Abstract
In: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2015. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, pp. 1–16.
This essay delineates the development of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) policy of women’s liberation from its foundation in 1921 until the arrival of the socialist state in 1949. In particular, it highlights the two major turning points in the party’s women’s policy in 1927 and the early 1940s and demonstrates their close relationship to the political and military contexts of the times and the shifts in the CCP’s overarching revolutionary strategy. Furthermore, the essay juxtaposes the CCP’s concept of ‘women’s liberation’ (funü jiefang) which makes the equality of women an integral (if at times subordinated) part of the socialist revolution and contemporary notions of ‘feminism’ with an emphasis on absolute women’s rights. It argues that over the course of the revolution, ‘women’s liberation’ became dominant but did not totally suppress earlier calls for women’s rights. This is especially true for the situation of rural women and the marriage law as a response to abuse within the family. With regard to the assessment of the CCP’s women’s policy, the final section proposes to abandon contemporary notions of ‘women’s liberation’ and ‘feminism’ and, instead, to use ‘transformation’ as an integrative concept that encompasses all the complexities of the revolution and its sub-processes. This includes the differences between interest groups, their active and passive share in the revolution, as well as the gains and losses with regard to their particular situation.
Über die Autorin
Nicola Spakowski, Dr. phil., geb. 1966 in Stuttgart, 1985 bis 1991 Studium der Sinologie und Geschichte, 1997 Promotion im Fach Sinologie, 2006 Habilitation in den Fächern Sinologie und Geschichte, 1992 bis 2004 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin und wissenschaftliche Assistentin im Fach Sinologie an der Freien Universität Berlin, 2004 bis 2010 Professorin für Außereuropäische Geschichte und China-Wissenschaften an der Jacobs University Bremen, seit 2010 Professorin für Sinologie an der Universität Freiburg. Veröffentlichungen u. a.: »Mit Mut an die Front«. Die militärische Beteiligung von Frauen in der kommunistischen Revolution Chinas (1925–1949), Köln 2009; seit 2006 Hg.: Women and Gender in Chinese Studies Review; Mithg.: Women in China. The Republican Period in Historical Perspective, Münster 2005; Helden, Monumente, Traditionen. Nationale Identität und historisches Bewußtsein in der VR China, Hamburg 1999; Mithg.: Frauenforschung in China. Analysen, Texte, Bibliographie, München 1995.