Role of Women in Maoist China and Nazi Germany

The autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer written by Li Cunxin, is effective in raising awareness of the injustice the Chinese people experienced during Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and later communist policies in China. When Li’s parents got married in 1946, they were not living in poverty. However, when the Japanese invaded China during WWII and forced all the civilians into communes, Mao then kept these communes and the Li family lost their wealth—they faced injustice and marginalisation. The Chinese population were marginalised by Mao’s use of communist principles and propaganda. They were forced into believing Mao’s views—that the West (Capitalist countries) were filthy and bad, while China was good. Li’s visit to America was an eye-opener.

Hitler had initiated changes that insisted women should return to their traditional roles as homemakers and provide healthy offspring to the Nazi state. Childbearing was encouraged in Germany, however this was only acceptable to the Aryans not the Jews. Hitler implemented policies such as financial incentive marriage loans and special medals were given to women who gave birth to large families. He also made divorce difficult, abortion and contraception illegal in order to achieve his objective effectively. Also, women‚ organizations were created to indoctrinate women with Nazi ideas such as, The German Women‚ Enterprise. These programs promoted cookery classes, marriage, motherhood and nationhood. The women organizations have had a major effect on Nazi women as it portrayed that Hitler made effective changes in order to develop women to be the mothers of a future, healthy generation. Hitler disliked clever, educated

Hitler wanted to create a pure race that suited his ideologies. A perfect race with blue eyes and blonde hair. This idea is well defined when Mark’s Mother says, “ A pure Aryan race, so he had to get rid of anyone who didn’t fit his idea, anyone who was different… “. – Pg 23

The document serves to support Hitler’s plan to create a community of German people, the Volksgemeinschaft, in which women played a crucial role. Nazi ideology defined the community in opposition to the individualistic society produced by liberal democracies and the false sense of community promoted by the communists. In other words, Hitler aimed to create a German community of people that

Hitler had a very clear idea of women’s role; she was the centre of family life, a housewife and the mother. Their job was to keep the house nice for their husband and family – their lives should revolve round the three ‘ks’, church, children and cooking. This ideal was based around Hitler wanting to achieve his long held goal of Lebensraum to increase the German Aryan population. Strasser argues that ‘National Socialism intended to restore the natural order, and states that this was to accord women the respect they deserved as mothers and housewives’, therefore improving their status. However Carey argues that women’s position did not improve and “throughout the civil war

While it seems intuitive that the most democratic institutions of the world would be most

Hitler wanted his race to have no weaknesses. If women didn’t work, there would be increased family allowance and the honour Cross of German Mother Hood. Woman would be offered extra payments from the Nazi’s if they were to stay at home and create these Aryan race children, mothers were rewarded with money for the work they did. This was all introduced in order to entice Women from the work place back to there home’s and to have babies. Increasing the population was a well thought out plan for the future made by Hitler; he did have long term plans for himself and Volksgemeinschaft.

"The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: 'It's a girl.'"

In the book Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich by Alison Owings, we are provided with plenty of women who describe their lives before, during and after Hitler received power. This book provides us with different views of the time era and as well as how the impact of Hitler affected every woman differently through social class, age, marital status and etc. This paper will explore the lives of three German women who seem to be in the Grey area during the over control of Hitler but mostly with the killings of the Jews. This paper will further explore the complicity and the different levels of resistance that these three women had during this time era which is 1933-1945. The three women that will be discussed in this paper are Margarete (Margrit) Fischer, Ellen Frey, and Christine (Tini) Weihs. When looking into the lives of all three women these women it seems as though women didn’t have much of a responsibility for the events that were happening around them. Although these women seemed to be complaint to a certain degree with the events there were going on around them. These women would have been complaint due to the fear of what happened to Germans when they stood against the events that took part.

Women were immensely affected by the policy of Volksgemeinschaf as Nazi Party had conservative aims when it came to the role of

His basic themes in this work were anti-Semitism, Germany’s need to conquer “living space,” and the necessity of a leader-dictator (Führer) with unlimited power.

Women’s lives in China have changed dramatically throughout reforms in the Qing Dynasty, the Nationalist period, the Chinese Civil War, etc. In the historically male-dominated society, there still is not the gender equality that women have been hoping for. “Millions upon millions of women are missing. They are not lost, but dead: victims of violence, discrimination, and neglect” (Baute). Why should one gender be valued more over the other? Why should one gender be viewed as more important? Females in countries like China are discriminated against, mistreated, and are valued less since many women and girls are not allowed to get an education, the violence/abuse that they have to go through, and because the one-child policy rule that is placed in countries like China.

The book is a written as conversational memoir between two women, Ye Weili and Ma Xiaodong about their experience during the first three decades of Mao’s era. The two women had gone through almost similar position and situations in their life, faced equivalent hardships, their approach or attitude towards those experiences in a completely different manner. This book is meticulous in its historical detail, making it a standout among similar memoirs of twentieth-century China. It also tries to add another dimension of the general perspective of historic events. The events are described in a chronological sequence and with the right amount of proper relevant information so the reader can understand the conversation.

Women in Nazi Germany is based upon the Nazi regime’s attitudes, policies, and ideologies concerning the role of women in the public and private sphere. Stephenson argues that the women of Nazi Germany should be studied in depth, including the support they gave to the regime, the treatment they received, and the different roles they played. However, she argues they should not be studied separately from the other happenings at the time, but instead, they should be incorporated into the history just as the men are. This book reviews their roles, functions, and how they were controlled by the Nazi leadership, and also their lives in pre-Nazi Germany.

There is no denying that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party under Chairman Mao Zedong changed the course of the history of China and shaped the China the world sees today. The amount of lives, cultural traditions, and differing intellectual thoughts that were lost and destroyed as he strove to meet his goals for the country can never be recovered or replaced. However, it had been asserted that one of the more positive effects of Chairman Mao on the people of China was his somewhat radical opinion of woman. Prior to the Communist Revolution, women’s role in Chinese society was almost completely limited to life within the home and focused on supporting their family and being submissive to their fathers and husbands. Chairman Mao