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Breaking down male supremacy

I shall start by outlining the general line of the women's struggle in China, which is basically that women's emancipation is entirely necessary for the building of socialism in China, but also that women can only win complete emancipation through the struggle for socialism, specifically by taking part in production.

To quote Lenin, who expresses this: The proletariat cannot achieve complete libery until it has worn complete liberty for women', and Chairman Mao, 'When women all over the country rise up, that will be the day of victory for the Chinese revolution'. In 1955, Mao said: 'In order to build a socialist society, it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production. Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realised in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole'.

As a background to the struggle, to give some measure to what has been achieved so far, a woman in old China, under Confucian doctrines, was bound (not only by feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism), but also by the three obediences and four virtues. The three obediences — to her father when a child, to her husband when a wife and to her sons when a widow. The four virtues being chastity, hard work, righteousness, and beauty. Although this tradition was deeply rooted throughout China, it was weaker among the peasants: '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 rise of the peasant movement, the basis for men's domination over women has already been undermined'.

Thus women's liberation in China began with the democratic revolution — the overthrowing of the feudal landlord rule.

Since its earliest days, the Chinese Communist Party saw the essential nature of the women's struggle. The second National Congress in 1922 proposed that 'all laws setting restrictions on women be nullified and equal rights be ensured to women in political, economic, educational and all other fields'. In 1943 the Central Committee of the CCP stressed in a decision on the policy for women's work in the anti-Japanese base areas that simultaneous with mobilization of women to take part in production, attention must be paid to safe-guarding their immediate interests, investigating the concrete conditions of women and taking care of their needs in housework and their physiological limitations.

The 1948 decision on women's work in the rural areas of the Liberated Areas pointed out that in order to raise enthusiasm of women for production various problems related to them must be solved. For example, in areas where land reform was underway, the Government should announce its guarantee for women's right to own land. Where a family as a unit was issued a land deed, equal right for ownership for both sexes should be written into the deed, if necessary, writing a separate deed for the women. This 1948 decision also stipulated that attention must be paid to protecting the special interests of women, such as promoting the health of women and children, (classes to train cadres for women and child health, organising Medical co-ops, etc.) and eliminating consciously and in a planned way feudal ideas and traditional customs that held women back from political, economic and cultural activities. The CCP paid especial attention to the training of women cadres and ensuring the education of women.

It is important to note that, after Liberation, one of the first laws established legally was the Marriage Law, which set out women's rights, providing a legal basis for breaking the feudal-patriarchal oppression. This is one of the few laws in China that was established legally before becoming common practice among the people.

The important emphasis on the women's struggle even today is that not only is it a woman's right to take part in productive labour, but participation in productive labour is the only way in which a woman can gain economic independence and hence complete emancipation. This brings out immediate ramifications, of freeing women from housework, childcare, and taking into consideration her physiological differences.

I want here to use the example that we ran across, that we never fully sorted out. At Tachai commune, which we visited, we learnt beforehand, that the system of work points is used to evaluate each member's work and hence, payment. The article said that 'For Tachai men the top figure for a workday is 11 points, for women 6.5 and for girls 7.5. Women work shorter hours to enable them to do housework, it said.' One argument raised was that if women are contributing to the commune's wellbeing by doing housework, shouldn't they get work points for this work? This raised the discussion of productive/unproductive labour, and that, in socialist society, only productive labour receives wages. Marx says, 'What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus, in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually still strapped with the birth marks of the old society. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labour.' Thus China has not yet reached the stage of 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need', but only to each according to his labour. Thus, housework, non-productive labour, does not receive payment in a socialist society and the emphasis of our questions should have been on the fact that it seemed that women in almost all cases were doing the unproductive labour, while men worked in the fields. When we did ask why women continued to do the housework, the answer was that husband and wife and children operated as a family unit, they worked out between them who should do what work, that in the end it did not matter because it all benefitted the family unit. This brings up the factor that eventually for all people to be able to fully join the work force, child care and housework must be socialised and not remain the responsibility of the individual households.

The other factor affecting the allocation of work points at Tachai, was that because men are physically stronger they have been able to contribute more in the building of the fields at Tachai, being able to do all the heavy work required more easily. It seemed, to us, however, that women simply did not ask for as many work points as men even while doing jobs that could be done equally well by women and men. In a carpet factory which we visited in Peking, where women were said to be better suited for the job which required deftness and patience, and therefore produced more, they were not given more return for this.

The thing that came out of all these discussions, however, was the importance of looking at the development of the women's struggle, not just where it was at that time. One indicator of this development even since we were there is the China Reconstructs with articles on 'Breaking Down Male Supremacy' in which women discuss allocation of work points, and describe the case on one commune where men no longer automatically get more work points because of their physical strength.

While we were there, we also had a lot of discussion on the anti-Confucian campaign, and this too showed progress against the deeply rooted tradition of men's authority. One specific example I remember was at a factory, when we asked one worker what changes the anti-Confucius campaign had made for him personally, and he said, 'Before I criticised Confucius, I would do housework willingly when my wife asked me to do so. But now I realise I must take my share of organising and initiating the housework'. Especially in the rural areas, the anti-Confucian campaign has increased ideological understanding of the women's struggle.

Our emphasis in questioning dwelt too much on the practical concrete details of women's representation and conditions, and this was often because we noticed things that seemed very wrong in our understanding. For example, when 70% of workers in a factory were female, it seemed very wrong that only 2 out of 7 on the revolutionary committee of that factory were women. All kindergarten teachers were women, our translator commented that pink was alright worn by girls, but not ok for boys, and so on. Often when we asked about details, we got what we thought were vague, evasive answers. But we did build up an idea of the practical conditions of women, especially in the factories, and urban neighbourhoods.

Most of the political organisations in China, like most trade unions, CP branches, have women's groups operating within them, which deal with women's specific problems, and also organise political study and ensure the education of women. An important aspect of their work is birth control. Contraception is freely available to married couples, and one reason for the encouragement for birth control is to maintain women's health, and not over-burden her with childbearing, so that her participation, both physically and mentally, in the building of China is not impaired.

Abortion is freely available, and rests solely on the woman's decision. The husband is consulted, and if necessary persuaded, but need not necessarily agree. In factories, women's groups have responsibility for maintaining standards of womens' conditions. A woman can have an extra rest period during menstruation and during pregnancy. A woman gets given lighter work to do in the later stages of pregnancy, and gets 56 days paid maternity leave. While the child is still young, the woman/mother gets time off, paid, to feed and see her baby.

In the urban neighbourhood communities, steps towards socialisation of housework are being made. Residents Committees of those unable to go out to work, e.g. the old and sick, organise cleaning, buying of groceries and cooking and childcare for the families where both parents work.

Thus, although we saw many small things that represented an inequality (and the Chinese freely admit that there is not yet sexual equality), the important thing to examine is the progressive movement and achievements the women's struggle is maintaining, within the framework of the continuing socialist revolution.