Sex in Big-Character Posters from China's Cultural Revolution : Gendering the Class Enemy
Author
Editor
- Karen Petrone
- Jie-hyun Lim
Summary, in English
As a defining component of the Cultural Revolution, the “dictatorship of the masses” did away with constraints that had previously kept the most private of the private parts of Chinese people’s lives out of the political arena. In the years 1966–1969, in particular, discursive strands that did not shy away from the topic of sex in politics and revolution proliferated. This paper comments on some recurring common themes of gender and the male “class enemy” (his positive heroic counterpart, as it were, remained a strangely asexual creature throughout) and of sexuality and the revolutionary or counter-revolutionary woman. Found in public and highly visible so-called big-character posters, the discourse that blended politics into sex ended up giving impetus to a movement that brought down many a corrupt politician, but at the cost of traumatizing countless innocent victims who never recovered from seeing their lives’ “darkest aspects exposed openly.”
Department/s
Publishing year
2010
Language
English
Pages
237-257
Publication/Series
Gender Politics and Mass Dictatorship: Global Perspectives
Volume
#1 in book series "Mass Dictatorship in the 20th Century"
Document type
Book chapter
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Topic
- History and Archaeology
Keywords
- sex
- discourse
- gender
- China
- Cultural Revolution
Status
Published
Project
- Mass Dictatorships of the 20th Century
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISBN: 9780230242043