woman in rural China Since Mao died in September 1976 his successors have faced a society in which the usual ills of rigid social and economic regimentation have been compounded by reckless attempts to alleviate these problems.
THE NEW ECONOMIC reforms ushered in by the leadership, concentrated in part on radically transforming the communes in the countryside by introducing a market economy.
A new 'responsibility system' was introduced in 1981, designed to displace forms of payment, and calculated on labour points equal for all but bearing no relation to the work actually done. This led rapidly to a large degree of decollectivisation, a de facto distribution of the land, and a return to the family farm. A social differentiation of the peasantry began to emerge, whilst at the same time, peasant incomes doubled trom their 1978 levels. But who was paying for this change? After 1949, the Chinese Communist Party adopted a four-pronged strategy to redefine the roles of women. They undertook to legislate tor equality, introduce women into social production alongside a new ideology of sexual liberation and organise women to forward their demands, through the National Women's Federation.
In 1949, the participation of women in social production had been identified as the precondition for women's liberation and the crucial factor in winning equality for women: 'It is necessary to begin with production, for both economic property and economic independence promote the political status of women, their cultural level,and improve their livelihood, thereby leading the Way to emancipation."
During the early 1950s, the government took decisive steps against the most extreme forms of female subordination and exploitation. It abolished the centuries old barbaric practice of binding and crippling women's teet, introduced new marriage laws, labour and land legislation, thereby reducing the power of men in the family to control the movement of women in marriage and divorce.
This was followed by massively expanding women's economic roles, combined with the establishment of a new ideology of equality for women.
By the end of the 1950s, 90% of women were earning a wage of some kind. In most rural communes, villages, urban neighbourhoods and tactories, women's organisations were established which aimed to help women acquire new skills and represent them in the local community. Women as producers and reproducers Yet despite official campaigns, women were intormally expected to enter the waged labour force on the same basis as men but simultaneously service the nuclear family. This produced a dramatic intensification of female labour.
In addition, the limited investment in and, development of, the service sector made worse the bureaucracy's diversion of resources away from rural development. A consequent reliance upon unpaid female labour to subsidise economic development 22 programmes resulted.
An economic reform was necessary but what sort of reform and in what stages? carried out under the present leadership of Deng Xiaoping: decollectivisation of agriculture and its effects on peasant women. The assumption was that if policies be- nefitted China's development they were bound to be good tor women too. The question posed in 1978, at the onset of the retorm programme was, theretore, hor far would the new policies lead to changes in women's roles as producers and repro- Women pushed out of work Surveys of peasant household incomes show that these rose substantially as the reform measures took hold. But how far were women benefitting from these overall eco- nomic improvements? Calculations showed that surplus labour, (ie unemployment), rose by one third and it was forecast that during the 1980s the number of people engaged in agricultural production would be further reduced by two thirds. It became evident that the reforms
RONNIE HELD looks at one aspect of the economic reform being were forcing a new sexual division of labour between agriculture and non-agricultural occupations. In some of the counties in Chablished that 9C% of the femi, labour force had no regular work assignment.
By 1980, the situation had become so serious that the president of the National Women's Federation identified the lack of employment opportunities as the major problem tacing women over the next decade. In addition, the ideological climate was changing:
"The future of the revolution and the hopes of the motherland rest with the children... The bringing up ot such a mammoth new force is a great undertaking for the whole of society and primarily for women." Equality through participation in paid social labour was out. 'Socialist Motherhood' was in.
INTERNATIONAL. No7 November/December 1986
China Now A one child family policy — women's wombs and the economy Of all the policies introduced since Mao's death, the most far-reaching in its implictions for women is the one-child family policy. On the basis that providing material resources for a population of one billion'are formidable, and will continue to be so for the next 20 years, the Chinese government penalises families that decide to have more than one child. Couples exceeding the quota can have 5-10% of their total income levied for 10-16 years. All medical and educational fees have to be paid for. Grain rations for the 'excess child' are reduced. Promotion prospects and bonuses for the parents rejecting the policy are waived aside.
In the rural areas, where women move away from their village upon marriage, boys are seen as more likely to provide for aged ›arents than girls. The resultant desire toi oys is so great in the single-child rura family, that it has led to the reappearance ot female infanticide and violence against women who bear daughters.' The reforms that have forced women out of the work. force, back into domestic forms of unpaid labour and the traditional role of child bearer are threatening to turn into a full scale backlash against the concept of women's equality.
Even papers like the Worker's Daily have dared to publish letters which have openly attacked sexual equality and have included arguments that men are innately superior to INTERNATIONAL No 7 November/December 1986
women. The editor defended having allowed such a debate by saying: 'It is a matter for serious consideration now that the question of having boys or girls is a common social problem that at present faces most families'
Girls are now apparently seen as a 'social problem, since within the new oriented peasant economy, boys are seen as a greater economic asset. Within the nuclear tamily this has given rise to renewed patriarThe need for real autonomous organisation The National Women's Federation has an uneasy alliance with the burcaucracy, acting oth as a pressure group in detence of soliciting support for the party and government. It is forced to implement the general party policies first and only draw conclusions about their implications for women,
Thereforc, women have been encouraged by their own organisations to support the 'responsibility system', expand unpaid domestic work, agrec to the single-child policy and ask questions afterwards.
Marxists do not understand the ending of women's oppression solely in terms of liberating women from feudal and capitalist modes of production. In China, where peasant women still follow a system of patrilocality — whereby women move to the husband's kin group at marriage — men are
still able to have special access to both the labour and reproductive powers of women. Patriarchal attitudes are still deeply ingrained in China's overwhelmingly peasant
Mao once said that women hold up half the sky'. Under the present economic reforms, women are increasingly holding up more than half of the burdens of domestic labour and bearing the brunt of the reactionary social policies and attitudes such reforms are generating. Even in post-capitalist economies there is an obvious need for women to demand their own autonomous organisations. Separate trom the party and truly independent of the state, these organisations could campaign for the economic, social and political demands of women.
Internationalists and socialists understand the need to raise the living standards of the Chinese masses, but this can not be achieved by driving women out of full time production and extolling the virtues of 'socialist motherhood'. Indeed, this can only add another twist to the tensions that the bureaucracy is hoping to alleviate. Footnotes 1 All China Women s Federation. Documents of Women's Morement in China. Peking. 1949. 2 Neu China Neus, 29/6/81. 3 Peking Rerieu, 2/2/79. * ihid., 29/9/78. 23 5 E. Cross, Chinese Women since Mao.
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