Cai Chang | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1900-05-14)14 May 1900 China |
| Died | 11 September 1990(1990-09-11) (aged 90) |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Known for | First leader of theAll-China Women's Federation |
| Political party | Chinese Communist Party |
| Spouse | Li Fuchun |
| Relatives | Cai Hesen (brother) Xiang Jingyu (sister-in-law) |
| Chinese name | |
| Traditional Chinese | 蔡暢 |
| Simplified Chinese | 蔡畅 |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Cài Chàng |
| Wade–Giles | Tsʻai4 Chʻang4 |
Cai Chang (Chinese:蔡畅;pinyin:Cài Chàng;EFEO:Ts'ai Tch'ang; 14 May 1900 – 11 September 1990)[1][2] was a Chinese politician andwomen's rights activist who was the first chair of theAll-China Women's Federation, a Chinese women's rights organization.
Cai Chang was born in 1900 to alower middle class family inChina. Her mother left her husband, and enabled her children to attend school by selling her belongings. Cai believed strongly in women's education, and spurned the idea of marriage in favor of a vow ofcelibacy. Her mother aided her in this by avoiding anarranged marriage for Cai. Cai attended the Zhounan Girls' Middle School atChangsha until 1916. In the winter of 1917–1918, she became one of the first women to join theNew People's Study Society, awork study program put in place byMao Zedong and Cai's brother,Cai Hesen. This group advocated for women to create their own self-help groups and to become active in politics.[2]
Cai, her mother, Cai Hesen, and Cai Hesen's future wifeXiang Jingyu went to Europe, where Cai was a factory worker. She studiedanarchism,Marxism, andLeninism alongside other Chinese socialist feminist scholars, including at theCommunist University of the Toilers of the East inMoscow.[2]
In 1922, Cai marriedLi Fuchun, a prominent communist.[2]
In 1921, Cai returned to China, where she studied to become aphysical education teacher. She taught for four years at the Zhounan Girls' School, which she had attended several years earlier. During this time, she joined theChinese Communist Party (CCP).[2]
Cai left her teaching job to work for the Central Women's Department in theKuomintang in 1925. Two years later, she joined the Central Women's Committee, leading it in Xiang Jingyu's absence. She helped to create the Marriage Decree of 1930, which declared that "free choice must be the basic principle of every marriage."[3] She also helped write the Provisional Constitution of 1931. From 1934 to 1935, she joined her husband Li Fuchun on theLong March.[2]
Cai was well known in China after 1949, where she led theAll-China Women's Federation (ACWF) under thePeople's Republic of China. Part of her work in the ACWF included creating a strategy to help privileged women take a leading role in scientific and cultural improvements. This earned her criticism, however, as it supported the CCP's views that emphasized technological and economic improvement over women's liberation and advantaged only powerful women; it did not help lower-class women, but rather returned them to their pre-war roles.[2]
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