In addition to females being denied a fuller political role, there was a deeper sense in which the policies followed under Mao prevented China's women from making a sustained advance. If anything, the radical character of Mao's reform programme increased their vulnerability. Collectivization entailed a direct and deliberate assault on the traditional Chinese family. Mao had already prepared the way for this as early as 1944 when he had stated that: 'It is necessary to destroy the peasant family; women going to the factories and joining the army are part of the big destruction of the family.' So determined was the Communist Party to undermine the family that in the communes men and women were made to live in separate quarters and allowed to see each other only for conjugal visits.
While in some respects this might be considered liberating since women were freed from the family ties that had restricted them, the enforced social change happened all too suddenly. The Chinese, a profoundly conservative people, became disorientated; women found themselves detached from their traditional moorings. Many felt unhappy that their role as mothers and raisers of families was now to be wholly devalued.
The impact of the Cultural Revolution
The devaluing of the individual and the family that came with collectivization was re-emphasized with particular force during the Cultural Revolution:
• The ownership of private property was now depicted as a crime against communist society.
• The enforced pooling of resources meant that the economic link that held individual families together was broken.
• Whereas in traditional China the extended family, which might in practice be a whole village, had been the main provider of help in difficult times, in Mao's China that role was taken over by the state.
• The provision of social welfare, such as education and medical care, was now to be organized and delivered by Communist Party officials and appointees.
The traditional nuclear family fell into one of the categories of the Four Olds that the young were sent to destroy (see page 133). Mothers were urged to teach their children that Mao Zedong and the Communist Party were their true parents, and, therefore, deserving of their first loyalty. Normal family affection was replaced by love for Mao. The young were asked to inform on those among their relatives who betrayed any sign of clinging,
Even in the slightest manner, to the decadent values of the past. In such an atmosphere, it was hard for mothers to continue their traditional role as homemakers.
Life in China under Mao, 1949-76
World History
