‘The Silver Flower Contest’: Rural Women in 1950s China and the Gendered Division of Labour
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: Gender & History performed in cotton fields, only 2,000-3,000 seedlings could be retained in each mu.In many places, people picked cotton with the shells on them, that is, before it was fully blossomed.They would get the cotton out afterwards when the bolls gradually bloomed under the sun.In order to double the per mu yield in a short time, sloppy management practices had to be overcome and people had to learn new technical skills in cotton planting.Thus, in the 1956 movement to raise cotton output, the provincial party committee put forward the slogan: 'expand cotton fields and improve planting technique to raise cotton output'.8 A great deal of work was also required to promote new skills in managing cotton fields and to double the labour force involved in cotton production.With the expansion of cotton fields, increased demands on management and the promotion of new skills, the primary requirement to fulfil the 1956 task of raising cotton output was 'establishing a tremendous labour force'.9 How could such a tremendous workforce be obtained?The government turned to women.In the Guanzhong area, most women did not work in the fields before 1949.They mainly worked at home in such sideline occupations as spinning yarn, weaving cloth and doing housework.After 1949, when the mutual aid teams and agricultural cooperatives were set up, more and more women started to work in the fields, as work points earned from such work became an important factor in the cooperatives' distribution system.But until 1955, work in the fields remained largely unpopular among women.Some cooperative statistics show that women only worked in the fields for thirty to fifty days each year, while the requirement in 1956 was to increase the number of workdays to 140 per year.10 The government now considered the 'female labour force [to be] a great potential'.11
Source: Gender & History
Authors: GAO Xiaoxian, Yuanxi MA
Institution: Northwest University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2089244098