Beijing Review: "Talking of Women's Liberation," March 9, 1973 This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

Source: "Talking of Women's Liberation," Beijing Review 16, no. 10, 9 March 1973, 12-15.

Transcribed by an HC, May 12, 2005

See also: New Women in New China .


BEIJING REVIEW

March 9, 1973


International Working Women's Day

Talking of Women's Liberation

[Transcriber's introduction (May 12, 2005): The below article takes the position that some patriarchal practices originate in feudal society, and that talking about the liberation of wimmin in oppressed nations without considering "[t]he overwhelming majority of women were working women, many of whom had lost husbands and children, and many were struggling desperately on the borderline between life and death" ignores the real-world interconnectedness of national oppression and wimmin's oppression. However, the article also says that wimmin's liberation does not mean just participation in revolutionary struggle and production.

MIM's line recogizes three strands of oppression/struggle/analysis: nation, class, and gender. Even in the context of a Third World country, the below article points to the problem of a romance culture. Concern with the romance culture as a problem is not just a MIM "thing." For example, Songs of the Red Flag , a 1961 book of folk songs published by Foreign Languages Press, has a folk song from Hopei about the womyn who "won't do a stroke of work." At first this glance, this folk song might appear to encourage wimmin to just participate more in political struggle and production, or blame individual wimmin for being docile, but in reality it criticizes the idea that people ought to seek happiness under patriarchy.

The principal contradiction in the world and within the united $tates is between imperialism and the oppressed nations. The principal contradiction within the Euro-Amerikan nation is in age. Children and young people are in several ways subject to a pre-capitalist domination, as a result of which they cannot even choose or even criticize their own oppressors. Ending the patriarchal oppression of children does not involve just a fuller participation of children in political struggle and production (making them less expendable), but also solving problems peculiar to children.]

by Our Correspondent

With March 8, International Working Women's Day, in mind, I went round to a number of Peking textile mills in late February. In general women textile workers greatly outnumber men; in particular the textile departments in the capital have done much good work in training and upgrading women cadres in line with Party directives.

In Peking's 37 textile mills set up after liberation in 1949 to produce cotton, wool, silk, synthetic fibre and knitted goods, 70 per cent of the workers and staff members are women and 37 per cent of all responsible positions from section leaders, technicians and cadres on up to the mill level are held by women.

Politically and economically, the women of post-liberation China share equal status with men. This is amply borne out by what one sees and hears in the mills. This equality comes out in what they say about state and international affairs, their relaxed after-work talk or hurried snatches of conversation beside their machines or during animated political study sessions.

Chairman Mao pointed out in the twenties that while a man in China is usually subjected to the domination of three systems of authority -- political, clan and religious, a woman is saddled in addition with the authority of the husband. That was the situation before 1949. Nowadays women are appreciatively referred to as "the other half." This is a far cry from the days of the four enslaving authorities! How did this turnabout happen?

The New Woman

The No. 3 State Cotton Mill in the eastern suburbs of the capital has seven women and nine men on its Party committee -- the basic organization of the Chinese Communist Party in a factory exercising unified leadership over the work of the whole mill. The standing committee -- responsible for the Party committee's day-to-day work -- is made up of three men and four women. The latter are veteran cadres with more than 30 years of revolutionary experiences and all took part in the 1937-45 War of Resistance Against Japan.

Comrade Wang Tse, deputy secretary of the Party committee and one of the four women standing committee members met with me.

She recalled vividly and with some humour the condition of Chinese women when she joined the revolution. In those days, she said, in some places there was a saying which likened a bride to a pack horse -- broken in and at the beek and call of everyone. As part of the wedding ritual when the bride arrived at her husband's home, she was made to crawl under a saddle to signify her complete submission to work like a beast of burden until her dying day.

Another insight into women's inferior status then that Comrade Wang gave was her story about land reform in the areas liberated by the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. When land was distributed, married women also received their share. But as the poor peasant women did not even have a name they were either listed as "so-and-so's wife" or "so-and-so's mother," or were hurriedly given a name for the occasion. Thus the liberation gave the women a name along with a share of the land.

On the surface, women were the victims of feudal customs. But why did these persist? Because of grinding poverty and backwardness, which in turn were products of reactionary political regimes.

In those dark years prior to liberation, China was under the iron heel of the imperialist aggressors and the exploiting classes were squeezing and sucking the people dry. The overwhelming majority of women were working women, many of whom had lost husbands and children, and many were struggling desperately on the borderline between life and death. That was the grim situation. To talk about liberating women without taking this into account is to mistake shadow for substance. What did equality between men and women mean when even the most elementary rights of existence did not exist?

Guided by the Communist Party and Chairman Mao, millions upon millions of women fought staunchly side by side with their men throughout the long revolutionary years. Comrade Wang Tse was one of them. At the age of 20 she was already actively working among the people in 1942, mobilizing them to take up arms to resist the Japanese invaders. In her home province of Shantung she worked in enemy-occupied areas, in guerrilla areas and in liberated areas. She has vivid recollections of the magnificent contributions working women made to the momentous effort of resisting Japanese aggression. In some places they did most of the production work while the men were fighting at the front. It was they who engaged in most of the farm work, wove cloth, made shoes for the soldiers, served as stretcher bearers, nurses, messengers and delivered grain and fodder to the front.

[A photograph]
Women members on the standing committee of the Party committee of the Peking No. 3 Cotton Mill. Wang Tse is second from the left.

"A new woman has risen from the awakened poverty-stricken masses. . . . We'll demolish the cannibalistic system!" So went a popular song The New Woman in the thirties. It sang of the new role of women like Comrade Wang Tse and her women comrades-in-arms. They had left home, risked their lives, and joined the battle to fight and defeat Japanese imperialism, liberate China and smash the fetters that chained China's women.

Fighting ended in 1949 with the country's liberation and the new era of socialist construction for a new China was ushered in. The revolutionary women of China did not return to the narrow confines of the family. They did not abandon social progress to chase after an illusory "personal happiness," but did their bit for the great cause of socialist revolution and construction. Comrade Wang Tse, for example, took part in building the textile mill she now works in. She was there in 1955 when the first bricks were laid. She has over the years worked and watched the mill grow up and expand. Yesterday's acorn is today's oak of 115,000 spindles keeping some 6,600 people busy.

"The working woman's status today is immeasurably higher than in the old days," Comrade Wang said. With a twinkle in her eye she added, "And from what I know women also have a big say in the family."

"And don't forget women cadres have a big say in the mill, too!" someone from her office sitting in on this interview pointed out.

"That's very true," she agreed readily. "And you know, some workers say our mill is being run by a bunch of grannies!" She chuckled to herself as she made the remark.

This was a humorous reference to the women on the Party committee. As a matter of fact, the four leading women cadres are not old. The youngest, 43, joined the revolution when she was only 14. The eldest is 54. The amount of work these comrades do a day quite belies their years. Their revolutionary ardour and drive unquestionably will last them many more years.

When I asked what more she would like to say about women's liberation, Comrade Wang Tse replied: "We cannot discuss women's liberation, women's independence and women's freedom in isolation. I'm not for what is called women's rights in and for itself, as opposed to men's rights. We cannot make the men our target of struggle. Oppression of women is class oppression. When we talk about this we must remember that the liberation movement of women cannot be separated from the liberation of the proletariat. It is a component part of the proletarian revolution."

Comrade Wang Tse is one of many. In Peking's 37 textile mills [,] 29 women hold leading posts at the mill level and 201 at the intermediate level.

Today's Women

Comrade Wu Ai-mei is a 41-year-old fine yarn machinist at the No. 2 State Cotton Mill who started her working life as a child labourer of 13 in a factory in Wusih, Kiangsu Province. She was born in the village where her father worked as a labourer for a landlord. She was transferred to work in Peking some years after liberation.

"My mother was a servant in a capitalist's home in Wusih. I was small for my age those days," she recalled. "Every day I set out for the mill with a canteen of slops and left-overs from the capitalist's house before the sun drove away the stars. It took me over an hour to get there. Work was from six in the morning until six in the evening. Very often we had to put in 14 or 16 hours a day. We had to eat while we worked as there was no time off for meals. Because we were apprentice child labourers, we got no pay the first three years. There were too many people out of work those days, and the capitalist said we poor people were two-legged dogs. We were easier to find than four-legged dogs." Here Comrade Wu Ai-mei found it difficult to hold back the tears.

From Comrade Wu I heard again the familiar story of life in a factory in the old days -- cramped and dan-¬gerous [p. 14] working conditions, air heavily laden with dust and fluff, long hours and maltreatment. Once, when the yarn kept breaking on her machine, she was cruelly beaten with a stick by the foreman. She constantly yearned for the day when she could eat a full meal, wear warm clothes and live without unending cruel treatment and humiliation.

That long-sought-for day came with liberation. Comrade Wu worked hard and joyfully to turn out more and better fine yarn for the people, her heart grateful to Chairman Mao and the Communist Party for making her wish come true. The mill's Party organization taught her what the revolution stood for, why and how to make revolution. She learnt that just a happy life for herself was not enough. As a member of the working class she had to fight for the realization of the lofty ideal of communism. Chairman Mao taught her that, as a woman, she should "unite and take part in production and political activity to improve the economic and political status of women." Her political awakening was tangibly reflected by her work in the mill.

Today Comrade Wu Ai-mei is a member of the vanguard of the proletariat, having been admitted into the Party in 1954. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution she was elected to the mill's Party committee and the revolutionary committee as well as holding the post of Party branch secretary of a 300-member shift in the fine yarn workshop. This shift has always been cited as an advanced collective.

Like other married women in the mill, she and her husband both work and live happily. He is a machine maintenance and repair worker and they have three children -- two in middle school, the youngest in primary school.

[A photograph]
Chang Feng-wen ( left ) at work.

Was it merely a stroke of fate that a child labourer, a woman like Wu Ai-mei, got to hold positions of responsibility? That has to be ruled out. There are thousands and thousands of Wu Ai-mei's in socialist China. Their life histories unequivocally say that without a revolutionary transformation of the social system, working women cannot win real liberation.

Younger Generation of Women

Girls who have grown up since liberation have no fear of having to crawl under a saddle on their wedding day. That degrading custom went out more than two decades ago. More than likely they have not even heard of such a thing. Women and men are equal by law. This was one of the first things the Party and People's Government proclaimed immediately after liberation. Women's interests are protected in many other ways as well. But thoroughgoing liberation for women is not something ready-made. To gain complete liberation, women must themselves take part in political struggle and production alongside the men under Party leadership.

The young women of China today are doing that. When the Cultural Revolution started in 1966 Comrade Chang Feng-wen was a textile worker in the No. 3 Cotton Mill. Responding to Chairman Mao's call, she rebelled against the capitalist roaders and took the lead in writing and putting up big-character posters denouncing the various manifestations of the counter-revolutionary revisionist line of Liu Shao-chi in her mill. In 1968 she was sent to the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a member of the workers' propaganda team to take part in the Cultural Revolution there. She was successful in her job.

In 1969, Communist Party member Chang Feng-wen attended the historic Ninth Party Congress as a delegate.

"In the old society, the daughter of a poor peasant like me would be worrying about where her next meal is coming from instead of taking part in discussing and deciding important state affairs," said this 34-year-old woman worker in speaking of that big moment in her life.

Comrade Fu Yu-fang is another of the many women in Peking's textile industry to be upgraded during the Cultural Revolution. A 1957 junior middle school graduate who started work in 1958 in a woollen textile mill, she attended the Ninth Party Congress with Comrade Chang Feng-wen. Over the years she was carefully groomed by the mill's leadership. First she was given the job of looking after a workshop of 50 or so workers and then moved up to become secretary of the general Party branch in a [p. 15] 500-member workshop. Later she was sent to a study course in Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Comrade Fu makes high demands on herself and whenever possible joins other workers in production work, which makes her all the closer with the masses.

[A photograph]
In the kindergarten of the Peking No. 3 Cotton Mill.

Comrade Fu is now a member of the Peking Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and one of the comrades responsible for work regarding women.

Comrade Wu Feng-lan of the Peking General Knitwear Mill is another woman worker holding important posts, being a member of the standing committee of the mill's Party committee and workshop Party branch secretary. She has close ties with the masses and often makes use of her off-hours to visit the workers in their homes. Before the Cultural Revolution started, Comrade Liu Kuei-ying of the No. 2 Cotton Mill used to be a shy, timid girl who would blush even when speaking at a small group discussion. A vice-chairman of the mill's revolutionary committee today, she can address a hall full of people without any qualms.

Growing up in the Cultural Revolution, a new generation of women in China, tried and tested in political storms, have made another big stride forward on the road to complete liberation.

Special Problems

Women must take part in revolutionary struggle and production the same as men if they are to win complete liberation. This, however, is not to say that women do not have their own special problems which must be taken into consideration. Thousands of years of feudal bondage must be smashed and deep-rooted social prejudice must be wiped out. Housekeeping, raising children and many other real problems have to be solved properly. The Party and People's government have always paid attention to these problems and to protecting the rights of women and children. The guiding thought behind the women's movement in China was never just to get women to take part in revolutionary struggle and production and neglect solving problems peculiar to women. In practice, women's initiative and enthusiasm in revolutionary struggle and production are greatly enhanced when these problems are solved.

Portage, loading and unloading and many other jobs requiring great physical effort are given to men only in the textile industry. The state stipulates that women workers have the right to take time off during their menstrual period and to get off work or do lighter work during pregnancy, after childbirth or for breast feeding their children. Expectant mothers in their fifth month get free regular pre-natal examinations and 56 days off with full pay after confinement. The period of leave is extended to 70 days if confinement has been difficult. From the seventh month on expectant mothers are given extremely light work and are taken off their machines. Mothers are permitted time off work twice a day to feed their children in the mills' creches.

Mills have day-care centres and kindergartens which look after a worker's child from 56 days old until it enters school at seven. Cost for an under-one infant in the No. 3 mill's day-care centre is one-twentieth the average wage of a worker.

Fairly well-equipped hospitals are maintained in the mills giving free medicine and treatment and regular health checks to all workers. Minor complaints are dealt with in the workshops.

I dropped in on many women textile workers to hear what they had to say about family life. All told me they felt they were the equal of their husbands and, like their husbands, take part in various aspects of political life. Since both are wage-earners the wife is economically independent. Women get the same pay as men for the same job. At home wives in general tend to do more of the work, but husbands help by way of shopping, sweeping and cleaning and looking after and educating the children and doing other jobs around the house. A surprising number of wives said their husbands were better cooks. Equality has brought real democracy, harmony and happiness into the family.