Comparison of Lisa Rofel's Liberation Cohort and the Cultural Revolution Cohort

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Comparison of Lisa Rofel's Liberation Cohort and the Cultural Revolution Cohort

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Lisa Rofel, Liberation Cohort, Cultural Revolution Cohort, women, gender

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The viewpoints of the women, regarding their place in society, in the different cohorts identified by Lisa Rofel differ significantly. The first two cohorts, the Liberation and Cultural Revolution, show the development of women from debased states to a place of advocacy. Essentially their views of what being a modern woman are influenced by their material deprivations. Comparison of the liberation cohort and the economic reform cohort of women based on their relation to labor, their relation to family, and a particular narrative of modernity shows that socio-cultural construction of gender is an evolutionary process based on reaction to material conditions.

The viewpoints of the women, regarding their place in society, in the different cohorts identified by Lisa Rofel differ significantly
In the liberation era, there was marked participation of women in the collective labor, contributing to the surplus production that helped the socialist state industrialize
Women in the middle cohort are those who matured during the Cultural Revolution era
There is a similarity in the way the women have considered the home and family roles since the liberation
The views about modernity among the two cohorts differed significantly
Reading Rofel's work reveals that China has undergone a feminist revolution basically through the entrance of women in the public space

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[...] In contrast, the Cultural Revolution women were apathetic to labor since they saw it as a tool of subjugation. They did not define themselves by their labor rather they dreamt of a future of a modern world. The Cultural Revolution cohort held a post-Mao vision of a modern social world where people move often, accumulate wealth, and become elites due to individual inborn talents (Rofel 195). Indeed, they envisioned the modern women entrepreneurs who came about in the 80s. Notably, the post Mao era is characterized by the entrance of China into the global market economy whereby it was opened to foreign direct investment and its goods were sold in international markets and a shift occurred from a production city to an entrepreneurial city where women had equal chances as men (Hairong 584). [...]

[...] Comparison of Lisa Rofel's Liberation Cohort and the Cultural Revolution Cohort The viewpoints of the women, regarding their place in society, in the different cohorts identified by Lisa Rofel differ significantly. The first two cohorts, the Liberation and Cultural Revolution, show the development of women from debased states to a place of advocacy. Essentially their views of what being a modern woman are influenced by their material deprivations. Comparison of the liberation cohort and the economic reform cohort of women based on their relation to labor, their relation to family, and a particular narrative of modernity shows that socio-cultural construction of gender is an evolutionary process based on reaction to material conditions. [...]

[...] This group characteristically resisted authority and managerial authority in the industrial workplace. For instance, the cohort resisted younger supervisor Xiao Ma, whereby ignoring her authority was a significant political project (Rofel 222). By refusing the authority of a woman, the cohort essentially expressed its opposition to authoritarianism throughout the society. Workers rights were valued over the labor itself. Middle aged working women defied authority through activism and had extreme attitudes during labor protests. They were opposed to their management's focus on efficiency by refusing to produce. [...]

[...] “Other Modernities: Genderd Yearnings in China after Socialism (Review)”. China Review International 8. 2(2001): 483-486. Hairong, Yan. “Specialization of the Rural: Reinterpreting the Labor Mobility of Rural Young Women in Post-Mao China.” American Ethnologist (2003): 578-596. Rofel, Lisa. Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism. Berkeley: University of California Press Print. [...]

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