History - Social & Cultural Chnages, 1949-76

Traditional Attitudes:

• Foot-binding still common in the north --> a method to appeal to men
• Use of dowries meant that girls often seen as a property exchange
• 'Three obediences': Father when young, Husband when married, Son when old

1950, New Marriage Law:

• Legal equality; could hold property & seek divorce
• Women had to be 18 to marry & had to do so of their free will
• Dowries & bride prices were forbidden

Women & Politics:

• Women's AAociation had 40,000 staff in 83 cities; spread literacy and promoted activism
• Women comprised 16-21% of party cadres by 1970-74
• In 1949 only 38% of girls completed primary education; after 1959 it was 100%

Women & Work:

• Women who matched men during the GLF were celebrated as 'Iron women'
• Children left in poor conditions in creches; they reeked of urine
• Women recieved fewer work points than men; maximum 8 compared to 10 for men

Education Before Reform:

• Rote learning dominated & the attitude was elitist
• In 1949 only 45% of males & 2% of females recieved any schooling
• Humanities dominated universities with 59% of students; only 3% studied agriculture

Education Reform:

• Min-pan primary schools (ran by the people) were set up
• 1949-57: primary school students up from 26 million to 64 million
• Higher education followed Soviet methods in 1950s & focussed more on engineering

Health Provision:

• Spending on healthcarenever went above 2.6% of budget up to 1956
• Patriotic Health Campaigns lectured on hygiene, reducing cholera
• Barefoot doctors (6 months practice) were sent to poor areas to provide basic care

Impact on Education of GLF & CR:

• Promotion of teachers became dependent of political qualifications, not subject expertise
• By 1960 there was 1 school for every commune -30,000 in total
• The CR placed 'revolutionary fevour' before schooling; teachers endured struggle meetings

Recap on the CR:

• Numerous writers atatcked - e.g. Lao She and Ding Ling
• Mao wanted to remove old feaudal and bourgeois culture - Four Olds (August 1966)
• Signs of the imperial past destroyed - e.g. Qing-era archway

Role of Jiang Qing:

• Attacked traditional Chinese opera as bourgeois and feudal
• Mao described her as the 'Cultural Tsarina', responsible for cleaning Chinese culture
• She personally vetted all theatre performances, attending and interfering with auditions

Revolutionary Opera:

• Only 8 official revolutionary performances were allowed (5 operas, 2 ballets & a symphony)
• An example was the opera Taking Tiger Gorge by Strategy, about the revolution
• People were forced to watch the same opera again and again

Censorship of Theatre:

• Nearly all foreign theatre works were banned 
• The play Romance on the Milky Way criticised superstitious beliefs
• Jiang Qing claimed that directors 'must serve the farmers of their play'

Confucianism & Ancestor Worship:

• During the CR the Confuscius Temple at Shangdong was attacked
• All public ceremonies honouring Confucius were ended in 1949
• In 1966, the Qingming festival focussed on ancestor worship had been replaced by National Memorial Day

Christianity:

• Religious Affairs Department (RAD - 1951) forced out Christian missionaries
• A Patriotic Church Movement was created to link the Protestant Church to Communism
• Propogranda was directed against Catholic Church - Catholic hospitals were accused of using human guinea pigs

Islam:

• Muslim armed resistance led the CCP to name Xinjiang an Autonomous Region in October 1955
• However, the CCP still forced children to leave mosque schools
• Islam was attacked during the CR - Muslim men were forced to shave their beards

Buddhism:

• Straigh away, in 1949 the CCP attacked Buddhist monks as 'parasites'
• During the Korean War, temples were converted into bararcks and prisons
• In Tibet, during the GLF, monks were turned into physcial labourers on communes

Professional doctors had been attacked during the Antis campaigns in the 1950s

Mao sought to provide more medical care in rural areas but at low cost

Medical clinics were established in communes during GLF, but investment stayed relativelty low

Barefoot doctors were the solution - given 6 months' intensive training, they were sent into muddy, rural areas where their shoes were ruined - hence 'barefoot'

Many peasents were resistant, but some care was better than non at all

Mao had a strong commitment to women's liberation; having endured a forced marriage himself when he was young

Pros:

• Women could hold property and seek divorce
• Paying of dowries and bride-prices were forbidden
• Marriages had to result from free will]During 1966-76 only 0.8% of marriages were organised by parental arrangement; in the 1940s it had been 30%

Cons:

• Many men were angry at losing a 'financial investment'
• One man shackled his wife's ankles and forced her to cut firewood
• Many cadres refused to uphold the law
• Great resistance in Muslim areas