Embodied Activisms: The Case of the Mu Guiying Brigade

Abstract

AbstractIn this article I re-think the complex legacies of the Maoist era and their relationship to the contemporary decline in rural women's leadership. By focusing on some of the gendered dimensions of rural development policy, it becomes evident that many “traditional” beliefs about the leadership abilities of rural women were given new life during the Maoist era. Prior to the Cultural Revolution rural women had two dominant paths of “liberation” orjiefangavailable to them: one that involved a liberationthroughthe female body and household, the path ofdangjia, and one that involved a liberationfromthe constraints of the female body and household, the path offanshen. In this article I show how the simultaneous implementation of these two paths of liberation on a unique women-led Mu Guiying Brigade during the Great Leap Forward reproduced the problem of the political unacceptability of rural women.