Engendering the Chinese Revolution : Radical Women, Communist Politics and Mass Movements in the 1920s

This history of gender politics in the 1920s assesses the impact of feminist ideals on the Chinese Communist Party during its formative years.

The book reveals the extent to which revolutionaries were committed to women's emancipation and the radical political efforts that were made to overcome women's subordination and to transform gender relations. Women activists whose experiences and achievements have been previously ignored are brought to life in this study, which illustrates how the Party functioned not only as a political organization, but as a subculture for women as well.

The book examines the intersection of the personal and political lives of male communists and how this affected their beliefs about women's emancipation.

It shows how the Party formulated as ideological challenge to traditional gender relations while it also preserved aspects of those relationships in its organization.