Mao's China - The Role of Women

The changing role of women:

Traditionally women in China were completely obedient to men, daughters listened to their father, wives to their husbands and Widows to their eldest sons.  

The 1911 revolution had offered them more rights but not equality with men.

The 1949 Communist Common Program promised women equality, both men and women would be allowed to marry whoever they wanted. 

The Communists commitment to destroying all signs of China's past meant that the role of the family needed to be destroyed. This was because the family encouraged the Bourgeois mindset and Confucian values towards parents and elders. 

Footbinding, which had previously been used as an indication of beauty and to restrict the moment of women was outlawed by the Communists. It had already been banned but this decision wasn't new as it had been banned in 1911 but the Communists banning it brought it to a faster end.

The Marriage law of 1950 changed marriage from a contractual arrangement between two families into something freely entered by two…