Feminism in Chinese communism

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in China in 1921. As a Marxist–Leninist party, it viewed class as the fundamental source of the oppression of women, and contended that women's liberation was only possible in a socialist society that had eliminated private ownership and traditional sources of oppression against women. As the CCP grew and began governing parts of China, it enacted women's rights measures including laws which mandated that marriage must be freely and voluntarily entered into; it prohibited traditional practices like arranged marriages, concubinage, child marriage, and bride buying and selling.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the CCP implemented legislation decide to advance equality between men and women. It sought to recognize women's contributions, stating in the Mao Zedong-attributed principle that "Women hold up half the sky". During the Land Reform Movement, the CCP viewed women as important mobilizers, observing that peasant women had been among the most oppressed people within the "old society". The Great Leap Forward's emphasis on total workforce mobilization provided opportunities for women's advancement in labor, including the promotion of Iron Girls as model workers who excelled at types of work traditionally viewed as men's work.

Historically, the CCP criticized liberal feminism as bourgeois, narrow, and beneficial primarily to elite women, viewing gender oppression as class-driven. During the Xi Jinping era, a trend among nationalists is the characterization of liberal feminism on the internet as a toxic Western ideology. The government has shut down various liberal feminist non-governmental organizations and censored online platforms.