Feminism in China
Feminism in China refers to the collection of historical movements and ideologies in time aimed at redefining the role and status of women in China. Feminism in China began in the 20th century in tandem with the 1911 Revolution. Feminism in the People's Republic of China is closely linked with socialism and class issues. Some commentators believe that this close association is damaging to Chinese feminism and argue that the interests of the Chinese Communist Party are placed before those of women. Under Xi Jinping's general secretaryship, feminists have been subject to increased scrutiny by the country's system of mass surveillance and censorship, and detained in some instances.
Etymology
Historically common formulations in Chinese discourse on women's issues have included "women's rights," "equality between men and women," and "women's liberation."Translating Feminism in the 1990s
In 1989, seven overseas Chinese scholars formed The Chinese Scholars for Women's Studies, a feminist network that aimed to promote Chinese women's and gender studies. In 1994 and 1997, the network translated two western feminist theory publications into Chinese, and thus provided for the Chinese academic community the first peer-reviewed translations of the concept of feminism. In their 1994 collaboration, feminism was translated as Nü Xing Zhu Yi. In 1997, as most CSWS members began using emails, the network had an extensive online debate as to whether feminism should not be translated as Nü Xing Zhu Yi but Nü Quan Zhu Yi.Feminism as Nü Xing Zhu Yi (女性主义)
Beginning in the 1980s, native Chinese academics started using Nü Xing Zhu Yi as the Chinese counterpart of feminism. The emphasis of this translation is on the first two characters Nü Xing, which coupled with Zhu Yi emanates a more academic tone. Nü Xing in its own right also denotes "women". The term thus appeared fitting to then Chinese academics whose scholarly focus centered around women's issues instead of more relational concepts such as "gender" which concerns not only women but all gender subjects and their relations.Feminism as Nü Quan Zhu Yi (女权主义)
The emphasis of translating feminism as Nü Quan Zhu Yi is on the second character Quan, meaning rights in English. The proponents of this translation highlights the political contingency of feminism as a rights-based social movement. Some CSWS members supported this translation because they felt the other candidate Nü Xing Zhu Yi was depoliticising in its absence of any rights-based connotations. Nü Quan Zhu Yi, which accentuates human rights, was also less essentialist and more encompassing as compared with Nü Xing Zhu Yi, whose first two characters delimit the term as seemingly exclusive to the concerns of women.History
Before 1900
The huge change in the status of women in China before the 1900s occurred in the Han dynasty. In the early matrilineal society, Chinese women had a completely different social status from that after the Han dynasty, women were able to retain their surnames and even pass them on to their children. From Han dynasty to Qing dynasty, Chinese women under the patriarchal system were severely oppressed due to the profound influence of Confucianism and filial piety. During this period, literature about women emerged in China, such as "Mother of Mencius", "The Analects of Women", etc., explaining to women at the time how to be ethical and popularizing the best way of serving parents, husbands and sons in a woman's life. Prior to the 20th century, women in China were considered essentially different from men. Despite the association of women with yin and men with yang, two qualities considered equally important by Daoism, women were believed to occupy a lower position than men in the hierarchical order of the universe. The I Ching stated that "'Great Righteousness is shown in that man and woman occupy their correct places; the relative positions of Heaven and Earth.'" Women were to be submissive and obedient to men, and normally not allowed to participate in government, military or community institutions. While there were lauded exceptions in Chinese history and literature, such as the Song dynasty general Liang Hongyu and legendary woman warrior Hua Mulan, these were considered to be signs of the dire situation of China at the time. Before the 20th century, such exceptional women were believed to have fought to defend China's traditional patriarchal order and society, not to change it.20th century
1900–1949
In the late 19th and 20th centuries, China experienced military and political crises at home and abroad. The Opium Wars of 1839–1842 and 1856–1860 forced China to open trade to other countries, which brought foreign ideologies. A large number of political conflicts forced educated men and women in exile to start revolutionary movements. They started to speak out against these conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but to little avail. Before that, influential Chinese thinkers, such as Liang Qichao and others, called for the liberation of women, better acceptance of women's education, and women's participation in the country construction. From the perspective of changing the fate of a country, Liang Qichao claimed that the education of women and the liberation of women are necessary, and they are also essential to the health of the country.It was also during these early years of feminism in China that the New Woman movement emerged in their infancy stage promoting ideas of education for women, gender equality, and freedom from constrictive Confucian practices. In the 20th century, women writers also expressed feminism through literary writing. The situation only began to change as result of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911. In course of this widespread uprising against the ruling Qing dynasty, several women rebel units were raised such as Wu Shuqing's Women's Revolutionary Army, Yin Weijun and Lin Zongxue's Zhejiang Women's Army, Tang Qunying's Women's Northern Expedition Brigade, and many others. All these units were disbanded by the Provisional Government of the Republic of China on 26 February 1912, mostly for chauvinistic reasons. Nevertheless, the fact that they had fought alongside men encouraged many of the women who had taken part in the women militias to become politically active, striving for change.
Many changes in women's lives took place during the Republic of China. In 1912 the Women's Suffrage Alliance, an umbrella organization of many local women's organizations, was founded to work for the inclusion of women's equal rights and suffrage in the constitution of the new republic after the abolition of the monarchy, and while the effort was not successful, it signified an important period of feminism activism.
A generation of educated and professional new women emerged after the inclusion of girls in the state school system and after women students were accepted at the University of Beijing in 1920, and in the 1931 Civil Code, women were given equal inheritance rights, banned forced marriage and gave women the right to control their own money and initiate divorce.
As part of Chiang Kai-shek's New Life Movement, women were called to return to the home as virtuous wives and good mothers. The Movement's emphasis on women in the home was in part influenced by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy's restraints on women's employment. The example of Nora Helmer from Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House was a theme in progressive intellectuals' opposition to the New Life Movement. When the actress who played Nora in one leftist theatre troupe's production was fired from the school where she worked, the retaliatory firing became known as the "Nora incident" and was discussed in the media and intellectual circles.
No nationally unified women's movement could organize until China was unified under the Kuomintang Government in Nanjing in 1928; women's suffrage was finally included in the new Constitution of 1936, although the constitution was not implemented until 1947.
In 1922, birth control activist Margaret Sanger traveled to China. Her visit fueled the belief among elites in Nationalist-era China that the use of contraception would improve the "quality" of the Chinese people and resulted in many newspaper articles addressing the benefits and shortcomings of birth control. Chinese feminists inspired by Sanger's visit went on to be significantly involved in the subsequent Chinese debates on birth control and eugenics.
In Republican-era China, Chinese feminists did not universally demand legalization of abortion in China. In the view of some feminists, social conservatives' powerful opposition to abortion de-criminalization would result in a backlash that would harm other efforts to improve women's status in relation to men. Accordingly, in a tactical bid for broader support, many feminist organizations pursued moderate abortion positions.
1949–2000
In the Communist movement, "Women's liberation had been highlighted in the communist agenda from the outset, and, in that sense, the Chinese revolution was simultaneously a women's revolution, and Chinese socialism a women's cause." By the 1920s, the Communist movement in China used a labor and peasant organizing strategy that combined workplace advocacy with women's rights advocacy. The Communists would lead union organizing efforts among male workers while simultaneously working in nearby peasant communities on women's rights issues, including literacy for women. Mao Zedong and Yang Kaihui were among the most effective Communist political organizers using this method.During the Chinese Civil War, the Communists enacted women's rights measures in areas of the country they controlled. In the revolutionary base area of Jiangxi, the Communist-led authorities enacted the Marriage Regulations of 1931 and the Marriage Laws of 1941, which were modeled after Soviet Union statutes. These statutes declared marriage as a free association between a woman and a man without the interference of other parties and permitted divorce on mutual agreement. At the time, they were the most progressive marriage laws in China and created the conditions for women to divorce men they had been forced to marry, leave abusive spouses, and till their own land.
In 1942, Ding Ling used International Women's Day to point out the hypocritical attitudes and behaviors of male communists and solved the special pressure on female revolutionaries. She claims that marriage still promotes the husband's control of his wife. However, because the pressure of marriage becomes unbearable, women will get married eventually.
During China's land reform movement, the Chinese Communist Party encouraged rural women in achieving a "double fanshen" - a revolutionary transformation as both a peasant and a feminist awakening as a woman. The CCP urged rural women to reject traditional Chinese assumptions about their role in society. In conjunction with land reform, the movement promoted women's issues such as the elimination of bride prices and reversing the stigma against widows remarrying. The CCP promoted successes in women's liberation, such as the progress of the Hui women of northwest China who were said to have not just received land through the rural movement, but also "freedom over their own bodies" and embraced political participation.
The revolt of women has shaken China to its very depths.... In the women of China, the Communists possessed, almost ready-made, one of the greatest masses of disinherited human beings the world has ever seen. And because they found the keys to the heart of these women, they also found one of the keys to victory... |
| J. Belden, 1946 |
The Great Leap Forward's focus on total workforce mobilization resulted in opportunities for women's labor advancement. As women became increasingly needed to work in agriculture and industry, and encouraged by policy to do so, the phenomenon of Iron Women arose. Women did traditionally male work in both fields and factories, including major movements of women into management positions. Women competed for high productivity, and those who distinguished themselves came to be called Iron Women. Slogans such as "There is no difference between men and women in this new age," and "We can do anything, and anything we do, we can do it well," became popular during the Great Leap Forward.
During the Cultural Revolution, one way China promoted its policy of state feminism was through revolutionary opera. Most of the eight model dramas in this period featured women as their main characters. The narratives of these women protagonists begin with them oppressed by misogyny, class position, and imperialism before liberating themselves through the discovery of their own internal strength and the CCP.
As a result of government approval following the Chinese Communist Revolution, women's rights groups became increasingly active in China: "One of the most striking manifestations of social change and awakening which has accompanied the Revolution in China has been the emergence of a vigorous and active Woman's Movement."
Beginning in the 70s and continuing in the 80s, however, many Chinese feminists began arguing that the Communist government had been "consistently willing to treat women's liberation as something to be achieved later, after class inequalities had been taken care of." Some feminists claim that part of the problem is a tendency on the government's part to interpret "equality" as sameness, and then to treat women according to an unexamined standard of male normalcy.