Women’s Liberation in China.doc

Women’s Liberation in China by Soong Ching Ling [This article is reprinted from Peking Review, #6, Feb. 11, 1972, pp. 6-7. This article is not quite as well translated as is typically the case.] HISTORY has proved that Women’s Liberation in China—women obtain equal status with men—began with the democratic revolution, but will be completed only in the socialist revolution. What is the democratic revolution? It is a revolution to overturn the feudal rule of a landlord class, a revolution participated by the people at large under the leadership of a political party. It first took place in China in 1911, when a monarchy was overthrown, the emperor—the biggest landlord in the entire land—was dethroned, and the aristocracy was dispersed. But this revolution was not completed until 1949 when about that time the land of all big landlords was confiscated. Peasants and landlords were hostile to each other. The former participated in the revolutionary movement in 1927, and only after a long period of class struggle did they succeed to overturn the latter. What has the overturning of the landlord class to do with the Women’s Liberation Movement? In the spring of 1927, our great leader Chairman Mao Tsetung clearly gave us the correct explanation: “The political authority of the landlords is the backbone of all the other systems of authority. With that overturned, the clan authority, the religious authority and the authority of the husband all begin to totter…. As to the authority of the husband, this has always been weaker among the poor peasants because, out of economic necessity, their womenfolk have to do more manual labour than the women of the richer classes and therefore have more say and greater power of decision in family matters. With the increasing bankruptcy of the rural economy in recent years, the basis for men’s domination over women has already been weakened. With the rise of the peasant movement, the women in many places have now begun to organize rural women’s