“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself”. Analyse the role and responsibility of men in combatting gender inequality in a specific place and historical period.
Emily B – Year 12
Editor’s Note: Year 12 Student, Emily B, discusses the role of the male population, including male leaders, in China & how they contributed to the emancipation of women. Emily has submitted this to the Newnham College, Cambridge, Woolf Essay Prize. EB
Pre-1936 China, a country under the corrupt rule of the Kuomintang (GMD) government ran by Chiang Kai-Shek complimented with warlord uprisings and selfish local administrators, was a country fuelled by gender inequality and the suppression of women in order to benefit men and fulfil their fantasies. Similar to common situations in our current world, women were forced to conform to the wants of men in terms of lifestyle, beauty standards and mind-set, with a rife example being the admiration for foot binding.
Although outlawed in 1912, foot-binding was a common practice until the late 1930’s, due to the gradual increase in influence and control from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP). Despite the inhumane process of foot-binding (breaking of toes, cutting away of ‘excess’ flesh and the result of extreme amounts of pain and inability to walk long distances) it originates from social expectations (FOREMAN 2015) subjugating many women. The process was seen as a sign of status of the elite in order to ‘qualify’ for marriage; a sign of respect and to obey your husband. Due to the effect of foot-binding having an almost disabling impact on its victims, it also resulted in a means of men being able to control women, both physically as walking was a struggle but also mentally as it was common to please and capitulate to the demands of men from a young age, such as their erotic desires as foot-binding also produced a demand on thighs and buttock muscles for support.
The physical implications many women were forced to experience due to the common social expectations of pleasing men portrays the context of gender inequality in China during the early 1900’s: a need to meet the physical and mental demands of men in Chinese society by women, resulting in little free expression of women – displayed in their inability to vote – as well as free will e.g. inability to divorce their husband.
This is an example of gender inequality, where in this situation women have less rights in men as seen in the unequal access to rights, as well as the assumed stereotyped cultural and social roles. Gender inequality is where sex and/or gender is used to differentiate rights between men and women – most commonly and the focus on this essay being against women. This is evident in social and cultural context as seen above but as legal or in the work place situations (EIGE 2016).
Alongside the rise in power of the CCP, gender inequality gradually diminished under the leadership of Mao Zedong and his implication of legislation such as the Marriage Law 1950 to aid women and their ability to control their own lives. It is, however, important to note that whilst the gap of gender inequality generally closes, the treatment of society and people drastically deteriorates from 1952 onwards (due to mass rectification campaigns such as the Three and Five Anti’s Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution etc.) which this essay aims to explore.
Before exploring Mao Zedong’s impact on gender inequality from 1949 onwards, it is important to acknowledge his reasoning for enabling women to have larger control over their lives, with the dominating reason being to build a wider CCP support base to fulfil his ideology of mass mobilisation. It was common for many Chinese women to complete housework and take part in the traditional family life, but Mao had a want to mobilise women to work in the fields or factories to increase productivity by having a larger work force in order to fulfil his own political and economic goals rather than closing the gender gap because he thought it was the morally correct thing to do. This idea is emphasised through Mao’s quote of “Women hold up half the sky”(WU 2022)being used to encourage women to join communes to work in the countryside fields rather than educate both men and women on gender inequality in China to open the mind-sets of the people. Furthermore, whilst women were given the vote in the 1953 Electoral Law and so had an equal voting right to men, this was of little use due to the limited general elections held in Communist China – yet it is important to note that this may link to a lack of a fair democracy rather than a lack of gender inequality. To briefly summarise why Mao aimed to combat gender inequality in China: to utilise a larger support base (another 50% of the population) in order to increase political support of the CCP, expand his Cult of Personality across the entire population and to have millions of more workers to achieve his gradually unrealistic aims for China.
A dominating action Mao was responsible for was the administration of birth control and improvement of women’s health – two factors which had a huge, positive impact on gender inequality. Stemming from the need for economic planning in order for enough food to suffice for the population, there was a gradual change over time in CCP policy regarding birth control. Initially (1949), Mao was anti-contraception due to a want for a larger population as he believed “the more people we have, the stronger we are” (once again linking to the idea of mobilising a population to fulfil his economic gains), however as famine increased he realised the needed for population control, and so eventually adopted this as a policy in 1954. The state pharmaceutical company began producing contraceptives allowing women to take control of their lives by family planning, and so could gain individual advancement in their careers. For once in women’s lives, they were able to plan out a life for their own fulfilment, rather than having it dictated by their husband and family. However, the impact of birth control was not as great as it could have been due to lower income people (more than 90%of the population) (CHINA EMBASSY 2006) holding traditional values of having a large family and so were not ready to accept contraception whilst also having some scepticism towards it. Ultimately, whilst Mao attempted to reduce the population to achieve his political wants, it also simultaneously had an impact on the lives on women by allowing them to grasp a greater control of their lives and break free from household demands of childcare. However, its impact was limited due to social beliefs and expectations arising due to a fear of change, limiting Mao’s effect of combatting gender inequality to a great extent.
Whilst the bulk of this essay has been cynical of Mao’s want to combat gender inequality in China, a sincere effort to improve gender inequality can be seen through women’s participation in politics. Although political representation of women was not equal to men, the CCP under Mao’s leadership did make efforts to encourage women to take on leadership roles in their villages as well as at a provincial level. This is evident in 1953, where the CCP has a target of at least a quarter of those elected to represent women. However, Mao’s efforts to combat gender inequality were actually limited due to the worries of both men and women (mainly in the traditional thinking countryside) who were afraid it would damage their reputations and so only 10.4% (69 women) were elected to the Central people’s Political Consultative Conference (WHITFIELD 2015). The main point of these statistics is to portray how Mao and his party did make an effort to combat general inequality in the political system by attempting to give more opportunities to women, however their actions were limited due to the dominating mind-sets of society, where women were not used to expressing their thoughts and having roles of responsibility, causing fear amongst both sexes.
As Mao had a dominating grasp on the party, it is important to note the role of men in the late 1900’s after his death (1976). Later reforms to reduce gender inequality are evident in the Compulsory Education Law, implemented in 1986 under Li Xiannian’s government. This legislation was adopted in order to guarantee all school-age children the right to receive a minimum of nine years of education, which includes six years of primary school and three years of secondary school, all free of tuition. Although Mao did make attempts to improve literacy specifically amongst women though mass campaigns in 1952, 1956 and 1958 by compulsory attendance to evening classes resulting in an extra 16 million women being able to read in 1958, it had little effect on improving the literacy rates amongst men. Since literacy rates were drastically low (approximately 15%) there was a need for both sexes to be educated, rather than just women illustrating a lack of equality in terms of education. However, this Reformed Education Act (n/a 2022) under Li Xiannian is a sharp contrast as it attempted to improve the fairness and quality of education throughout the entire of China for both boys and girls, and reduced gender inequality hugely by offering the same education to both sexes whilst simultaneously attempting to raise the standards of living through high quality education and opportunities for all.
it is clear that gender inequality is still required to be fought in modern day – not just in China but worldwide.
However, whilst gender inequality has gradually reduced through the 1900’s in China under the CCP, it is important to note that the treatment of both genders in general was damaged. Women were on the rise to achieving the same levels of equality to men under Mao’s social changes, yet this was destroyed from 1958 once the Great Leap Forward occurred. The majority of progress made of women’s rights previously made was scrapped alongside the rights of men as the fair treatment of the population as a whole diminished due to the cruel effects of the Great Leap (for example The Great Famine, highly controlled people’s communes dictated by incompetent party cadres, suppression of intellectuals etc.). So although the rights of women did fall dramatically, it can also be argued that the rights of men and women were equal during the years of the Great Leap – instead of women’s rights improving to meet the rights of men’s, both the rights of men and women fell to meet each other illuminating an argument that at one point there was little gender inequality due to Mao’s actions during the mid-1900’s.
Whilst it is clear that gender inequality fluctuated throughout 1900’s China due to a number of factors such as ideology of political parties, economic and political aims as well as the differing leaders, it is clear that the first initial efforts to reduce gender inequality for the population was actually limited by the people due to their traditional mind-sets feared change as submission of women was deeply rooted into their beliefs. However, as Mao took action to achieve his economic aims of making China self-sufficient through his Five Year Plan’s, this had a spill-over effect to the women of China, who gained some larger amounts of control of their lives through contraception and the right to vote – yet this was once again limited due to the increasing control of Mao’s CCP. Although gender inequality changed greatly throughout the 1900’s, by the end of the century it can be argued that the actions of the male political leaders in China have reduced gender inequality through legislation, which is not discriminative of the sex of the individual, and so increases opportunities for both men and women. However, as a closing point, it is clear that gender inequality is still required to be fought in modern day – not just in China but worldwide as seen in the gender pay gap (CONCERN 2022) and gender bias in education.
References:
Amanda Foreman, Why Foot binding Persisted in China for a Millennium, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-footbinding-persisted-china-millennium-180953971/, 2015, Smithsonian Magazine, Accessed 30/05/23.
China Embassy, 1949-1999: Fifty Years of Progress in China’s Human Rights, http://by.china-embassy.gov.cn/rus/zt/rqwt/200607/t20060726_2413631.htm#:~:text=In%20old%20China%2C%20landlords%20and,20%20percent%20of%20the%20land. ,2006, [unable to find publisher], accessed 30/05/2023.
Concern Worldwide, Gender equality now: 7 injustices we need to address to change the world, 2022, accessed 05/07/2023.
European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), gender inequality, 2016, EIGE, accessed 05/07/2023.
Geoffrey Stewart, China 1900-76, 2006, Pearson Education
Jung Chang, Wild Swans, 1991, Harper Collins
Robert Whitfield, The Transformation of China 1936-1997, 2015, Oxford University Press
Yingzue Wu, Educational equality change in China and its function for gender equality, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/educational-equality-change-in-china-and-its-function-for-gender-equality, 2022, King’s College London, accessed on 30/05/2006.
[Unable to find author], Compulsory Education Law Adopted 1986, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-11-08/Compulsory-Education-Law-Adopted-1986-1eMMkjM98PK/index.html#:~:text=The%20Compulsory%20Education%20Law%20of,secondary%20school%2C%20free%20of%20tuition., November 2022, CGTN, Accessed on 30/05/2023.
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