Position of Women in Maoist China

Status Change Under Mao The Imperial China Mao grew up in was traditionally patriarchal due to the societal belief in Confucius’ teachings of ‘san gan’, one of which stated that wives must be obedient to their husbands. This led Imperial China to become a patriarchal society with women playing a subordinate role. As this was seen as a remnant of the old society, Chinese Communist proclaimed themselves to be advocates of female equality and introduced a new marriage law. The New Marriage Law of 1950 was one of the PRC’s first laws and proclaimed the following things : Concubinage (men keeping mistresses) was forbidden. Arranged marriages were to be discontinued. Women who had been forced to marry were entitled to divorce their partners. All marriages had to be officially recorded and registered. However due to women exercising their new freedom to divorce and remarry frequently, mass disruption was caused so a special clause was added to the law giving soldiers the right to overrule their wives’ plea for divorce.

Impact of Collectivisation More laws passed in the 1950s in favour of gender equality granted women the right to own and sell land and property. During the subsequent land distribution which followed the seizure of landlords’ properties, women were granted land in their own name. Despite this, Mao’s collectivisation programme that came with the “Great Leap Forward”, abolished private property and required people to live in communes. Women gained an advantage from this though and it was a step away from the previous patriarchal society as women now no longer had the daily burden of finding and preparing food because in the communes everybody was forced to eat in shared mess halls.

Continued Prejudice Against Women Despite the gains women seemed to make under Mao in terms of equality, there were still continuing disadvantages. As Mao now regarded women as the equals of men due to his policies, it meant he could force them into doing the laborious work of men, causing a quadrupling of the female workforce from 8% to 32% between 1949 and 1976. The heavy physical labour often proved more of a burden than previous tasks fulfilled by women under its patriarchal rules. In China there still were deep seated notions of female inferiority, despite Mao’s new policies, as these beliefs in society had been around far longer than the Communist government. The beliefs particularly stuck amongst the peasants of the countryside. Prejudice against female babies in China is evidence of such beliefs sticking as a baby boy was seen as an opportunity for another source of income whilst a baby girl was seen as a drain on resources.

Female subordination was still normal in the rural areas such as Xinjiang, in which families were still tightly controlled by the men and females were subject to the orders of any males in their family. After Mao’s death, an All China Women’s Federation representative described the life of the 4 million women of Xinjiang as like a “frog in a well”, suggesting that they could only see a glimpse of the sky and had a small outlook on life due to being treated like a possession of a man. Despite Maoist policies advocating women’s rights, feminist historians observe that Mao’s party still operated a male dominated system and that advocating for women’s rights is not the same as practicing them, as the CCP demonstrated. Only 13% of the Communist party under Mao were women with only 23% of National People’s Congress being women by 1975, suggesting women were not a priority for the CCP.

Women and the family instead of benefitting women’s position in the family, the radical character of Mao’s reform programme increased their vulnerability . ‘It is necessary to destroy the peasant family, women going to the factories and joining the army are part of the big destruction of the family.’ The Communist Party was determined to undermine the family that men and women were made to live in separate quarters and allowed only to see each other for conjugal visits. Even though this could be considered liberating since women were freed from the family ties that had restricted them, the enforced social change happened too suddenly.