Women’s affective labor in the Red Army’s war propaganda in the early 1930s

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper demonstrates that women’s affective labor was widely and deeply appropriated in the Red Army’s war propaganda in the early 1930s. This appropriation allowed women to emerge as free humans, visible social producers, empowered political subjects, significant war participants, and active shapers of history on an unprecedented scale in Chinese history. The selected cases examined in this paper are drawn from the songs, plays, and posters employed in the Red Army’s war propaganda of the early 1930s. By highlighting the recurrent symbols of women’s affective labor in these rudimentary yet innovative examples of wartime propaganda, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the complex and dialogic messages regarding women’s contribution to social production and reproduction conveyed through the Red Army’s propaganda. Additionally, this paper explores the liberating potential of gendered affective labor as a non-capitalist concept.