Women's Representation in Reform-Era Chinese Politics Edmund Downie, Yale University (2014)

THE WEATHERHEAD EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE ESSAY continuity and change: women's representation in reform-era chinese politics edmund downie, yale university (2014) ABSTRACT This essay uses a mix of secondary literature, primary sources, and quantitative analysis to offer a comprehensive account of the ebbs and flows in women’s representation in Chi- nese politics during the reform (post-1978) era. The literature to date offers two conflict- ing accounts of women’s representation during this era. Some scholars present the period as a time of consistent decline; others present gains in representation levels from the 1990s onwards. This essay reconciles these two narratives for a unified account. It does so by updating Jude Howell’s concept of “state feminism” in reform-era China to show how state interests and civil society demands together determined women's participation levels during this period. The concept of "state feminism" treats women's representation in Chinese politics from 1949 to today as a reflection of state needs. Such a state-centric view has fueled many of the "declinist" depictions of female representation in the reform era. This essay affirms state feminism's dominant role in suppressing women's representation through the mid-1990s. But it also shows how the state, by promoting economic development and closing gender gaps in educational attainment, has had a moderately positive impact on women's representation over the past two decades. During the same period, civil society pressures have also emerged as a significant factor behind rising representation levels. For this reason, accounts of women’s representation in Chinese politics today must incorporate both state and non-state actors in their analyses as substantive influences. n October 1, 1949, the day of the founding women’s political participation at levels well above of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), what was featured in the Party at the time was fun- the People’s Daily ran an announcement damental to that agenda. Mao himself spoke in 1934 Ofrom the newly established All China Democratic of a future in which women were liberated from the Women’s Foundation, calling on the women of China institution of marriage. But “first,” he said, “comes the to welcome the newly established government. i “Un- possession of political freedom.”2 der the leadership of this government,” it said, “we Contemporary China has not realized the women will achieve liberation and enjoy the right of lofty goals of early Party rhetoric on women’s equal- male-female equality, and we will able to effectively ity in politics. Its failure is by no means unusual. contribute our energies to participate in the building Data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union indicate of a new China.”1 The statement represented the of- that women make up just 21.3 percent of parliaments ficial continuation of the Chinese Communist Party’s worldwide at the beginning of 2014.3 Higher posi- longstanding commitment to the political platform tions of power are even more elusive. In 2010, just 11 of gender equality. Although the Party’s internal of 192 heads of government worldwide were female.4 structure was thoroughly patriarchal, Party lead- Chinese views on the role of women in politics are ers advanced a comprehensive and radical agenda fairly typical internationally, roughly at the median of women’s liberation in their writings, which drew of Inglehart and Norris’s data set of sixty-two coun- widespread support from women in China, espe- tries that measures popular views of women’s place in cially in the upper middle classes. A commitment to politics.5 Many of the prejudices they identified that i The All China Democratic Women’s Foundation would later become bear on Chinese women seeking careers in politics known as the All China Women’s Foundation. echo those experienced around the world. Chinese columbia university journal of politics & society men, like men of most other countries, often perceive and some scholars today still subscribe to this view.8 women with political ambitions to be passive, lacking More contemporary scholars, however, present a in leadership ability, and dangerously seductive.6 more positive narrative of reform based upon trends London School of Economics professor Jude from the past two decades, but they have yet to have Howell centers her brief survey of the history of yet to engage with the struggles of the early reform women’s political participation in post-1949 China period documented by earlier scholars.9 around her concept of “state-derived feminism”: This essay attempts to reconcile the “declin- not just the official gender ideology in post-1949 ist” thesis with the successes of the past two decades China but also the set of practical strategies used that have come into focus in the works of more re- to enhance women’s status and the particular cent scholars. In doing so, it seeks to show how the institutional arrangements made to that end. … “monopoly” state-derived feminism held in deter- It has a monopoly on the explanation of women’s mining female representation in Chinese politics has oppression, on the management of social change, weakened during the reform period to bring about a and on the imagination of the alternative.7 more nuanced relationship between state feminism Howell sees state-derived feminism as the driv- and civil society pressures. The declines of the early ing force behind “the cycles of advance and retreat reform period—from the late 1970s through much of that have characterized women’s numerical repre- the 1990s—reflect the dominance of state feminism. sentation in politics and government since 1949.” The progress of the next two decades, or late reform, She analyzes these ebbs and flows throughout four in part reflects state feminism’s increasingly positive historical periods. Participation surged in the early influence, manifested in the edifying effects of eco- 1950s, during the first years of the Mao period. A nomic development and in policies promoting wom- brief decline followed in the early 1960s, but partici- en for cadre selection. However, that progress also pation picked up again from the late 1960s through owes to the growing women’s movement in Chinese the 1970s during the most infamous movement in civil society, whose influence on policy in the past post-1949 Chinese politics, the Cultural Revolution. two decades has challenged the place of the state as Mao’s death and the subsequent “reform era” of state the sole driver of changes in women’s role in Chinese overhaul under Deng Xiaoping precipitated a more politics. ii extended fall in the 1980s and 1990s. Under How- The paper will unfold as follows. The first sec- ell’s framework, participation rises when the Party tion will examine the decline in representation levels needs to mobilize women “for the purpose of socio- in the early reform period from their highs during economic transformation, raising economic output, the early 1970s. Many general overviews speak of this or for ideological and political ends”; it slumps when decline as a single, temporally consistent process,10 “the heat of political campaigns cools, and/or when but I divide it into early and late reform. The former economic restructuring requires adjustments in the features a rapid drop during the early 1980s, followed labor force.” The strength of state-derived feminism by a subsequent period of stagnation through much is largely dependent upon its juxtaposition with the of the 1990s. Early reform represented the state’s de- larger political, economic, and social needs of the termination to leave the tumultuous politics of the state. early 1970s behind; late reform reflected institutional Howell’s essay stands out in the literature developments in the Chinese bureaucracy that pro- on Chinese women in politics since 1949, because duced a very difficult environment for female politi- it combines a broad historical sweep with an un- cal hopefuls. In both cases, state feminism suppressed usual level of theoretical sophistication through its female representation, because doing otherwise conception of state-derived feminism. Nevertheless, would not have been compatible with state ends. The more than ten years after the essay’s publication, the second section will focus upon the interplay between reform period deserves a new narrative. Howell and state feminism and civil society feminism in lifting other earlier scholars of women’s place in reform-era women’s representation levels during late reform. politics present a picture of uninterrupted decline, I will focus primarily on women’s positions within relatively prestigious organs in the party-state ii She presents her analysis in terms of three periods: the 1950s, the Cultural Revolution, and the reform era. I speak of four to include her analysis of the bureaucracy: the National People’s Congress (NPC), 1960s, which she uses to set up her discussion of the Cultural Revolution. 54 continuity and change: women's representation in reform-era chinese politics Central Party Committee (CPC), and Politburo at the The Cultural Revolution offered an unusu- national level, as well as assorted leadership positions ally favorable environment for prospective female at subnational levels. I will supplement this data with cadres. The decade featured a succession of nation- statistics on membership in the neighborhood and wide factional struggles as Mao sought to purge his village committees. My choices here follow the gen- opponents under the guise of a campaign

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