Scissors, surveys, and psycho-prophylactics: Prenatal health care campaigns and state building in China, 1949-1954

Journal of Historical Sociology

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 1998, Pages

  Goldstein, Joshua ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 17044459281     PISSN: 09521909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-6443.00059     Document Type: Review

References (95)

1. Elisabeth Croll, "Introduction: Fertility Norms and Family Size in China," in E.Croll, D. Davin, P. Kane eds., China's One-Child Family Policy (London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1985), p.15.
2. "Decisions of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on the present orientation of woman-work in all the anti-Japanese base areas (1943)" as translated in Delia Davin, Woman-Work (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p.204.
3. Information on traditional birth customs, except where otherwise noted, is from Deng Licheng, Zhongguo shengyu lisu kao (Taibei: Shizhe chubanshe, 1961).
4. Frank Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 166-167.
5. The attendants for the empress for example were responsible for preventing her from listening to inappropriate forms of music, and eating the wrong foods during pregnancy.
6. Charlotte Furth, "Concepts of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Infancy in Ch'ing Dynasty China," in Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 46 no. 1, pages 14-15. In relation to the elitist nature of taijiao, Furth observes that "the tradition recorded in the medical literature [of the Qing] was not a simple elite alternative to folk health practice, but an eclectic system that constantly borrowed and adapted grassroots ritual and medical ideas and then fed them back into a mainstream of popular culture, often in altered form."
7. Emily Ahern, "The Power and Pollution of Chinese Women," in Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke, eds., Women in Chinese Society (California: UC Press, 1975).
8. Furth, p. 15.
9. The procedures for the moment of delivery itself were so varied that they defy summary. Here's a short list of variations: During labor: pace, squat, shit and piss to relax lower body, sit and have your waist massaged, work hard to birth infant as quickly as possible. During delivery: lie on grass mats, lie on bed, squat with support under your arms. If delivery is slow: burn medicinal charms and drink ashes, hold human or animal hair in your mouth, take various medicinal herbs, change direction body is facing, have midwife use fingers to pull infant out.
10. Serving the mother thin rice gruel was believed to be good for her health, so this too could be an expression of great concern, as could many of the other, less comfortable practices.
11. Furth, p. 20.
12. Ellen Judd found that this stress on the niangjia (natal family) during the first month after birth still prevails in Shandong villages today. "In Qianrulin [Anqiu county] the norm is that the child's laolao will come to see the child on the sixth or seventh day... this visit will last no more than twelve days but may be followed by additional visits.... In Huaili [Lingxian district in Dezhou]... the new mother and child are escorted to the mother's niangjia... before the full-month ceremony, which is performed at her niangjia. They may remain there for ten to fifteen days before returning to her pojia (husband's family). Ellen Judd, "Niangjia: Chinese Women and Their Natal Families," Journal of Asian Studies, 48(3), 1989, p.536.
13. Furth, p.8.
14. Furth, p.29.
15. "Planned Developments for Prenatal Health Care Work," Xin Zhongguo funu, November 1949, p.5.
16. Because Xin Zhongguo funu was the the most important (and also almost the only) publication for disseminating and discussing government policies focused on women throughout all of China, it is central source for this paper. I believe that by reading it with circumspection and against the grain, it can still provide us a meaningful picture of government efforts regarding birth practices and women's social position during this period.
17. Joseph Stalin, "Speech on Laboring Women," Xin Zhonguo funu, July 1949, p.6
18. Quan guo zong gong hui nu gong bu, "The Family Members of Factory 724 Develop their Role in Assisting Production," Xin Zhongguo funu, January 1953, p.22.
19. Tani Barlow, "Theorizing Woman: Funu, Guojia, Jiating," in A. Zito and T. Barlow eds., Body, Subject and Power in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) p.271.
20. Emily Honig, "Socialist Revolution and Women's Liberation in China - A Review Article" in Journal of Asian Studies vol.44, no.2, p.330.
21. Honig, p. 329.
22. See Kay Ann Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
23. By the end of the 1959 women accounted for less than 20% of non-agricultural employees. From Davin, p. 192.
24. "Notice Concerning Celebrating March 8 International Women's Day," Xin Zhongguo funu, February 1951, p.9. In 1950 this holiday was often titled "International Working Women's Day," but by 1951 the word "working" was consistently absent, remaining only implied. Value hierarchies, such as the one evident in this distribution of slogans, can be found in almost every aspect of state administration. For example, the Provisional Measures for Governing Grain-rationing of August 25, 1955 provides up to 50 catties for industrial workers while for residents in general, a category designating primarily housewives, the maximum is 29 catties. H. Yuan Tien, The Population Struggle, Demographic Decisions of the People's Republic, 1949-1969, Ohio State University Press: Columbus 1973, p.373.
25. "Notice Concerning Celebrating March 8 International Women's Day," Xin Zhongguo funu, February 1951, p.9. In 1950 this holiday was often titled "International Working Women's Day," but by 1951 the word "working" was consistently absent, remaining only implied. Value hierarchies, such as the one evident in this distribution of slogans, can be found in almost every aspect of state administration. For example, the Provisional Measures for Governing Grain-rationing of August 25, 1955 provides up to 50 catties for industrial workers while for residents in general, a category designating primarily housewives, the maximum is 29 catties. H. Yuan Tien, The Population Struggle, Demographic Decisions of the People's Republic, 1949-1969, Ohio State University Press: Columbus 1973, p.373.
26. Zhonghua quanguo minzhu funu lianhe hui, ertong fuli bu "Xuanchuan puji xin fa jiesheng he yu er zhishi," Xin Zhongguo funu, June 1953, p.5.
27. Quan guo zonggong hui nugong bu, "724 chang de zhigong jiashu zai shengchan shang fahui le zhushou zuoyong," Xin Zhongguo funu, January 1953, p.22.
28. China Reconstructs, Volume 1, 1952, p. 18
29. Shanghai, Hongkou district Women's Association Family Committee "How to Spur our Sister Housewives to Develop Protect Home and Nation Campaign," Xin Zhongguo funu, January 1951, p.37.
30. Xin Zhongguo Funu, March 1951 p. 15.
31. Xin Zhongguo Funu, January 1953 p. 33.
32. Ding Ling ed., Qingniande lianai yu hunyin wenti (Beijing: Qingnian chubanshe, 1952) p.83-86.
33. Xin Zhongguo Funu, October 1949, p. 18.
34. Barlow, p.272. Barlow does not stress the contradiction between the sociological explanation of women's oppression and the physiological discourse on difference as potentially disruptive. Rather, and for important reasons, she stresses how the physiological discourse was used to mobilize bio-power and make women's bodies a field of the state. I hope that I can argue by the end of this paper that this was a field of contestation, and, later in the paper, show that women did, to some extent, hold their ground, though this resistance is necessarily inexpressible within the state discourse.
35. Barlow, p.274.
36. Zhu Dan, "Zenyang ban jiesheng xunlianban," Xin Zhongguo funu, November 1949, p.9.
37. Zhu Ming, "Nu ganbu xuexi zhuchan." Xin Zhongguo funu, March 1950, p.45.
38. These diagrams included detailed drawings of both internal and external organs. The depiction of sexual organs floating in space vividly implies a kind of surgical and conceptual violence. The repeated interpretation of women's uncomfortable or squeamish reaction to these diagrams as "embarrassment" is clearly an oversimplification.
39. Zhu Dan, p.9.
40. Shen Yuanhui, "Shenru nongcun kaizhan fuying weisheng gongzuo," Xin Zhongguo funu, January 1950, p.23.
41. Kai Kai, "Xin Zhongguo de fuyou baojian shiye," Xin Zhongguo Funu, September 1950, p.30.
42. This flood of statistics was characteristic of the period and played a crucial role in organizing each and every element of the population into a force of national importance. For instance, statistics were used to image children as a miniature new nation within the nation, manifested for instance in demonstrations on International Children's Day and in organizations like the Shaoniandui, Qingniantuan, and children's art groups. This young nation within the nation was valorized as a dynamic new source of socialist production through activities like tree planting movements and through the ubiquitous use of statistics like: if every child in the country grows two sunflowers we will have enough oil for 100,000 families for a full year!
43. "A 'good' midwife was considered to be one who was old, honest, and had a reputation for skill within the community." Furth, p. 17.
44. Rong Fei "Jieshao Liaodong, Songjiang sheng gaizao jiu shou shengpo de jingyan," Xin Zhongguo funu, February 1950, p.33.
45. Zhu Dan, p.10.
46. Furth, p.16. Furth also notes that midwives were usually inferior in status to the elites that compiled such texts, and that these medical men often characterized midwives as opinionated, mercenary and incompetent.
47. Shen Yuanhui, p.23.
48. Rong Fei, p.33. Note that the midwife addresses the family and not mother. This is one of the relations that the new birth method campaign attempts to transform.
49. See Nongcun yisheng shouce, Hunan Medical College Revolutionary Committee ed., (People's Health Publishers, Beijing, 1971), p. 716-724, for examples of the more disturbing medical images not shared with the general public.
50. "You Jihua de kaizhan fuying weisheng gongzuo," in Xin Zhongguo funu, November 1949, p.6.
51. Kai Kai, p.30. An article in China Reconstructs, January 1952, p. 19, states that 46,371 midwives were retrained nationwide in 1950. A later article from p.3 of November 18, 1951, Renmin Ribao, sets the number of reformed midwives at over 100,000. Certainly all these figures must be taken with a very large grain of salt.
52. Zhu Dan, p.9.
53. China Reconstructs vol. 1, no. 1 p. 19.
54. Kai Kai, p. 30.
55. Heilongjiang Xiaoshan County Democratic Women's Association Conference, "How is the New Birth Method Carried Out in Xiaoshan County?" Xin Zhongguo dai gei muchin he haizi de fuli (Beijing: Qingnian chubanshe, 1953), p. 21.
56. Renmin Ribao May 7, 1949, p.2.
57. Li Guangzuo, "Nongcun chanfu he yinger siwanglu hen da, ge di ying zhongshi xunlian jiechanpo gongzuo," Renmin Ribao November 12, p.2.
58. Zhu Dan, p.11. Zhu also recommends providing better than ordinary meals and housing to students to nurture their trust and sense of importance.
59. Zhonghua Quanguo Minzhu Funu Lianhe hui, Ertong full bu: "Xuanchuan puji xinfa jiesheng he youer zhishi," Xin Zhongguo funu, June 1953, p. 6.
60. Yang Zhaolin "Wei le women de xia yi dai," Xin Zhongguo funu, April 1950, p.32.
61. "How is the New Birth Method Carried Out in Xiaoshan County?" p.20.
62. Bang Xiu, "Shengyang shi de fuyou baojian zhan," Xin Zhongguo funu, September 1950, p.29
63. Hui Zhaoyi "Chan qian jiancha de haochu," Xin Zhongguo funu, February 1953, p.38.
64. Anhei Province Democratic Women's Association, "Youxiu de jieshengyuan Yu Yuehua," Xin Zhongguo dai gei muqin he haizi de fuli, (Beijing: Qingnian chubanshe, 1953) pp.8-10. The story paints her family as fairly vicious without mentioning that her leaving might greatly decrease their labor power.
65. Shen Yuanhui, p.23.
66. Jiang Ming, "Jinxiang funu weisheng gongzuodui jieshao," Xin Zhongguo funu, November 1949, p. 10-11.
67. Along these lines, Charlotte Furth noted that during the Qing, "Western doctors working in the treaty ports in the nineteenth century reported sometimes being called in to aid a delivery but usually only 'when all hope is fled'," Furth, p. 18. State prenatal health care workers and physicians and their western style medical practices represented a similarly foreign presence to many rural and even urban communities. Unfortunately there is no room in this paper to discuss the knotty place of the west in discourses on birthing but here's a short list of tangles: "Westernized" women were said to be cry-babies about menstrual and birth pain (and vice versa); stories on imperialist atrocities frequently depict soldiers gutting pregnant women and U.S. funded charity organizations killing hundreds of infants; stories on western gynecologists reveal them to be lascivious rapists. The anti-imperialist message in such stories is obvious, but more complex is the need for the state to distinguish its practices (state orphanages, state gynecologists, state definitions of women's physiology) from Western ones.
68. Yang Zhaolin, p.32.
69. Qie Ning "Mofan jieshengyuan Chang Xiuhua," Xin Zhongguo funu, June 1953, p.24.
70. Yang Zhaolin, p.33. The infant of course dies, and the mother becomes infected by the old-style midwife's dirty fingernails and is rescued by the nursing team which admits her to the hospital.
71. Cao Huiru, "Yiwu jiesheng de gongzuo tihui," Xin Zhongguo funu February 1950, p.43.
72. Yang Zhaolin, p.33.
73. Rong Fei, p.34. In the lessons she describes eliminating midwives's beliefs in predestiny is an explicit goal.
74. Bang Xiu, p.29.
75. Yang Zhaolin, p.34.
76. Several letters to the editor in Renmin Ribao address the topic of "bu shou yunfu" regulations or regulations against accepting pregnant women for hire: see August 1, 1951, p.2; June 10, 1951, p.1; June 27, 1951, p.2.
77. Quanguo zonggong hui nugong bu, "714 chang de zhigong jiashu zai shengchan shang fahui le zhushou zuoyong," Xin Zhongguo funu January 1953, p. 22-23.
78. Bao Hun, "Lieche shang sheng haizi," Xin Zhongguo dai gei muchin he haizi de fuli (Beijing:Qingnian chuban she, 1953.) pp.8-13.
79. Song Qingling, "Protect the Children," China Reconstructs Vol. 1, no.2 pp.1-3.
80. This parallel between the binaries warring nation/ welfare nation and producing woman/ reproducing woman is clearer if put in the context of PRC history. From its early days as a guerilla force, the CCP encouraged incorporating women into production when men were needed to fight: when the nation was at war, women were producers. During both the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution when China was said to be under imminent threat of war (during the GLF with Taiwan, during the CR with the Soviet Union) women again were mobilized for production. During the mid-1950s and the early 1960s, however, when economic planners attempted to resuscitate the infrastructure and the nation was represented as in a state of peace, more stress was put on women's roles as wives and mothers and their roles in production and the images of the iron woman and the like were downplayed.
81. Editors, "Da li tuixing wutong fenmian fa," Xin Zhongguo funu August 1952, p.6.
82. Lim Kha-ti, "Painless Childbirth," China Reconstructs, Beijing, 1953, vol. 3, p.45.
83. Presently the Lamaze method involves training husbands to work with wives, but the method has[]undergone major transformations. My descriptions of the Lamaze method are based on his 1956 lectures that have a radical social reformer's zeal. While the socio-political place of the method in French capitalism is quite different from its place in China, I have no room to discuss this in this paper. Basically however the method esteems itself revolutionary in both Europe and China; the difference is that in France the method is in opposition to the state medical system (Lamaze agitated mightily and unsuccessfully for funding) while in China it is avidly adopted by the state.
84. Fernand Lamaze, Painless Childbirth, the Pyschoprophylactic Method (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1970), p.179.
85. I assume this from several articles providing women's first hand accounts in which they go to only two training sessions or are trained upon entering the hospital during labor. Also, in Ru Zhijuan's "The Maternity Home," the youthful obstetric nurse begins to teach a woman the painless childbirth method after she is already far into her labor (p.67). According to Lamaze, this is impossible-when the woman experiences her first contraction, if she is not free of all fear and illusions, the spiral of pain begins and will inevitably worsen.
86. In the model ward of the Peking Women and Children's Health Care Center, creating a cheerful environment went beyond mere sanitation. "The hospital wards are turned into bright home-like rooms, with gay pictures on the walls and a perfectly relaxed atmosphere." Lim Kha-ti, p. 46.
87. In addition to other articles cited in this section, these generalizations also apply to the following articles: Wen Mingzhen and Tao Hao, "Wo[men] tiyan le wutong fenmian," and Liu Minying "Guanyu wutong fenmianfa," Xin Zhongguo funu August 1952, p. 5-7, 34-36.
88. In addition to other articles cited in this section, these generalizations also apply to the following articles: Wen Mingzhen and Tao Hao, "Wo[men] tiyan le wutong fenmian," and Liu Minying "Guanyu wutong fenmianfa," Xin Zhongguo funu August 1952, p. 5-7, 34-36.
89. Yu Aifeng, "Wutong fenmian fa zai Tianjin shi Lizong yiyuan tuixing de yanguo," Xin Zhongguo funu September 1952, p.10.
90. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain (New York: Oxford University Press; 1985). Both Scarry and Lamaze link pain to language and the alleviation of pain to the production of new forms of expression. Such new forms are conspicuously absent in propaganda about painless childbirth unless the "spontaneous" outbursts of loyalty to the Party, science and Mao are to be considered such expressions.
91. Wang Xiuhua, "The Prophylactic Painless Childbirth Method Brings Good Fortune to Mothers," from New China Provides Welfare to Mothers and Children, p.7.
92. Croll, p.10.
93. Croll, p.15.
94. Family planning can mean encouraging family growth as well as downsizing. In the early 50's growth was the Party line, and Malthusians were being accused of heresy against the revolution.
95. In To the Storm, Yu Daiyun, a loyal CCP member, describing her month of confinement after giving birth, says of her mother-in-law, "admiring her kind and gentle disposition and realizing that she desired only to hasten my recovery, I never minded the many restrictions she imposed." Yue Daiyun and Carolyn Wakeman, To the Storm, the Odyssey of a Revolutionary Chinese Woman, University of California Press, London, 1985, p.2.