The Portrayal of Women in Propaganda Posters During the Chinese Cultural Revolution Yu Yang (Sally) Lin (Art) History Supervisor: Mrs. K. Puzio Sir Winston Churchill Secondary 0227 ­ May 2015 ii Abstract China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966­1976) was a ten year socio­political movement that not only changed many social aspects of life but drew emphasis to a unique form of art ­ visual propaganda. Cultural Revolution propaganda posters are visually impacting both in terms of colour use and composition, and convey strong political messages and nationalism. Due to these aspects, propaganda posters hold irreplaceable importance in the study of gender equality and the portrayal of women during the Cultural Revolution. The essay aims to analyze the message of the propaganda posters, and to what extent were they effective. The essay is composed of four major components, including historical context, method, analysis and conclusion. 208 posters within the Cultural Revolution time frame were taken from collector websites in the randomized order they appeared. The posters were then analyzed for their portrayal of women in Cultural Revolution propaganda posters with the use of visual analysis, numerical analysis and historical evidence. The analysis found three important connections between the female image and the Cultural Revolution. Firstly, the existence of women in the Cultural Revolution posters was not about gender equality, but to serve the CCP’s socialist ideological campaigns and industrial production needs. Secondly, this political drive behind the messages caused the portrayal of genders to become form of gender neutralization that favoured masculinization. Thirdly, the reduction genders inequality due to traditional confines prompted the loss of social diversity and exposed women to a new form of marginalization, where any aspects of femininity was ostracized. Word Count: 250 ii Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Method Defined………………………………………………………………………………. 2­5 Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………. 5­7 Numerical Analysis……………………………………………………………………………7­11 Visual Analysis……………………………………………………………………………… 11­21 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………... 21­22 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….23­24 Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………. 25­43 iii Introduction Upon its establishment in 1949, The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had the goal of thought reform and justified propaganda as protection for the “ideological lapses” of the proletariat.1 The use of propaganda allowed the CCP to “integrate [an] ideology into everyday life through aggressive information campaigns,” which included behaviour correction, indoctrination of values, dissemination of policies, and regulation of gender identity and sexuality.2 Prior to 1966, the Propaganda department, under the Central Committee, took these policies and spread it through other administrations such as the Ministry of Culture, the Youth League, and the Women’s Federation, which would then be distributed amongst the people.3 The Cultural Revolution was launched in 1966 and ended in 1976 with Mao Zedong’s death, followed by the arrest of his wife Jiang Qing. Mao had said that the revolution was “absolutely necessary and most timely for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism.”4 In other words, it was driven by Mao’s fear that the party had become impure, that capitalism was infiltrating the inner parts of the party. He aimed to purge all that were becoming bureaucratic, revisionists, and lacking motivation for the revolution. The Cultural Revolution forced the intelligentsia to go back to the countrysides to perform manual labour along with farmers, and it demanded the end of class struggles. A result of the Cultural Revolution was its severe obstruction of industrial and agricultural production nationwide due to redirection of human resources towards ideological campaigns rather than production. Consequently, the demand for workers increased substantially. 1 Stefan Landsberger, Chinese Propaganda Posters: from revolution to modernization (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 30. 2 Yue Yin, “Cultural changes as reflected in portrayals of women and gender in Chinese magazines published in three eras” (master’s thesis, Iowa State University, 2010), 5. 3 Landsberger, Chinese Propaganda Posters, 30. 4 Mao Zedong, “Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China” in Important Documents on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, ed. Lin Piao (Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1970). 1 The CCP turned to women as a source of labour supply, and encouraged women to break old traditions and enter society as workers. To achieve integration of female workers in society, it required thought reform of the general populace’s mindset regarding women as professionals in the workforce. The “Cultural Revolution group” led by Jiang Qing replaced the Propaganda department in 1966, and it widely exploited the use of propaganda posters in order to make these changes.5 Propaganda posters were a popular method because they are deemed by party officials as “easily-understood visual information that spelled out the desired behaviour”.6 As a result, these posters were distributed everywhere within every level of administration. This essay aims to decipher the message of gender equality in the propaganda posters of China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and to what extent were these messages effective. Through the selection of diverse ranges of data, with analysis and historical evidence, the essay hopes to fill in research gaps of gender equality during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and draw attention to the significant role propaganda posters played in gender equality. Method Defined In Pingree, Hawkins, Butler and Paisley’s Journal of Communication: A Scale for Sexism, they described the 5 different levels of gender portrayal of females in the media.7 Women in level 1 are decorative objects for marketing, victims, or sexual items.8 Level 2 speaks of women 5 “Circular of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (May 16, 1966)” in Important Documents on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1970), 108. 6 Landsberger, Chinese Propaganda Posters, 29. 7 Huang Hai Hong, 黄海红, “cong meijie nvxing xingxiang chuanbo shijiao kan wenge shiqi haobao zhongde nvxing xingxiang” 从媒介女性形象传播视角看文革时期海报中的女性形象 [Looking at the Female Image during the Cultural Revolution’s Propaganda Posters from the Perspective of Media’s Portrayal of the Female Image], Dongnan Chuanbo 东南传播 Southeast Communication no. 8 (2009): 96. 8 Lorie N. Bonham, “Gender Images and Power in Magazine Advertisements: The Consciousness Scale Revisited” (Communications MA Theses, Georgia State University, 2005), 2. 2 who occupy a traditional role in society: as mothers, nurses, etc.9 Level 3’s are professional women in the family setting, ultimately indicating that a woman's place is still at home.10 Level 4 is where men and women are equal.11 Level 5 depicts women as various individuals with their own unique characteristics.12 This consciousness scale was originally published in 1976.13 The scale was created several years after the start of the second-wave feminism, which deviated from its predecessor by drawing attention to cultural and social oppression rather than exclusive focus on political equality. Similarly, certain movements in Mao’s China also aimed to promote gender equality and women’s integration into society. Although the consciousness scale examines the differences between women in reality and media portrayals of women in the western world, it can be applied to this analysis after readjustments of scope because it holds no political bias, and exists in an era where feminist movements began to emerge globally. The CCP had purged Confucian principles, but ironically, it held on to the Confucian belief of the “perfectibility of people”.14 This belief formed the basis of the propaganda method. The CCP favoured the use of models in propaganda “as a means to bring about social or attitudinal change”.15 It is believed that by delineating both desired behaviour and unorthodox conduct, these models will prompt self-improvement and assist in achieving higher levels of human perfection by process of emulation.16 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 3. 13 Ibid., 2. 14 Landsberger, Chinese Propaganda Posters, 24. 15 Ibid., 26. 16Ibid., 26, 27. 3 The selected images for analysis are taken from two different websites - Landsberg17 and Maopost18. All posters between May 1966 and October 1976 were taken from Landsberg.19 From Maopost, the first 10 webpages of posters during 1960s were taken, and the first 5 webpages of posters during 1970s.20 There were more posters within the time frame for 1970s, thus the reduced number of pages. With both the consciousness scale and model method in mind, the categorical frames were adjusted for the analysis. The posters to be analyzed are divided into three gender-based categories of ‘men only’, ‘women only’, and ‘men and women’. The focus of this analysis is on women, therefore posters that are ‘men only’ are left in its gender-based category. ‘Men and women’ is further divided into compositional-subcategories of ‘background’, ‘foreground’, and ‘featured’. Women in ‘background’ means they are not the focus, are either barely identifiable as women or are used to frame the main visual object. In ‘foreground’, men