Page 126 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

WOMEN’S POLITICAL WORK AND ‘WOMEN’S WORK’ 113
line was drawn between ‘women’s work’ that would benefit all Chinese, and ‘selfish’,
bourgeois feminism, which would benefit only a particular class of women. It is in these
distinctions that ‘women’s work in politics’ was tamed. Women’s political activism was
legitimized and constrained by both the CCP and the Nationalist Party within the
overarching notion that national interests should prevail over a gender division. Today in
China a feminist movement independent of the ‘women’s work bureaucracy’ is difficult to
find. A typical CCP perspective on the ACWF—CCP relationship and the role of
independent feminist activity is as follows:

The Party is a representative and guardian of women’s interests…the Chinese
Communist Party has always been the leader of the Chinese women’s movement…
women’s organisations are highly unified. Although there are women’s national,
regional and industrial organisations…they are mostly affiliates of the All-China
Women’s Federation…. The Chinese Communist Party and the people’s
government exercise leadership over the women’s movement via ACWF which
acts as the spokesperson for all women in China. No other women’s organisation in
the country can substitute for the ACWF.
(Min 1995:533–4).

While the CCP asserts its sole right to speak on behalf of the women of China, it has a
long history of accepting that ‘women’s work’ is low-status work. From the 1920s it was
clear that women cadres charged with mobilization of the women found that their work was
not regarded as being particularly prestigious. Delia Davin noted that women’s work was
‘somewhat despised’ (1978:24) within sections of the Party and this aspect of Party activities
was always relegated to women Party members. Women Party members sometimes
appear to have felt isolated in ‘women’s work’ even though prominent leaders like Xiang
Jingyu strove to mobilize women workers into a unity of the working classes under CCP
leadership. McElderry describes the Party’s attitude as follows: ‘Although resolutions
from the Second, Third and Fourth Congresses all contain a statement on women, it
appears that the women’s movement was essentially a side-show kept alive to a large
extent by the work of Xiang and other women in the Party’ (1986:111). Gilmartin
explained the situation as ‘Women Communists had little opportunity in the first years of
the Communist organization to assume important decision-making positions in the power
structures of the party except in the Women’s Bureau’ (1995:203). Moreover, reflecting
the low status of women’s work in the Nationalist Party, Gilmartin has shown how
difficult it was for He Xiangning to be allocated a budget for the Bureau. Eventually He
Xiangning appealed to the Soviet adviser, Mikhail Borodin, through his wife, Tanya, for
financial support (Gilmartin 1994:208).
In the 1950s and 1960s women political activists were almost exclusively found within
the ACFW. From their positions in the Federation they would be elected to positions
higher up in the county or province and at national levels. At the local level, the ACFW
followed the structure of the newly established commune system, whereby a women’s
congress was convened at each level—‘basic-level congress of women’, brigade and
production team—where women cadres were elected from among the women. Their