagged by cloth
  • foot arch crushed by large stone
33
Q

When was foot binding OUTLAWED?

A

1911 - AFTER REVOLUTION
(But persisted in rural areas)

34
Q

Was the implementation of the Marriage law brand new?

A

No,

Communists had experimented with a Marriage law in Jiangxi and Yanan regions in 1930s

35
Q

How did 1950 Marriage Law change the nature of marriage?

A

Changed from a ‘contractual agreement between families’ to ‘being freely entered into by two individuals’.

36
Q

Why did Mao oppose arranged marriage?

A
  • @ 14yo rebelled against own family by REFUSING to marry a lady 7 years his senior
  • 1919 involved and disgusted by a young girl slitting her own throat at her arranged marriage, rather die than go through with arranged marriage
37
Q

Mao’s articles on arranged marriages:

A
  • condemned them
  • ‘turned women into slaves’
38
Q

Why was it clear advancing women’s rights was an integral part of the Communist Program?

A

Shown by the speed at which the CCP implemented the 1950 Marriage Law among other pro-sexual equality acts (even whilst civil war was going on)

39
Q

Implementation of the 1950 marriage law:

A
  • huge propaganda campaign: radio, posters, leaflets
  • drama troupes drafted to put on plays for the villages that publicised the new laws
  • Party Cadres checked if laws were actually being implemented
40
Q

Where was resistance to the marriage law mainly based?

A
  • Traditionalists
  • Muslim regions in the West
41
Q

How did the CCP combat resistance to the 1950 Marriage law?

A
  • 1953 propaganda campaign
42
Q

Failure of the 1953 propaganda campaign:

A

Brought in to promote the marriage law.
- undermined by Cadres who were supposed to promote BUT resented the law
- marriage law was implemented too quickly! Time, education and awareness was needed to change traditional views and status on women in general

Mao’s China 1949-76: Edexcel A-level History (8 decks)

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