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Special pages :
I Think (Chen Wangdao)
I've thought of something else.
I think there are two kinds of "women's movements." One is the women's movement of the third class; the other is the women's movement of the fourth class. The women's movement of the third class is the middle-class women's movement; the women's movement of the fourth class is the working-class women's movement.[1]
These two kinds of movements have very different aims and should definitely not be conflated. Briefly put, this is how it is: The goal of the third-class women's movement is to restore all the liberties and privileges that women have been deprived of "just because they are women"; the goal of the fourth-class women's movement is to eradicate all the unfairness and unreasonable treatment women have suffered "just because they are poor." Thus, the third-class women's movement is a human rights struggle between women and men, while the fourth-class women's movement is an economic struggle between the capitalists and the workers. The goals and demands of these two movements are very different.
The third-class women's movement demands equality between women and men. Therefore, it devotes itself above all to opposing differences between men and women. It seeks to destroy preferential treatment for men and to expose feudal restrictions on women. It demands coeducation, women's suffrage, free social interaction between men and women, and marriage based on freedom of choice and new definitions of chastity. This kind of movement seeks to eradicate all aspects of society that punish women just for the crime of being "women."
If I remember correctly, the penal code specifies punishments for all kinds of vices and crimes. It is written that officials can assign various kinds of penalties for those who commit crimes of murder or assault, and for those who steal or rob others' property.
Those laws are at least somewhat reasonable; however, this treatment of female gender as a crime punishable with all kinds of oppression seems truly unreasonable to those of us who do not believe in the "Old Testament."[2] It is quite proper for the women's movement to try to abolish these barbaric inequalities and restrictions.
But we need to remember that, even if this movement succeeds completely, we would only have equality between men and women of the capitalist class, not the "equality of all humankind."
To achieve the "equality of all humankind," we must still pay attention to the fourth-class women's movement, which is the struggle between workers and capitalists.
This kind of movement is necessary to the eradication of poverty. Women are not the only ones who are poor. Men and women should work together in this kind of movement. It is not like the third-class women's movement, in which women take aim at men.
In every country, the women's labor movement began after the men's labor movement. In contemporary China, even most men do not know what the labor movement is; fourth-class women are of course even more hopeless in this regard.
Yet we still cannot approve of devoting oneself solely to the third-class women's movement and viewing it as the entire women's movement.