Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1964Finding Women in the State is a provocative hidden history of socialist state feminists maneuvering behind the scenes at the core of the Chinese Communist Party. These women worked to advance gender and class equality in the early PeopleÕs Republic and fought to transform sexist norms and practices, all while facing fierce opposition from a male-dominated CCP leadership from the Party Central to the local government. Wang Zheng extends this investigation to the cultural realm, showing how feminists within ChinaÕs film industry were working to actively create new cinematic heroines, and how they continued a New Culture anti-patriarchy heritage in socialist film production. This book illuminates not only the different visions of revolutionary transformation but also the dense entanglements among those in the top echelon of the party. Wang discusses the causes for failure of ChinaÕs socialist revolution and raises fundamental questions about male dominance in social movements that aim to pursue social justice and equality. This is the first book engendering the PRC high politics and has important theoretical and methodological implications for scholars and students working in gender studies as well as China studies. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
December 1949 | 13 |
Dong Bian Tian Jiaying and daughter Zeng Li 1951 | 84 |
Cover of Women of China 1955 no 11 Niu Yufen and Yuan Lianfang | 90 |
Cover of Women of China 1954 no 4 Housewife Wang Guilan | 97 |
Cover of Women of China 1957 no 6 So cute | 105 |
Cover of Women of China 1964 no 8 Militia woman Zhang Guijiao | 109 |
Chen Boer and the Feminist Paradigm of Socialist Film | 143 |
The New Years Sacrifice Xianglins Wife in her old age down and out | 192 |
A Revolutionary Family 1961 | 195 |
Eternity in Flames 1965 | 197 |
Paper cut The Inception of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution | 216 |
Cultural Representations | 221 |
The Iron Girls Brigade in Dazhai | 223 |
Guo Fenglian meets Zhou Enlai 1973 | 226 |
Cover of Peoples Pictorial 1976 no 1 Guo Fenglian and her team member | 227 |
Chen Boer in the early 1930s | 149 |
Chen Boer photographs rural women militias | 155 |
Group photograph of the participants in the Yanan Forum on Literature and the Arts 1942 | 157 |
Chen Boer in Xingshan 1947 | 160 |
Daughters of China 1949 | 162 |
The New Years Sacrifice 1956 Xianglins Wife works as a servant | 191 |
Socialist State Feminism and | 242 |
Cover of Women of China 2007 no 6 | 251 |
Table of contents of Self 2009 no 4 | 253 |
Notes | 265 |
List of Interviews | 327 |
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Common terms and phrases
ACWF ACWF’s agenda artists Beijing Cai Chang campaign CCP’s central Chen Bo’er Chen Boda Chen’s Chinese women chubanshe class struggle cohort Comrade critical Cultural Revolution Dazhai Deng Xiaoping Deng Yingchao dianying discursive Dong Bian double diligences editors elite equality femi feminism feudal film industry Film Studio filmmakers gender gongzuo housewives Iron Girls Jiang Qing labor leaders Luo Qiong magazine male Mao Zedong Mao’s Maoist masculinist masculinization men’s operas Party Party’s Peng Zhen People’s political Qing’s representation residents committees revolutionary heroines role rural women Shanghai Film Bureau Shanghai Municipal Archives Sister Jiang social socialist China socialist feminist socialist film socialist revolution socialist state feminists talk Tian tion tongzhi transformation urban Wang woman Women of China women officials women-work women’s congress Women’s Federation women’s liberation women’s movement Wu Xun Xia Yan Xia Yan’s Xianglin’s Wife Yan’an Zhang Yun Zheng Zhongguo funü Zhou Enlai