See, when he said "women hold up half the sky" he meant that quite literally, China has a giant pile of women that reaches up into the heavens. It's a serious problem.
If anyone is wondering about what's going on with some of the replies, there was a massively influential biography titled "The Private Life of Chairman Mao" that depicted Mao as basically a Genghis Khan level sexual predator and sold very well in the anglosphere. That it wound up being completely discredited as a sensationalist fabrication even by American neoliberal historians is of no consequence to its legacy among internet reactionaries.
I looked the author of that, expecting Montefiore since it's right his methods, and while it's surprisingly not Montefiore (i guess not enough pedophilia accussations for him), but dude named Li Zhisui, even his wiki is pretty much telling:
After emigrating to the United States, he wrote a biography of Mao entitled The Private Life of Chairman Mao, in which he described Mao as selfish, cruel, having a craving for young women, and poor personal hygiene.
I looked the author of that, expecting Montefiore since it's right his methods,
It would've been incredibly funny if Semenbag Monsanto concidered himself a "China expert" alongside being a "Russia expert", but I suppose he didn't want to be completely discredited among actual historians as a sensationalist quack fanfiction writer
I fucking hate these "leftists" who have nothing better to do than post and post and post whatever they can to sow division over a few words from a man who died half a fucking century ago. Could not be more useless and counterproductive if they were trying, and I'm sure many of them are.
Definitely reads as a dig at Kissinger, the kind of dig you make when a person's sexual escapades are an open "secret". Gossip gets around.
The "they will create disasters" part is definitely boomer "hurr hurr wahmens" though, common attitudes and jokes of the 50s that were simply not examined for being the problems that they were. Doesn't take away from the fact he was progressive on their liberation, progressive on their inclusion in the workforce equally, etc etc. Well ahead of capitalists of his time just as we today are well ahead of capitalists of our time but very likely not without our issues or blindspots that future leftists will criticise.
Even if he was some horrible misogynist, that's not why people look up to him and study his writings. There isn't a guy out there thats like, "idk about all this communism stuff, but he certainty had the right idea about women ".
These terminally-online anarchists always wring their hands over this sort of stuff and yet when you confront them with the fact that a clique of military officers formed around Makhno and they had a penchant for drunken gang rape, they'll either tell you that it's Bolshevik propaganda (how the chairman of the Makhnovist Military Revolutionary Council was a Bolshevik propagadist never gets explained, nor do they seem to know the source of this info despite being able to make wild claims about the info itself) or they'll tell you that they also denounce what happened.
["The Council" here referring to the Military Revolutionary Council, the administrative apparatus of Makhnovia which the military was (ostensibly) accountable to and bound by]
If you ask them when was the last time they denounced Makhno's rapey tendencies or when they last caused called someone out for touting the Makhnovist flag, suddenly and without announcement the discussion always seems to cease.
Honestly you don't even need to go that far to make Makhnovists look like a piece of shit. My favorite is to use material admitted by even his most sympathetic apologists biographers and then get accused of repeating Bolshevik lies.
小姐, something every student of Chinese learns early on, is still commonly used, though it can have very offensive implications in informal circumstances. I think that's sort of related.
The idea that Mao had regressive views on women should not be shocking in the slightest. Modern women's rights are really really recent developments across the world.
One shocking fact I like to bring up is that women weren't even allowed to own their bank accounts till like the 70s/80s. My mom brings that one up when talking about how much things have changed since her childhood.
But it's also not particularly relevant. People don't listen to Mao for his views on women's rights. It's the same way we don't dismiss electricity just because the society back then owned slaves.
People don't listen to Mao for his views on women's rights
i mean we do, and when he wasn't making 'my wife' jokes his writings & actions were very progressive. the establishment of the PRC is one of the great strides in women's liberation, and was done in no small part by the women of china, with guns, not handed down. full legal equality was instituted in the constitution (and was the practice of the party before that), though bringing that into force took a long time, in such a poor war torn country. patriarchy still remains in the attitudes and actions of the older generations (and i'll lay some shade on Deng for his reforms slowing down and leaving incomplete the work of women's liberation) but China is and has been a better place for women than the west for decades. sorry to pounce on you but the feminist character of the communists is very important and has been so thoroughly slandered by the west, it's important to push back
Modern women's rights are really really recent developments across the world.
Seriously my mom's first own place of residence, she shared with two roommates which, by law at that time, made that technically a brothel liable to be broken up because there was no man living there.
I'm not really ask knowledgeable on Mao as I am Lenin, or the Chinese Revolution in general Vs the Russian. But wasn't it kind of known that Mao was personally a bit of a womanizer?
Idk why people get hung up on this, liberals still idolize a guy who had an underaged slave concubine, but then bring up Marx saying the n-word once as some epic own.
I mean, yeah. But I don't wanna pull a "product of their time" schtick. We can just admit that the guy may have been awful personally while making important political contributions. Issue with the founding fathers isn't that they were personally asshole, their assholery was political in nature. Owning slaves on stolen land isn't a personal failing.
can't believe someone born in 1893 would make jokes about women not acceptable today despite otherwise acting to improve the standing of women in their country and considering them full and equal people