Finding Women in the State : A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1964

This first book engendering the PRC high politics narrates a hidden history of socialist state formation in which feminists in the CCP operated in a politics of concealment in order to enact their feminist visions of a socialist stateand to launch a feminist revolutiontransforming a patriarchal culture. Analyzing archival sourcesand interviews with a double-lens of gender and class, the book illuminates a gender line of struggle in the CCP, debunks a conceptualization of a monolithic patriarchal party/state that paradoxically supported gender equality, and demonstrates state feminists’ contentions in diverse fields and fierce opposition from a male-dominated CCP leadership from the Party Central to the local government. Socialist cultural production is also examined to demonstrate how feminist leaders consciously created a new paradigm of visual representation of heroines and continued a New Culture anti-patriarchy heritage in socialist film production. The feminist endeavors in the cultural realm aiming to transform gender and class hierarchies are discussedin conjunction with an examination of the dense entanglements among those in the top echelon of the Party and an analysis of how the politicalbeing saturated withthe personal dynamics. Discussing the causes for failure of China’s socialist revolution, the book raises fundamental questions about male dominance in social movements and political revolutions that aim to pursue social justice and equality. The book also scrutinizes post-socialist knowledge production that has operated in a politics of erasure of a history of socialist state feminism. This publication reveals the 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 People's Republic and fought to transform sexist norms and practices, all while facing opposition from a male-dominated CCP leadership from the Party Central to the local government. The author extends this investigation to the cultural realm, showing how feminists within China's film industry were working to actively create new cinematic heroines, and how they continued a New Culture anti-patriarchy heritage in socialist film production. Contents: I. The women's federation and the CCP; 1.Feminist Contentions in Socialist State Formation: A Case Study of the Shanghai Women's Federation; 2. The Political Perils in 1957: Struggles over "Women's Liberation"; 3. Creating a Socialist Feminist Cultural Front: Women of China; 4. When a Maoist "Class" Intersected Gender; II. From feminist revolution of culture to the cultural revolution; 5. Chen Bo'er and the Feminist Paradigm of Socialist Film; 6. Fashioning Socialist Visual Culture: Xia Yan and the New Culture Heritage; 7. The Cultural Origins of the Cultural Revolution; 8. The Iron Girls: Gender and Class in Cultural Representations; Conclusion: Socialist State Feminism and Its Legacies in Capitalist China Finding 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 People’s 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 China’s 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 China’s 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. "Finding 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 People's 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 China's 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 China's 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 China studies"--Provided by publisher