Recent Developments in Research about Women in the PRC

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN RESEARCH ABOUT WOMEN IN THE PRC by Chris Gilmartin With the resurgence of historical research in China since 1978, women's topics began to be included in the scholarly domain. The first signs of this development were evident in the publications on the May Fourth Movement that appeared in 1979.[1] At the end of that year, the All-China Women's Federation (Zhonghua guanguo funu lianhehui) announced its decision to launch· a large-scale research project on the Chinese women's movement between 1919 and 1949. Despite its somewhat narrow focus on the Party-oriented segment of the women's movement, this project constituted a breakthrough in one area of women's history in China. It has brought to light extensive primary and secondary sources, stimulated interest among some Chinese scholars in women's topics and given greater respectability to such endeavors. Since ita establishment in 1949, the Women's Federation primarily has focused ita attention on contemporary social issues facing women, such as implementing the Marriage Law, establishing mate~nity benefits, promoting day care, disseminating birth control information, enforcing population control regulations, and improving children's hygiene. However, in the first years of ita existence and then again in the early 1960s, the Federation dabbled with the compilation of primary and secondary historical materials concerning women in the base areas. These endeavors were shaped by prevailing views of the function of historical writings on the revolution: that they should serve to confirm the new order and boost the morale of those engaged in socialist construction. Thus, while the Federation's publications of CCP documents of the 1930s and 1940s on women were of value to historians, some of the reprinted primary sources had been heavily edited and the portrayals of revolutionary women bordered on hagiography. No further ventures into historical research and writing were made during the late 1960s and 1970s. The Federation's decision to establish a Research Department in 1979 was motivated in pa·rt by the misuse and abuse of Chinese revolutionary history during the Cultural Revolution. For example, release from a Guomindang (GMD) jail in the 1930s or 1940s was viewed by Cultural Revolution zealots as proof of traitorous activities. Thus, Yang Zhihua, a prominent woman Communist for more than fifty years, was accused of being a "counter-revolutionary" in the mid1960s because of her imprisonment in Xinjiang in 1942. Such misconstructions of the circumstances in which Communists were operating during the Republican era caused many senior Communist Party officials in the late 1970s to feel it was important to leave a 57 historical record that was factually correct. a role in the Federation's decision to Department. Such sentiments played establish a Research A new climate for historical research also influenced the Federation to undertake the project. Not only was there a flood of publications on a wide range of historical topics (i.e., Opium War, Taiping, Boxer Rebellion), but also there was an expansion of the scope of topics that could be examined in Party history. For instance, previous restrictions .prohibiting a balanced appraisal of Chen Duxiu's leadership of the CCP were lifted. Another factor predisposing the Federation towards engaging in this research project was the growth of interest around the world in the history of Chinese women, including their role in the revolution. Japanese and Western scholars had produced a few works on women in the base areas. However, these scholars had been unable to probe deeply into the role of the CCP among women in the urban areas between 1921 and 1949 because of a paucity of sources. The time seemed ripe for the Federation to bring its advantage of vast material and human resources to this endeavor. Women's Federation Project The Women's Federation convened its first meeting of the entire Research Department on the History of the Women's Movement (Funu yundong lishi yanjiu shi) on December 3, 1979. Reports in the People's Daily on December 4, 1979, and in Zhongguo funu (January 1980) delineated its duties. The Research Department was empowered to collect Communist Party document·a on the women' a movement, all women's publications, official documents and statements by...