Women Liberation background of film The Joy Luck Club

In December 1968, the Students for a Democratic Society adopted a position paper on women at a National Council meeting. The “National Resolution on Women” states that, “Women are not oppressed as a class but they are oppressed as women within each class…(and) the fact that male supremacy persists in the movement today, raise the issue that although no people’s liberation can happen without a socialist revolution in this country, a socialist revolution could take place which maintains the secondary position of women in society. Therefore the liberation of women must become a conscious part of our struggle for people’s liberation.” From east to west, women’s liberation is affirmed theoretically as just class liberation: in the United States, it was linked to the movement to abolish slavery; in Europe it was linked to worker’s movements; in many third world countries, it has been linked with nationalist liberation; in the Soviet Union and China it was linked with socialist revolution. For almost western women, they have ideological basis for women’s liberation that they have had the desire for development blocked by their gender status are bound to set off an awakening of female subjectivity. However, Chinese women are the exception. They collectively have ignored and avoided this unavoidable stage on the road to women’s liberation. As the result, the Chinese women liberation is a long process of awakening. In the thousand year’s masculine domination society, the van guard oriental females escaped from old China to new west (especially in United States) thoroughly shed themselves as a snake sheds its skin with extreme pain. Finally, they welcome their new birth, new identity and new life. The Joy Luck Club is based on the bestseller written by Amy Tan describing the experiences of four women who emigrated from China to the United States. Each woman's story contains horrendous experiences in China and shows how those experiences affected their relationships with their American-born daughters.