The impact of collectivisation and the communes on women’s lives

What did Mao claim enabling women to work would bring them?

‘Liberation through labour’ and he also argued that this represented a form of equality because if women worked they could earn equal pay for equal work.

What were ‘Iron Women’?

Women who matched men in productivity were lauded as labour heroines. A form of propaganda.

How did Mao plan to free women from their domestic roles in the communes so they could be employed to work?

By creating party kindergartens to take the burden of childcare and to free women from cooking through communal canteens.

What were the conditions like in the party kindergartens?

• often housed in ramshackle buildings

• Staffed by hurriedly trained elderly or very young women

• Diarrhoea, measles, chicken pox and worms spread quickly

• In Shanghai nappies remained unchanged all day

• With the onset of famine the food supplies meant for children were stolen by starving adults

When did the Kindergartens collapse?

By the end of the Great Leap Forward. Women were forced to try and care for their children as well as work and forage for food in order to survive.

How did the communal canteens impact women?

Food was allocated based on the amount of physical labour performed and women were likely to receive less than men. When food ran low it was often the women who were neglected on the ground that men needed to have strength to go out and search for food for the family

How did the work points system impact women?

Despite public commitment to equal pay for equal work women still received less work points than men regardless of their productivity or skill. Women were often limited to 8 points while men could receive up to 10 due to differences in physical strength.

How were pregnant women impacted?

They were forced to work throughout their pregnancies and many miscarried because of it. In one commune pregnant mothers who refused to work were forced to undress and break ice in the middle of winter.

Sexual abuse was rife in the communes. What sort of things took place?

• A secretary in a northern village was investigated for ‘taking liberties’ with almost every unmarried woman in the village raping 27 of them

• In Hunan local factory bosses forced females to work naked

• In Zhejiang women accused of crimes were forced to parade through the village unclothed