The
message that women would be liberated through their
individual efforts in the working world was reinforced by
official role models. After the founding of the people's
Republic (and even earlier in the communist base areas), the
Party advocated the view that women could be emancipated only
through participation in work outside the home. Government
publications consistently publicized role models of heroic women
whose efforts were helping to build socialism and raise the
status of all women. Visitors to China during the early
and mid 1970's for example, were invariably told the Iron Girl
Brigades. Along with the slogan " Women Hold Up Half the
Sky" they were probably the most frequently cited proof
that women in New China had become equal participants in
society.
Iron Girls
were groups of young women who took on the most difficult and
demanding tasks at work . Their prototype was a group of young
women in Dazhai, China's model agricultural brigade. These Adolescent girls had formed themselves into
a work group when flood struck their brigade in 1963. Working
alongside the men to salvage grain and move peasants out
of homes that threatened to collapse, they earned the
administration of all whom saw them work. Legends
grew up about their individual exploits: one cut her finger
to the bone but kept on working, another become a crack shot in
the militias. When Dazhai was chosen as a national model in the
mid - 1960's the hardworking Iron Girl's team rose to national
prominence too, as a model for young women.
Program for the development
of Chinese Women ( 1995-2000)
- Improve the participation of women in
the decision making and management of state and
social affairs.
- Organize women to take an active part in the open
and reform and modernization efforts so as to
promote the development of social productive forces.
- Guarantee the labor rights of women.
- Work hard to develop women's
education and raise the scientific and technical
level of the women.
- Further improve the health of women and guarantee
their right over family planning.
- Encourage establishment of civil, harmonious and stable
families with equality between the husband and the
wife.
- Effectively contain violence on women and the
criminal acts of abducting and trading women and
prostitution.
- Pay graft attention to and try to help in the
development of the women in order and remote
areas, poverty stricken areas and areas inhabited by
ethnic minorities.
- Improve the social environment for the development
of women and raise their quality in life
- Expand the friendly exchanges of Chinese women
with women of the various countries to promote world
peace.
- Establish a mechanism of dynamic studies of women's
status, data gathering and information
communications.
|
The Iron
Girl teams that foreign visitors saw had seemingly
boundless reserves of energy. After exceeding a production
quota or bringing in a bumper harvest, they were likely to
zoom off for a pick game of basketball on their breaks time. They
were frequently found doing types of work that previously
had been deemed unsuitable for women, such as repairing high
voltage lines. When their achievements were written up in the
domestic press, or explained to foreign tourists, the presentation
inevitably included Chairman Mao's observation that times have
changed and today men and women are equal. Whatever men comrades can accomplish, women
comrades can too.
The Iron
Girl model also conveyed the message that a woman's worth should
be measured by a man's standard. It was not suggested in the
1970's nor was it suggested in the 1980's that the sexual
division of labor in china should be restructured, that
'Whatever women comrades can accomplish" caring
for children, cooking, washing, cleaning, and working full time
'men comrades can too."
Source:
Proworker Voice --- Annual Publication of ITUN Secretariat,
Nepal
