Women's Liberation In The Early Land Reform Movement In New China

From June 1950 to the spring of 1953,the People's Republic of China carried out a three-year Land Reform Movement.This was a great social change that fundamentally shaken the economic foundation on which the Chinese feudal system relied,so the vast number of Chinese rural women have acquired as much land as men for the first time.With the encouragement and organization of the Communist Party of China and governments,Chinese rural women have participated in this movement which was a decisive step towards gender equality.This was a new phenomenon that has never happened in China for thousands of years.In other words,Land Reform Movement provided ample space for Chinese rural women which was the beginning of women's independence and liberation.Therefore,it was the largest and most profound women's liberation movement in China.In order to achieve the goal of a new democratic revolution and to eliminate the feudal ideas and stereotypes that have been accumulated in rural China for thousands of years,the Communist Party of China and the Central People's Government guided by the Marxist theory of women's liberation and put it into practice.In June 1950,the "Land Reform Law of the People's Republic of China" was promulgated,which stipulated the distribution of land by population.So it ensured rural women's equal land rights.In order to carry out the Land Law,governments and women's federations conducted extensive publicity in rural areas,which laid the ideological foundation for farmers accepting equal rights and made farmers fully aware of the protection of women's land rights by Law.Secondly,developing corresponding operational regulations ensured that gender equality policies was implemented in practice.Thirdly,vigorously mobilizing and organizing women to participate in the Land Reform Movement which stimulated potentiality for women's liberation and consolidated gender equality.The Land Reform movement completely changed the situation of rural women in just three years.This fundamentally laid the economic foundation of gender equality,provided realistic conditions for women to achieve political and cultural equality and directly improved women's status in marriage and family.At the same time,women actively received collective consciousness and improved self-confidence and self-esteem.It also took an important step towards women's equality and the liberation of women.Although the Land Reform Movement has played a significant role in achieving gender equality,the shortcoming was still obvious.There were many main performance.For example,women's names were hidden on the land certificate and the fact that many women were unable to take away the land during their marriages.It indicated that some women's land rights at that time were not fully guaranteed.There are the influential factors of traditional rural customs and the rural women,which showed that government still have a long way to achieve equal rights between men and women.Reviewing the significance of the Land Reform Movement in the process of achieving gender equality and summing up the experience and lessons was necessary.It has enlightening effects on the development of the Chinese women's liberation in the future.