Confucius: 551–478 BC

In family: woman subordinate to her

FatherHusbandSon

The bones in the four small toes were broken and forced underneath the foot over a period of time

A pair of shoes for bound feet

Comparison between an unbound and bound foot

1st October 1949Chairman Mao declaring the People’s Republic of China

Mao Tse Tung (1893-1976)addressing the crowd

“The life of the peasants is good after Land Reform”, 1951

The People’s communes are good, 1958 (The Great Leap Forward)

Tractor girls – symbol of women’s equality and Chinese modernity

“When the dining hall is well-run, the production spirit will increase”, 1959

“Hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought--thoroughly smash the rotting counter-revolutionary revisionist line in literature and art”. 1967

The Cultural Revolution

"Destroy the old world; Forge the new world."

[Crushing the crucifix, Buddha, and classical Chinese texts].

1967 Poster

Main street, Donglu village,Shandong Province

Chiping, county town, Shandong province

Shanghai by night

Guangzhou

Carry out family planning, implement the basic national policy, 1986

Opening of 10th National Women’s CongressGreat Hall of the People, BeijingOctober 2008

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meeting Chinese women leaders in Beijing, May 2010

Tiananmen Square, Beijing

China In Focus: Seminar Series.Dr. Derek HirdUniversity of Westminster‘Anxious men and the recuperation of masculinity incontemporary China’

Friday 18th November 6pm S0.19

The emergence of androgynous bodily fashions amongst youth in post-Mao China; the rise of women’s rights and women’s social, economic and sexual assertiveness; perceptions of emasculation by the state; and the ‘feminisation’ of Chinese men at a global level have all prompted talk of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ in post-Mao China.

Yet despite the prominence of articulations of women’s rights, sexual diversity and gender equality, men in China are still demonstrably dominant in political and business elites; and gendered, heteronormative hierarchies (privileging men) are still entrenched in family, work and leisure relationships.

‘In this talk, I examine men’s desires and anxieties as expressed in media discourses and in men and women’s attitudes and relationships in everyday life. I look at how consumer markets foster diverse models of gender and sexuality, drawing from global and local tropes of masculinity, accompanied by a rhetoric of choice and self-expression. ‘