Event DetailsWhat can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized group—rural women—at the center of the inquiry? And how does an examination of collectivization in China help us to understand the rapidly changing countryside today?
Drawing on a decade of research in rural China, including life history interviews with more than 70 women, Gail will talk about changes in the lives of women in rural Shaanxi province during the early decades of state socialism, the 1950s and 1960s. Gail will explore some unexpected lessons in the story of a former child bride who became a women's activist. Did rural Chinese women have a revolution? If so, when, and what sort of revolution was it? Such questions encourage us to consider others that preoccupy historians: when is gender a useful category of historical analysis? How is the historical record shaped in interactions with the present moment? What counts as an event worth remembering? Who gets to decide?