Women’s Right to Vote in China
Women’s Day China / April 12, (1947)
Introduction
The path to women’s suffrage in China reflects the country’s complex political evolution throughout the 20th century. Unlike many Western nations where women’s voting rights emerged from sustained feminist movements within relatively stable political systems, China’s story unfolded against a backdrop of imperial collapse, civil war, revolution, and dramatic political transformation. Women in China officially gained the right to vote on April 12, 1947, when the Republic of China’s constitution took effect, though the practical implementation of these rights varied significantly across different regions and political contexts.
Imperial China and Traditional Gender Roles
For thousands of years under imperial rule, China had no electoral system for either men or women. The Confucian social order that dominated Chinese society prescribed strictly differentiated gender roles, emphasizing women’s confinement to domestic spheres and subordination to male authority through the “Three Obediences” doctrine (to father, husband, and son).
Despite these constraints, Chinese history records exceptional women who wielded significant political influence, including:
- Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 CE), who ruled in her own right during the Tang Dynasty
- Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908), who was the de facto ruler of the Qing Dynasty for decades
However, these were rare exceptions rather than indicators of broader female political participation.
Late Qing Reforms and Early Republic (1900-1912)
The decline of imperial power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries created openings for new political ideas, including concepts of gender equality and women’s rights:
- The 1898 Hundred Days’ Reform briefly introduced modernizing measures
- Growing numbers of women received education, particularly in missionary schools
- Chinese students returning from abroad brought Western and Japanese feminist ideas
- Women participated in anti-imperial revolutionary activities
When the 1911 Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China, women activists immediately pressed for political rights. Prominent figures like Qiu Jin, Tang Qunying, and He Xiangning organized the Women’s Suffrage Alliance and staged protests at the provisional parliament in Nanjing in 1912.
Despite these efforts, the provisional constitution of the Republic of China, adopted on March 11, 1912, did not grant women voting rights. Article 5 restricted electoral rights to males aged 21 and over who met certain property and education requirements.
Early Women’s Suffrage Movement (1912-1928)
The early Republican period saw the birth of an organized women’s suffrage movement in China. Key developments included:
- Formation of multiple women’s suffrage organizations between 1912-1915
- Publication of feminist journals advocating women’s political rights
- Women’s participation in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which emphasized science and democracy
- Growing intellectual support for gender equality among progressive intellectuals
Despite these advocacy efforts, women remained disenfranchised at the national level. However, some progress occurred at local levels:
- Guangdong province granted women limited local voting rights in 1921 under Sun Yat-sen’s leadership
- Hunan province briefly allowed women’s suffrage in local elections in 1921-1922
- The city of Shanghai implemented women’s suffrage in municipal elections in 1927
These local experiments were significant but limited and often short-lived due to political instability.
The Nanjing Decade (1928-1937)
After the Northern Expedition reunified much of China under the Kuomintang (KMT) government, the “Nanjing Decade” presented new opportunities for women’s political advancement:
- The KMT established a Women’s Department to promote women’s rights
- Song Qingling (Soong Ching-ling) and He Xiangning held prominent political positions
- Women gained limited representation in the Legislative Yuan
- The New Life Movement promoted a conservative vision of modernized gender roles
In 1936, a revised draft constitution proposed by the KMT included provisions for women’s suffrage. However, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 delayed its implementation.
Constitutional Development and Legal Recognition
The decisive moment for women’s suffrage in China came during the constitutional process following World War II. The National Assembly, convened on November 15, 1946, approved the Constitution of the Republic of China on December 25, 1946. Article 7 of this constitution explicitly stated: “All citizens of the Republic of China, irrespective of sex, religion, race, class, or party affiliation, shall be equal before the law.”
Article 130 further clarified that all citizens who reached the age of 20 had the right to vote, with no gender restrictions.
This constitution was formally promulgated on January 1, 1947, and took effect on December 25, 1947. However, many historians and Chinese official sources cite April 12, 1947, when the National Assembly ratified the implementation details, as the effective date when Chinese women officially gained national voting rights.
First Elections with Women’s Participation
The first major national elections in which Chinese women could participate were supposed to be held in 1948. However, the escalating Chinese Civil War severely limited their implementation:
- In KMT-controlled areas, some women did vote in local and provincial elections
- The ongoing civil war prevented comprehensive nationwide elections
- Reports from the period indicate significant enthusiasm among women voters in areas where elections could be held
- Some women were elected to local and provincial positions
While these elections represented the first formal exercise of women’s suffrage in China, their historical significance was overshadowed by the political turmoil of the civil war.
The Chinese Communist Party and Women’s Rights
Parallel to developments in KMT-controlled regions, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had been implementing its own gender policies in areas under its control:
- The CCP included gender equality in its early platforms from the 1920s
- In Communist base areas like Jiangxi Soviet and Yan’an, women were granted voting rights in local elections during the 1930s and 1940s
- The slogan “Women hold up half the sky” reflected the party’s official position on gender equality
- Female Communist leaders like Deng Yingchao and Cai Chang promoted women’s participation
The CCP’s approach to women’s rights emphasized that women’s liberation was inseparable from class liberation and revolution, rather than focusing on voting rights as an isolated issue.
People’s Republic of China (1949-Present)
With the CCP’s victory in the civil war and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949, a new political system emerged. The Common Program (a provisional constitution) and subsequently the 1954 Constitution of the PRC affirmed equal political rights for women.
In the PRC’s political system:
- Universal suffrage was enshrined in law, with citizens of both sexes over 18 eligible to vote for representatives to people’s congresses
- The All-China Women’s Federation was established as the official organization representing women’s interests
- Female representation in the National People’s Congress has consistently been higher than in many Western democracies
- Women’s political participation was emphasized as a measure of socialist progress
However, scholars note that meaningful political participation has been constrained by the broader limitations on democratic processes within the single-party system.
Republic of China on Taiwan
Following the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Republic of China government implemented the 1947 Constitution there, including its provisions for women’s suffrage:
- The first elections with women’s participation on Taiwan were held in 1950
- Women like Hsu Shih-hsien (elected to the Taiwan Provincial Assembly in 1951) became political pioneers
- Female representation in elected bodies gradually increased over subsequent decades
- Lu Hsiu-lien (Annette Lu) became Taiwan’s first female vice president in 2000
- In 2016, Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s first female president
This implementation of women’s suffrage rights has been continuous in Taiwan since 1949.
China in the Asian Context
China’s formal recognition of women’s suffrage in 1947 placed it in the middle of the timeline for Asian nations:
- Mongolia granted women voting rights in 1924
- Turkey in 1934
- Thailand in 1932 (with restrictions until 1968)
- Japan and Vietnam in 1945
- China in 1947
- South Korea in 1948
- India in 1950
This timeline reflects how women’s suffrage in Asia was often intertwined with processes of nation-building, constitutional development, and modernization efforts.
Contemporary Significance and Legacy
The early recognition of women’s political equality in China’s legal frameworks has had mixed results in practice:
- Women’s formal political participation increased dramatically compared to imperial times
- Gender equality became an official state policy across both the PRC and Taiwan
- Women gained unprecedented access to education and professional opportunities
- The rhetoric of gender equality became normalized in Chinese political discourse
However, challenges remain in translating legal equality into substantive representation:
- Women remain underrepresented in the highest echelons of political power
- Traditional gender expectations continue to influence women’s political participation
- Rural-urban divides affect women’s ability to meaningfully exercise political rights
- The focus on formal legal equality sometimes overshadows persistent structural barriers
Women’s Right to Vote in China
The story of women’s suffrage in China, with its watershed moment on April 12, 1947, is inextricable from China’s turbulent political transformation in the 20th century. Unlike many Western suffrage movements, which could focus singularly on gender equality within relatively stable political systems, Chinese women’s struggle for political rights unfolded alongside revolutions, war, and fundamental changes in state structure.
The granting of women’s suffrage in 1947 represented a significant ideological shift from traditional Confucian gender hierarchies to modern concepts of citizenship, though its implementation was immediately complicated by civil war and political division. Nevertheless, the legal recognition of women’s political equality established an important principle that would influence gender politics across the Chinese-speaking world, even as different political systems evolved on the mainland and Taiwan.
Today, while formal barriers to women’s political participation have largely been dismantled, the meaningful exercise of these rights continues to develop across Chinese societies, reflecting broader questions about democratization, representation, and gender equality in contemporary Asia.
UN Women
Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 1982, as amended to 2018
Chinese Official Calls for Advancing Legacy of 1995 World Conference on Women
UNITED NATIONS, March 15 (Xinhua) — The upcoming Global Summit of Women, set to take place in Beijing in the latter half of this year, holds great significance for advancing the spirit of the 1995 World Conference on Women, a Chinese official has said.
Huang Xiaowei, deputy head of the National Working Committee on Children and Women of the State Council, made the remarks on Monday at the ongoing 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York.
> womenofchina.cn/IntheSpotlight/2503/1407-1
The Communist Party invented Women’s Day—so why is China so bad at it now?
While International Women’s Day has been embraced by multinational companies and governments around the globe, the holiday’s roots lie in grassroots demonstrations for better pay and working conditions, and particularly a feminist-led protest started on March 8 in Russia in 1917.
After Russian Communist Party founder Vladimir Lenin declared March 8 “Woman’s Day” in 1922, the holiday was adopted by Communist China in 1949 and “celebrated primarily in socialist countries until the mid-1970s,” according to a University of Chicago history. This year’s global theme was a “pledge for parity,” which imagines that at some point in the foreseeable future, men and women will enjoy equal rights, and equal salaries.
› qz.com/the-communist-party-invented-womens-day-so-why-is-china-so-bad-at-it-now