AFTERWORD: AGAINST THE ETERNAL WOMAN
Return to Women’s Liberation in China
AFTERWORD: AGAINST THE ETERNAL WOMAN [1]
“Confucius has been dead for more than two thousand years, but his rotten ideology, according to which men are lords and women their subjects is still influencing people and constantly shows itself.” Here is an example of what can be read daily in the Chinese press. It is hardly surprising to see public recognition of the fact that ideas and doctrines against women still exist in today’s China—that has been known for a long while. What is striking about these articles, and they are particularly common, is their tone, which doesn’t shy away from the blunt truth, and the fact that they confirm the idea that much remains to be done before sexual equality is reached.
This stands in strong contrast to the rightist tendency that was becoming blatantly obvious until recently. This tendency held that men and women were already completely equal in China. It even led some people to come round to the view that there was no need to revive the inactive women’s organization, because sexual equality was an established fact—no oppression, no problem.
This trend, fundamentally aiming to deny the class struggle and therefore the need to struggle, could have had grave consequences because it arises from the mistaken ideas of the people. In fact, it sometimes did. Apparently paradoxically, the rightist tendency coexisted peacefully with what could be called classic and universal anti-feminism—the sort of anti-feminism that consists of plainly and openly preaching contempt for women, on the grounds of alleged “biological” and natural inferiority. These two trends in anti-female thought clearly differed in their terms and arguments, but both agreed on the central point: that women’s initiative was to be blocked so that women would be prevented from following the recommendation printed in the People’s Daily 1 editorial of March 8, 1973, “to get down to action.”
This reactionary offensive is not confined to women but has the restoration of the old social order as its primary objective and demands the relegation of women to their former inferior status as an inevitable consequence. It has met with a revolutionary counteroffensive, begun in early 1972. At that point, a few months after the death of Lin Biao, you could find calls in the press for more concern over the women’s question. The March 8 editorial in the People’s Daily gave a real boost to the grassroots revival of the Women’s Liberation Movement. This revival was marked a few months later by the regional reconstruction of the Women’s Federation, and the campaign has broadened as it has continued. The launching of the “Pi Lin Pi Kong” 2 campaign at the beginning of 1973 called for massive participation by women, as we shall see.
By drawing up a provisional balance sheet of this campaign, we can see clearly enough the areas in which the bourgeoisie has been trying hardest to effect its restoration, and how the revolutionary counteroffensive has been put into practice. At a time when women in the West are daily becoming more aware of their oppression and are joining the fight in greater and greater numbers, this new wave of the Women’s Liberation Movement in China must be of interest to us.
Must Women Be Liberated from Housework?
To claim that men and women are already equal is to prevent the necessary practical steps being taken for the achievement by women of true equality. Those who express the arrogant and age-old contempt for housework find that completely to their taste. The development of domestic service workshops, which are material measures of very great political significance for the liberation of women from domestic tasks, has been slowed down and sometimes even halted altogether, on the pretext that men and women are now sharing housework equally.
This pernicious tendency is doubly mistaken. Firstly, because it treats the avant-garde (although fairly widespread) practice of housework sharing as though it was universal. Secondly, and most importantly, because the disappearance of women’s work (that is domestic work) results mainly from the socialization and mechanization of specific household tasks, and not from a new egalitarian distribution of tasks between husband and wife, though such a distribution is still necessary for several reasons (see Part Two). The importance of this question is stressed in a Red Flag article called “Make Energetic Efforts to Train Women Cadres.”
With regard to the question of family complications of women, we must also conduct concrete analyses. In the old society, women were downgraded into “slaves in their families.” For several thousand years the basic guiding thought of the feudal landlord and bourgeois classes was to take women as slaves and appendages, to put them in the kitchen, to tie them up with heavy household chores, and to deprive them of the right to participate in social production and political activities. One of the important tasks of the proletariat is to liberate women from this slavery. After liberation, the establishment of the socialist system and the participation in productive labor by the masses of women have brought fundamental changes in this situation. However, due to the influence of the idea of the exploiting classes of looking down on women and the restrictions of the material conditions, the question of heavy household chores has not been completely solved. 3
In fact, it was not just for the reasons expressed here that domestic tasks were overlooked in the revolutionary process. I have been able to discover others in the course of recent visits. For example, the contempt in which any and every form of housework was held, although vigorously denounced today, obviously slowed down the socialization of housework. Some of the then-current ideas are also revealing. For example: “Working in a service workshop is not serving the people, it’s serving the private interests of the people.” Or, “The only productive work is factory work, and only productive work is noble,” which was a fairly widespread attitude among young people at a certain date. 4 Then again there was the other side of this coin in the old Liuist demagogy: “It’s also a revolutionary task to look after your household and your children.” 5
But the service workshops are only the beginning of the abolition of housework. Once the domestic tasks have been taken out of family hands and collectivized, they still have to be mechanized. This mechanization has its roots in two separate areas. Firstly, it clearly depends on the basic improvements effected by service workers themselves. Secondly, it depends on the development of light industry in the relevant fields. One instance where the two areas have borne fruit is in the development of collective automatic laundries. In the same way, if the actual domestic needs of the masses are not sufficiently systematized and recognized by the industrial sector, it may be difficult to appreciate that producing this or that object could be important for the liberation of women. The Women’s Federation has a vital part to play in all this—organizing the mass of women, researching and pointing to their needs, acting as a pressure group to push for change. The present “restrictions of the material conditions” referred to in the Red Flag article will have to be broken down. And to this end political and ideological mobilization is essential.
Training Women Cadres
This topic is especially interesting because it allows us to see the extent to which two allegedly opposed ideas, “men and women are perfectly equal” and “women are inferior to men,” actually meet and coexist in perfect harmony.
The Red Flag article I have already cited makes it very explicit that
the growth of women cadres still fails to keep pace with the objective requirements of China’s socialist revolution and socialist construction. In some localities the number of women party members is much too low compared with the number of revolutionary women, and there are too few women cadres in leading bodies. This unavoidably affects the development of the movement for the emancipation of women. One who fails to see this cannot see clearly the great significance of training and bringing up women cadres and developing party membership among women, to say nothing of taking the necessary measures to solve the relevant problems.
How could measures be taken which specifically encourage the training of women cadres when people happily reiterate that women already have equal rights with men in whatever sphere you care to mention? The people who say that will rationalize the fact that there is a relatively small number of women cadres, will fail to take the necessary steps, and will even excuse themselves on the grounds that women are naturally backward. 6
To Record or to Reform
As a result, such people can do no more than regret that the cultural and political level of women happens to be too low, that women happen to have too little time because of their household duties and that, unfortunately, they can’t be given any responsibilities until circumstances permit. Red Flag takes up this point:
Some of the comrades… believe that women possess “low cultural standards and ability,” that they have “family complications,” and that “it is difficult to promote women cadres.” This kind of thinking greatly affects the growth of women cadres… The idea that women are less able than men is not justified by actual conditions in China… As for saying that the cultural standard and work ability of some women comrades are not high enough, it also has deep class origins and social historical origins. It is exactly because of this that we must show concern for them, train them, and help them improve themselves. We must never discriminate against them.
To say that women “have family complications” is, to all appearances, a neutral and objective statement. To conclude from it that they can’t be entrusted with responsibility is definitely a reactionary attitude, and one that the Party and the women’s committees vehemently criticize. That there must be more concern for the actual and particular problems of women has been a constant theme of Chinese propaganda since the March 8 editorial. Of course, performing household tasks still conflicts with the political, ideological, and cultural tasks that women must assume. Denial, as we have seen, serves no purpose for women, but to be content with merely recording the conflict is not much of an advance either. Progress depends on the energetic implementation of a series of reforms which have already shown their value in many vanguard areas. 7
That’s why Red Flag reaffirms this necessary political stance:
It is most essential. . . to solve the contradictions between revolutionary work and family work. `It is necessary to promote the practice that men and women must share household chores. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the specific characteristics of women and help them solve specific problems. Late marriage and planned parenthood should be promoted. It is essential to do a good job in running social public welfare facilities, 8 such as health insurance for women and children and nurseries. 9 So long as we adopt the correct attitude and a number of practical measures, it is not difficult to solve the specific difficulties of women.
Only a firm and systematic application of such reforms will resolve the contradictions. By the same token, there is only one objective criterion in contemporary China by which to judge whether a policy is revolutionary or not. It need involve no theoretical consideration of the “feminist cause,” for it is simply whether or not the policy brings about reforms.
For a long time to come the training of women cadres will remain a key battleground in the struggle between revolution and counterrevolution. To have women in positions of leadership goes right against the old reactionary morality. “If women succeed in these tasks, then what use will men be?” writes a working-class woman, making a point that had been worrying some of the husbands. Some men, those who are not really convinced of the need for equality, feel self-satisfied and happy in the belief that they have accomplished a praiseworthy feat as soon as their organizational team is increased by a few women: The article in Red Flag retorts:
To select and promote women cadres and assign them to the leading bodies at various levels is only the beginning of our efforts to train and educate them and not the end of the work. To enable them to remain vigorous and keep their revolutionary spirit, we must do a lot of arduous and meticulous work. As a matter of fact, organizationally it is often relatively easy to select and appoint women cadres, but it is no easy task to help them really mature. The leadership at all levels must, therefore, attach importance to carrying out education in ideology and political line in training women cadres. It is necessary to encourage them to make progress and help them overcome their shortcomings and take up their responsibility with courage. The essential step in training women cadres is to let them participate in the three great revolutionary movements and temper themselves in the struggles so as to raise their consciousness and work ability… The party committees at all levels should create favorable conditions for them so as to enable them to learn more from their work and improve themselves through training. It is necessary to place confidence in them when we employ women cadres. It is also necessary to give them adequate support in critical times and actively help them to solve their difficulties… To train women cadres is the task of the whole Party, and it cannot be considered to be work of only certain departments. Party committees at all levels should raise their understanding of this question to the level of the struggle between the two lines and of consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat… While adhering to the principle of studying on the jobs, it is necessary to carry out for them education on theory in a planned way by holding study classes, and sending them to “May 7” cadre schools. The broad masses of women cadres should also fully understand their honorable duties in the socialist revolution and construction, acquire the determination to fulfill their tasks, dare to practice—and study assiduously so as to mature rapidly, and contribute their share in striving for still-greater victories in socialist revolution and construction.
Production units throughout China have sent reports to the national press about the changes brought about by following this policy and rectifying their style of work. A people’s commune in Jiangsu 10 told how all its work team leaders had been men, although twelve of the teams were composed mainly of women. This had led to bad feeling. The men would treat the women’s problems lightly or even completely ignore them. The women, still in the grip of age-old tradition, didn’t have the courage to air their own points of view, their differences, and their difficulties. During the movement of criticism against Lin Biao and the rectification of styles of work, “the brigade conscientiously studied this problem.” New team leaders, all women, were elected. The results soon began to show. Leaders and led are more closely united; it’s now possible to investigate and solve concrete problems as they occur; and the teams have made great advances in their political studies. Productivity and output have both increased by leaps and bounds. From being shy at the outset, these women have steeled themselves to their new responsibilities. Their victory has revalued the status of all other women. The lesson is clear: those who believe that nature or destiny have created women to be docile and obedient and second-rate workers are, consciously or unconsciously, taking the road of counterrevolution.
Reconstructing the Women’s Federation
The campaign to put the women’s question back into the center of the political arena is the context in which Chinese women have entered the movement of criticism against Confucius and Lin Biao. But another influence has been of great positive value to women in the current struggle—the reconstruction of the Women’s Federation. Grassroots committees of the Women’s Federation were revived all over China and immediately became very active. Since June 1973, Women’s Federation conferences have been held throughout the country.
There had been no formal organization for the majority of women since 1966. The Federation’s lengthy absence can perhaps be attributed to the “egalitarian” tendency mentioned above. Other traditional organizations were also inactive for some years, but such inactivity must have been more harmful to women than it was to other sectors of the population. While the Youth League, the unions, and the Women’s Federation were all temporarily suspended, young people and workers had their own revolutionary organizations, which were necessary to that phase of the struggle which started with the great proletarian Cultural Revolution. In the Red Guard organizations, among the revolutionary rebels in the factories and later in factory conferences, young people and workers could put forward their problems and discuss them. However, women didn’t usually have their own political meeting place where they could work out together their criticisms of what was still oppressing them.
Because they suffer a specific form of oppression, women need organizations which will help them to participate fully in the total movement of the revolution, just as they will help the revolution to grasp the importance of any movement of half the people. 11
Women Were a Motive Force in the Movement of Criticism Leveled Against Confucius and Lin Biao.
The reactionary ideology of the four Confucian contempts has become a common talking point since the beginning of the campaign of criticism leveled against Confucius and Lin Biao, which has comparatively recently become nationwide. The contempts are these: for manual work, for women, for the young, and for those who are governed.
It’s a safe bet that the new campaign will put the women’s question in the forefront of the class struggle even more forcefully than the Cultural Revolution did.
The women who wrote the following words in the People’s Daily hit the nail on the head: “We working women suffered most from the doctrine of Confucius… so we have the greatest right to speak out in the struggle to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius.” 12
The committees of the Women’s Federation have gone to war against Confucius. Through study and otherwise, Chinese women have started to settle their accounts with an ideology that is over two thousand years old. This was so widespread and deep rooted that you could have taken it for “common sense”; it held on for as long as it was appropriate to the material base of the old Chinese society, but it still maintains a hold in China, even after obvious and fundamental social change. Confucian ideas are deeply ingrained in Chinese culture, in Chinese thought, and in the Chinese people. Moreover, there still exist material vestiges of the old society which continue to support the existence of these old ideas.
To put this criticism into practice will inevitably lead to a reform of all existing archaic social relations. And to mount the offensive it is imperative to mobilize the masses, men and women alike, for the criticism of old customs and the promotion of new socialist mores—even while relying on the revolutionary relations of production that are already established. Women must be given the chance to “free their minds” and, step by step, to overthrow the “eternal woman.” 13
The women of the Yuanping Street Federation, in Fujian, have written:
During the mobilization of the women in the district to criticize Confucius, we worked out “the five destructions and the five reconstructions,” taking into account current expressions of the class struggle on the ideological level. 14
- To destroy feudal superstitions and to establish the thesis that work creates the world.
- To abolish the old matrimonial system of arbitrary (or “forced”) marriages arranged as a business transaction by parents on their children’s behalf, and to strengthen the freedom of choice in marriage that is now exercised in a new form.
- To eliminate the ideology of male supremacy and female submissiveness, thus abolishing patriarchal authority, and to replace it with the concept of equal rights for both sexes. To practice the principle of equal pay for equal work, and to practice birth control.
- To eliminate the theory of women’s backwardness, attacking it with the idea of women as “half of the sky.”
- To eliminate the attitudes of “studying to make yourself somebody” and “going to work on the land so that you will be well thought of”—opposing them with the ideas that “studying serves the people” and that agricultural labor must be given its proper value.
The women of Yuanping Street organized a campaign centered on these “five destructions and five reconstructions.” They gave some indication of the extent of their mobilization in the course of a few weeks. They held study sessions, criticism meetings, assemblies, and debates. They edited newspapers, wrote articles in the press and on dazibaos (wall posters written in large characters). A total of 1200 women from Yuanping Street played an active part in this campaign. Extra evening classes in political study had to be organized, since the number of women attending doubled, and in those classes women who had felt too insignificant to talk in public before at last dared to speak out.
Other newspaper articles record the fact that the offensive against male chauvinism is being carried out simultaneously on three fronts.
Firstly, the real activities of women are publicized, thus demonstrating how times have changed. The achievements of women for their communities in one area or another are now written up on wall posters. One such poster comes from Yuanping:
Following the appeal of the May 7 directive, the women in the district undertook to prepare new fields for planting. They have prepared them. For three consecutive years they have harvested a crop yielding 15 quintals per hectare.82 Relying on their own strength, they have built small factories, and in that way have considerably increased industrial production. They have transformed the district from an area of “consumption” to an area of “production.” These undeniable facts constitute an irreversible refutation of the doctrine of contempt for women put forward by Confucius, Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, and others.
Women will often affirm their membership of vanguard women’s units across the country. National newspaper articles glorifying their exploits are commented on, studied, and posted locally.
Secondly, there is a simultaneous denunciation of the Confucian doctrines according to which “women are created to serve” and are “difficult to manage.” “Women and children must have rules of conduct to keep them on the straight and narrow”; “a woman belongs to her husband as a hen belongs to the rooster”; and “the greatest happiness comes with the largest number of sons.”
The People’s Daily editorial of March 8, 1974 is specific on this point: “The theory of male supremacy and the theory of female slavery and dependence must both be mercilessly condemned and their sinister influence must be eliminated. Not only women but men as well must criticize these theories.”
Most of the time these criticisms are made by means of the example of actual cases known throughout a given locality. One such example tells how Xie Shouyin had four daughters. She kept trying for a son to carry the family name and therefore refused to practice contraception. Another woman refused to become a cadre because she was afraid of not being equal to the task. Yet another didn’t dare go out to work because she considered that her fate was to stay at home. Such examples are remnants of Confucianism and are not uncommon. Cases are studied by the local Women’s Federation. All the women help to find a collective solution, and every success is publicized to encourage the others.
Thirdly, and finally, concrete steps are being taken for the long term. In particular small workshops are being set up. I recently visited an old quarter of Beijing where the housewives still stayed at home. For the most part they were fairly elderly women, retired workers, or women who were handicapped or in delicate health. It was impossible in practice for these women to participate in the work of the neighboring small factories. The residents’ committee, having studied the problem, set up a small factory (a May 7 workshop) 16 to manufacture theatrical props like paper flowers or garlands. The workshop, situated right in the center of a network of small streets, makes it possible for women to work when they can and for as long as they can. They organize the production themselves and they get a wage for work, which is not only useful and necessary to the State, but which also enables them to meet together and to break through the isolation that they would otherwise suffer.
A critique of the three obediences and the four virtues has recently emerged. The three obediences were preached by Mencius and Confucius and demanded that a woman should obey her father and her elder brothers before marriage, her husband during marriage, and her sons when widowed. The four virtues rigidly determined a woman’s public behavior—her conduct, conversational subjects, dress, and domestic tasks. A woman was obliged to be moderate in all circumstances and to observe the proper attitudes in her speech and her conduct. Her conversation was to be demure and restrained, so as not to bore men. When laughing she was obliged to cover her mouth, because it was considered immodest to show her teeth and tongue. Her choice of dress was dictated by the single need to please men. Last but not least, she had to fulfill all her domestic chores with good grace.
“Away with this decadent ideology!” can be heard and read everywhere—even though you won’t find many people in China today 17 openly defending the literal interpretation of these feudal rules.
But as I said at the beginning of this article, these ideas are still influencing people at every turn. Confucian doctrine has weighed the Chinese masses down for 2500 years and they still bear its marks. It is an extremely elitist doctrine, almost racist in its treatment of the people, and of women in particular. Today, the Chinese bourgeoisie still relies on Confucianism for its counterrevolutionary projects and the current anti-Confucian movement is, therefore, of crucial importance to the future of the Chinese revolution. To radically discredit Confucianism among the masses is to deal a crippling blow to reaction. But this is no mean task and will involve a protracted struggle. In fact, this struggle has not ceased in the whole fifty years of the life of the Chinese Communist Party. The difference is that this time the assault is planned and thoroughgoing.
Women are at the heart of the struggle. All the patriarchal relations inherited from feudalism are disrupted when age-old submissiveness is rejected. Solidarity comes to life among those women who struggle against the “total power” of husbands, who fight against respect for the authority of educationalists, and who reject the religion of material incentives. The most important ideological themes of the struggle have profound consequences for women. Take, for instance, the radical critique of genius. Apart from the fact that “geniuses” everywhere are usually men, the very idea of genius, of an innate and overwhelming predisposition for certain tasks at the expense of others, is at the root of all theoretical systems supporting discrimination against women. It is, therefore, understandable that women have much to say and much to gain from denouncing the idea of genius. Or take another example: the attack on contempt for manual work and for the governed masses. It is inconceivable that this attack could succeed unless the female masses, oppressed manual workers since time immemorial, by the dictate of ancient practice, fuse their experience with the ongoing revolution.
The “Pi Lin Pi Kong” campaign is another means by which the people learn to delve below the surface in their attempts to reach and understand the fundamental nature of phenomena.
It is essential to criticize the feudal thinking of looking down on women… They were the most oppressed among the oppressed people. Such economic and political status of women gave rise to their strong desire for the revolution. . . and they are imbued with extremely great enthusiasm for socialism. 18
Seeing only the superficial inferiority of women is not just an illusory vision, but will in practice deprive the revolution of its greatest enthusiasts.
The March 8, 1973 editorial of the People’s Daily denounced those who believed that women wouldn’t be able to play a significant part in the “Pi Lin Pi Kong” campaign because of their low cultural standards. These people would really like the campaign to remain no more than a mere academic exercise, an intellectual debate on the finer points of ancient history. As the struggle develops it will become obvious that women, far from being backward, are actually a vital motive force behind the “Pi Lin Pi Kong” campaign.
Once again, the Chinese revolution reminds us of the central role played by the class struggle. To deny that women are still discriminated against, to settle for legalistic verbiage, in other words to suggest casually that women’s liberation has finally been victorious, is to run counter to the movement of history and to impede the struggle of women for their emancipation. It is to oppose Mao Zedong, who has explicitly and constantly reaffirmed that the emancipation of women demands a protracted and continuous struggle. “Only in the course of the socialist transformation of society can women gradually liberate themselves.” Until this transformation is complete, the liberation of women will be partial and still susceptible to a defeat that would return women to their earlier oppression.
Chinese women today have profoundly improved their position. That’s the crucial point from which all their contemporary struggles start. Denying this change or underestimating it; limiting your vision to the surface of the matter or taking a few facts in isolation; refusing to see the overall direction of the revolution means, like it or not, adopting the viewpoint of a dead metaphysic. And to do that is to align yourself with the Chinese tendency that denies “socialist innovations” and the gains of the Cultural Revolution.
This tendency has two phases. First of all, there is the effort to impede or distort the changes brought about by the Cultural Revolution (the educational reforms, for example). Then, confronted by the temporary difficulties so created, there is the disingenuous exclamation: “The Cultural Revolution has changed nothing and has served no purpose. What a waste, what a mess!” Women suffer the same indignities. The tendency opposes their initiatives as it opposes the revolution. Measures helping women are thwarted or sabotaged, and then comes the cry, “Women are worried about nothing but their own little families. That’s part of their nature and nothing can be done about it.” But Chinese women have risen against this tendency. Once more they confront reactionaries and reactionary nostalgia. Yet again they attack the eternal woman. One thing you can be sure of—this time won’t be the last.
The main tasks of the women’s committee are 1) to carry out ideological work among women; 2) to speak for all women and to defend them in their family or elsewhere; and 3) to be responsible for women’s work. For instance, women can’t do exactly the same work as men during their periods. Yet because feudal ideas still persist women don’t want to talk about their periods. The women’s committee, which knows the women well and knows the dates of their periods, can speak for them. The women’s committee also intervenes if the equal pay principle isn’t correctly applied— which does happen. Without a women’s committee, there is no guarantee of women’s equal rights.
18 Footnotes
