Conclusion
"Women hold up half the sky."
-Mao Zedong
-Mao Zedong
Before Mao Zedong, women were treated as objects without rights, not people. Their feet were bound, they were forced into arranged marriages, and they could not achieve nor live the life they wanted. However, Mao, with his influence and institution of the communist ideology of equality, gave women their rights. Through his many speeches and writings he supported feminism, and Chinese women were liberated; they did not have to bind their feet, were not forced into arranged marriages, and could work and achieve their goals. Mao changed society, eliminating the social hierarchy so deeply ingrained into the culture by Confucianism. Chinese women were finally free after thousands of years of oppression.