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Mao Zedong Communism

Decent Essays

According to communist leader Mao Zedong’s philosophy, “Women hold up half the sky”. This belief was a key component to the rise of communism in China, but this political ideology actually emerged in Russia decades before China’s revolution. Communism was built in the early 20th century from a desire to abandon capitalist ideals and promote complete equality between social classes. For China, the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 CE, which fought to diminish all foreign influence, began an era of poor conditions and starvation that swept the livelihood of lower-class citizens. With Chinese citizens desperate for change, power-hungry leaders such as Mao Zedong were able to quickly gain support with their radical ideas. “Deep popular support [was] …show more content…

With the goal of equality, Mao Zedong led a communist movement which aimed to reform education and social norms, with a strong focus on the lower-class, as it was believed that “without the poor peasants there [could] be no revolution”. In theory, this political reform would have revolutionized China and provided every citizen with the resources needed to sustain a modest lifestyle, although corruption and greed inevitably inhibited its complete success. The Communist Revolution in China during the mid-20th century supported the development of women’s rights that would have been rejected by former government systems. This was established through laws and reforms that promoted equality regarding family structure, education, and labor. Despite these strides of progress, patriarchal ideals of the past were still present, and women were still mostly excluded from political leadership and expected to take domestic …show more content…

As Mao Zedong seized power in China, education became a strong focus of reformation. Zedong focused on education concerning communist values, in an attempt to “mold successive generations of young supporters”. These education reforms went hand-in-hand with new laws guaranteeing equal educational opportunities for women, which wished to prepare women with the knowledge needed to join the workforce. Formal Chinese educational opportunities were first introduced by Christian missionaries in developed areas. Deng Yuzhi, an educated Chinese feminist, supporter of Christianity, and collaborator with the Chinese Communist Party, is widely credited for promoting the education of women during this era. Yuzhi was known for setting up numerous night schools for women to be educated in both political and social issues concerning their freedom. After the 1919 May Fourth Movement, one of the first attempts at political reform, elites began promoting “the rights of women to equality regarding educational access and opportunities, and called for a change in feudal education ideology”. In the decades that followed, illiteracy rates for women declined drastically, and the number of females seeking secondary education had multiplied. Eventually, in 1986, the Law of Compulsory Education was enacted to require all students, male or female, to participate in a 9-year education program. During the Communist

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