Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.
Interpretation
True gender equality can only be achieved through a societal transformation towards socialism.
Mao Zedong's quote emphasizes the idea that achieving genuine equality between men and women is not a standalone issue; rather, it is intricately tied to the broader transformation of society. He suggests that only through a systemic change—specifically, a socialist approach to societal organization—can true equality be realized, highlighting the interconnectedness of social structures and gender dynamics.
In practice
During a speech on gender issues, I used this quote to emphasize the need for systemic change.
Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (2) Thousands of willow branches in a spring wind. Six hundred million of China, land of the gods, and exemplary like the emperors Shun and Yao. A scarlet rain of peach blossoms turned into waves and emerald mountains into bridges. Summits touch the sky. We dig with silver shovels and iron arms shake the earth and the Three Rivers. God of plagues, where are you going? We burn paper boats and bright candles to light his way to heaven.
We must have faith, first, that the peasant masses are ready to advance step by step along the road of socialism under the leadership of the Party, and second, that the Party is capable of leading the peasants along this road. These two points are the essence of the matter, the main current.
Capture of Nanking Rain and a windstorm rage blue and yellow over Chung the bell mountain as a million peerless troops cross the Great River. The peak is a coiled dragon, the city a crouching tiger more dazzling than before. The sky is spinning and the earth upside down. We are elated yet we must use our courage to chase the hopeless enemy. We must not stoop to fame like the overlord Hsiang Yu. If heaven has feeling it will grow old and watch our seas turn into mulberry fields.
All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atomic bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.
We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
Rivers and mountains are beautiful and made heroes bow and compete to catch the girl- lovely earth. Yet the emperors Shih Huang and Wu Ti were barely able to write. The first emperors of the Tang and Sung dynasties were crude. Genghis Khan, man of his epoch and favored by heaven, knew only how to hunt the great eagle. They are all gone. Only today are we men of feeling.
Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.
The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena.
The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best.
Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.
Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship.
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