THE ADVENT OF WOMAN AND HER SIGNIFICANCE IN THE WORLD

Two centuries ago, in 1791, a Frenchwoman, Olympe de Gouges, published a Déclaration des Droits de la Femme autant que Citoyénne (Declaration of the Rights of Woman as a Citizen). This was the heyday of the French Revolution which had begun in 1789, and French women had shared by the hundreds of thousands in the uprisings which destroyed the feudal royalty and the landowning nobles. This was the first clear articulate document on the rights of woman to be published in the world, and it was linked to the Déclaration des Droits de L'Homme (Declaration of the Rights of Man) proclaimed by the French revolutionaries, which remains a landmark in history and the basis for democratic government in France and many other European countries. In 1793 Olympe de Gouge and other women published a further Dix-sept Articles à propos des Droits de la Femme (Seventeen Articles on the Rights of Woman). This was because despite high-sounding promises, the revolutionary authorities closed down 'feminine clubs' and forbade women to hold public meetings. A new law was drafted stating that: "Children, the mentally ill, minors and women [...] will not be [recognized as] citizens." Thus Frenchwomen were deprived of the civic rights they had claimed. Napoleon, who came to power soon after, reaffirmed in the Code which bears his name, the total control of Man over Woman.

However, the 'movement' of women in France greatly influenced women in other countries. In 1792, in England, Mary Woolstonecraft published a pamphlet entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She claimed for women the right to education, and to choosing her husband instead of having marriage and the choice of a mate imposed upon the woman by parents. These documents were the first politically conscious claims made by women for a radical change in the order of masculine domination regarded as natural until then. These early struggles and those which followed in the nineteenth century are described in a remarkable book by Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo, who became Prime Minister of Portugal in 1979.

It is economic power, which leads to social-political domination, which plays a fundamental role in the division between 'dominant' and 'dominated', between 'men' and 'women'. The First Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism reinforced male ownership of the means of production. Capital as money, factories, machines were in their hands. Women and children were employed in many factories, and they toiled fourteen to sixteen hours a day for pitiful wages. Thus grew the wealth of Western nations, on the exploitation of women and children and of course also men too poor to become 'owners'. As the author Roger Garaudy wrote in his book: L'Avènement de la Femme (The Advent of Woman) the nineteenth century was "the most murderous century for women."

However, throughout that murderous century women continued to struggle for equality, for their Rights as Human beings, although constantly repressed. I must also mention that some men helped women to advance their cause. One of the earliest was the Frenchman [Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of] Condorcet (°1734-†794) who, in 1793, approved the declaration issued by Olympe de Gouge and spoke in its favour. In the nineteenth century there was John Stuart Mill, (°1806-†1973) who demanded for women the right to vote. In 1894 the British Government granted more rights to men (workers and the poor had far fewer rights than the upper class of nobles and wealthy merchants) but refused these to women. Millicent Fawcett, who had struggled for twenty-five years for the cause of women, presented a petition signed by two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand women, and organized the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Suffrage means the right to vote, and it was from this word that the appellation 'suffragette' for these militant women was coined. Used in derision, with scorn, yet it was to become a badge of honour. In 1882, the Married Women's Property Act was passed, granting the right to their own property to women who had married. Let us mention here that in France it was only some forty years ago that married women acquired the right to total control of their own bank account! In Italy, in 1861, women who remained anonymous through fear of being jailed and beaten — as were the suffragettes in England — asked that married women should have the right to administer their own property. It was only in 1945, fifty years ago, that Italian women acquired the right to vote.

In the United States of America, despite great outward 'reverence' for women who had to be 'protected', there was rigid patriarchal domination, reinforced by the Puritan ethic. Woman was 'frail' and therefore had to be guided, ruled, and controlled. In 1848 however, a group of American women held a Congress of Women at Seneca Fall near New York. They adopted a declaration modelled on the National Declaration of Independence, when in 1776 the United States overthrew the domination of Great Britain and became an independent country. This was the world's first Congress of Women. During the war between North and South over the question of black slavery, the women of the United States of America claimed the right to their own freedom, since ostensibly the war was to abolish slavery and it was difficult to refuse them. Literacy for women was more advanced in the United States than in Europe, and as industrialization grew women were needed in jobs such as secretaries in offices.

The invention of the typewriter in 1890 gave many women the opportunity to earn their living, even if their pay would remain far lower than that of men with lesser skills. The American women began to form women's clubs, which like the suffragettes demanded equal rights, and the right to vote. State after state had to grant women this right, and in 1920 it was extended to all women throughout the country (Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America).

We cannot separate the feminine 'revolution' from the events of history. Wars and revolutions, such as the French Revolution and the American War of Secession, did push ahead the cause of women, even if this was not their aim. The First World War (1914-1918) saw a great wave of women consciousness, because millions of men were being mobilized in England. Women had to replace them in occupations hitherto regarded as 'masculine'. Women drove buses and trains, became plumbers and carpenters. They formed the great majority of teachers, not only in schools, but also at some Universities, even if they were not yet in the top rank. Hospitals were created for women medical students, and at the end of the war there were fourteen hospitals on the war front entirely staffed by women. In 1918, Parliament gave the women of United Kingdom the right to vote.

The Second World War (1939-1945) had also an impact on women's 'movements'. In France, the Right of vote was granted to women in 1945. France, [a self-proclaimed] champion of equality, was the thirty-sixth country in the world to give this right women, writes Roger Garaudy, himself a Frenchman. The French Government also had to agree that women and men should receive equal pay for equal work.

However, we know that even today, there are still, and in almost every country, differences in the pay, the prospects of future higher employment, between men and women. Even in the United States of America, differences in wages have continued,and only recently has legal action been taken against discrepancy.

With the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, and its avowed aim and "declaration of independence for all countries", the era of decolonization began. Struggles intensified between some countries and erstwhile colonies, for once again there occurred the usual gap between the words spoken and the realization of what they promised. The woman's 'movement' throughout the world saw a deeper, wider consciousness, since many women had participated in struggles for liberation by the side of men. Throughout the world women were demanding their rights, and were being heard. But it was 1975 before the United Nations established the "International Year of the Woman".

Among the struggles linking national independence and the women's 'movement' for equality, perhaps the most remarkable of all in its achievements has been the Chinese Revolution, which triumphed in 1949.

An essential feature of the Chinese Revolution is that, from its early beginnings in the 1920s, it linked the liberation of China to the cause of the liberation of the Chinese woman. And as soon as New China was established, the first actions to ensure that Chinese women would truly enjoy the same rights in all respects as men began (1950-1951).

Mao Zedong said:

— "Women carry half of Heaven."

This phrase was not simply a poetic way of describing woman's role and importance. In China's long revolutionary decades, we find in the early twentieth century already an awareness among some men of the injustices done to women, the degraded status of most women (except if they bore sons, and became matriarchs in wealthy families). Mao Zedong wrote an essay, indignantly denouncing forced marriage. He had been moved by the suicide of a young woman, forced against her will, who killed herself in the marriage palanquin. Other men, the early revolutionaries, also denounced the injustice such as female infanticide, and the practice of foot-binding.

During the long years of guerilla war waged in the countryside by the Chinese Communist Party many women participated, and quite a few of them became 'soldiers', as the men had. Hence the cause of woman's liberation became a major component of the political revolution. The Chinese Government through the last forty-five years has not reneged on its early promises, nor has it stopped promoting the cause of women. One woman whose indefatigable energy led to the important continuity of this work was Madame Deng Yingchao, the wife of the equally revered late Prime Minister, Zhou Enlai. There were many others, and today the National Federation of the Women of China is a powerful organization, which can look proudly upon great achievements: the rights of woman to education; to marriage based on love; her rights as a working woman to equal pay and benefits; her rights as a mother. All have produced an enormous change. Even if there are still throwbacks to the past in some villages, where economic changes have produced disequilibrium, it can confidently be asserted that woman's lot in China is better than in many other countries. More women in China are in high public posts (as ministers, as mayors, as vice-governors, and now in enterprises and companies as well) than in some European countries.

Old customs, traditions, die hard. Female infanticide has not entirely disappeared, and there was a resurgence due to the strict family planning imposed (one child per couple). This was particularly blatant among the peasants in rural areas. Measures were taken (rural people are allowed two children, even more, in an attempt to save the girl-child's life). Due to economic liberalization, which in some areas has produced a new kind of developer greedy for money, prostitution has led to the kidnapping of women and girls. But the government is taking stringent action against these attempts to reverse the advance of women. Careful watch is kept on schools, where for a while there was a tendency in some areas to send only the boys and deprive the girls of schooling. The battle goes on, but when one compares with other countries, it is the positive achievements, the successes, which are heartening, and the continued determination among the people themselves to keep the gains of these forty-five years, the clear-headed consciousness of women that they must not lose what has been won. Persistent education of both men and women, from school days upwards, must continue.

Having described briefly some aspects of woman's long battle for equality and for being treated as a total human being, it is necessary to point out that in many parts of our world today much remains to be done to implement, to guarantee, the rights of women. Studies conducted in Switzerland have shown that, although woman's work hours make up two thirds of the total of all hours of labour, women receive only one tenth (another study says five per cent) of the net world revenue in payment. In many countries, even if women produce the cooked meals consumed by men, they suffer to a much greater degree from malnutrition than the men they feed. More than half the world's deprivation is still the lot of women, who make up a round seventy per cent of the 1.1 billion poorest people in the world.

Among children in the six to eleven age group, three quarters of those in school are boys, one quarter girls. The tendency to keep girls out of school is strong in the developing world despite great efforts in that respect. Illiteracy in India, for instance, is far higher among women than among men. In India, eighty per cent women, and forty-nine per cent of the men, are illiterate. In China, seventy-four per cent women, and eighty-five per cent men, are literate, illiteracy being reduced to and twenty-six per cent among women and fifteen per cent among men.

There is one problem which, however disturbing and a cause of immense suffering, seems to have received less attention from women's groups than it should, that is prostitution and the kidnapping of girls and women for prostitution. The phenomenon is amply documented. It affects the lives of millions of women throughout the world. Strangely enough, one finds even the most respectable institutions reticent, or totally silent about this truly frightful exploitation that goes on and on, everywhere...

One of the most cruel burdens placed upon women's shoulders is bearing unwanted births. The French barrister, Madame Gisèle Halimi, started a 'movement' called 'Choisir' ('Choice') to give women the right to choose the number of children they want, to fight against the anti-abortion laws passed by the French Government in the seventies. In the United States of America today certain forces claiming to defend sacred values are assaulting abortion clinics and even murdering doctors who practise abortion. Yet statistics show that a good many of these unwanted births are due to rape, and that many of the mothers coming for abortion are very young, some under the age of fourteen....

Lip service to the cause of women is not enough. Many governments in Africa made solemn promises to their women at the time of the struggles for independence, but gradually, among some of them, there has been reversion to what can only be called feudalistic practices, degrading to women. However, women in Africa go on, undaunted, and even if there are many difficulties and dangers, the time will come when they will also effect useful gains in the continuing battle against male domination. [...].

Economic forces, as we have seen, influence the 'movement' for woman's liberation. It is necessary to have a brief look at the role of women in the new conditions which will affect the world, and which are due to interplanetary, or global economic changes. A new world confronts us in the near future, in which there are no longer barriers between nations due to the internationalization of enterprises, the immediate and unrestricted flow of money, and of knowledge and news via the computer and the new technologies. It is stated by some experts that today, traditional values are losing their grip on society. The new economic picture and especially the fact that woman is no longer a 'domestic' engaged solely in family life but a competitor with men for almost all jobs, means that the notion of 'family', of founding a home, of marriage, is weakening a great deal. Marriage especially shows signs of being less desirable, for it no longer spells security for a woman, nor does it valorize her status. Hence the steadily increasing number of men and women who elect not to marry, even if a child or even two or three children have been born. The increasing percentage of single parents is a phenomenon not only in Western societies but is now also being seen in the developing world. According to certain studies, the children of single-parent families have exhibited distressing psychological signs of deprivation. However, there are signs of such disturbances in many 'normal' families as well, due to less time given to children by busy parents, and the over-abuse of television (an average of between three to four hours a day per child). I feel, personally, that it is still necessary to see woman in her role as mother, as builder of her children's personalities. Even if an ideal equality is achieved between a man and a woman through equal rights, equal employment, equal treatment in every respect, the fact remains that the bearing of children, their education when very young, and caring for their needs, is still very much a woman's responsibility. Now this added burden, far from being detrimental to a woman, should on the contrary be a factor of enhancement, should be as an important contribution to society. Child bearing and child caring should be valued far higher than they are, looked up to as major and important work deserving total support, and not become an impediment or a weakness for the mother, the woman.

There is, in developing countries, a new phenomenon, i. e., an increasing number of divorces and disruption of marriage. Perhaps this is because, in the past, the number of unhappy marriages with no way of breaking ties publicly has not been assessed. The frustration and sense of alienation found in many men in these countries are due to the fact that they feel 'threatened' by the rise of women's power. Their education, very often, has not prepared them for equality. And perhaps here one good feature in China's education is the fact that in schools education is geared to make boys understand that girl equality will benefit them and is not a threat. However, the fact remains that the male ego is something that needs to be understood and respected. This means consciousness-raising, both in boys and girls at an early age. Girls must be taught to respect boys and not to look upon equality as a 'weapon' against masculinity.

All the issues in the Man-Woman relationship are interrelated. A good many women today no longer hold to the notion that maintaining a home and raising a family is the prime object of womanhood. But it seems to me that woman's personality is fully developed only when she realizes that caring for others, being both mother, and lover, and educator, is creative and fulfilling. To change the world, woman must accept that she must teach the lesson of unselfishness and of sharing with others.

True equality means also mutual understanding and respect between Man and Woman. It does not abolish love, but enhances it, increases the creative potential of the partners. The whole purpose of woman's liberation is her self-fulfilment by understanding her true role, which is as a builder and a creator.

In this context, there are still large areas of top level decision-making which remain exclusively the preserve of men, such as when destructive violence is on the increase, as it is today, through war, with nations voting increased budgets for armaments. Besides fighting for their own rights, women must demand to have an equal say in what is called 'national decision-making', or 'international problem-solving'. Problems of national or international importance must, I feel, have a far greater number of women share in the processes of finding a solution. Thus women can contribute their own way of thinking, which very often is more rational, more down to earth and common sense. Thus can our earth become truly a happy planet, a home for all men, women, and children, where peace and prosperity will enable all to build a future without conflict or fear.

* Studied in Medicine in Beijing, Brussels and London. Physician and Writer. Author of several international best-sellers focusing on China and Chinese themes.