Cai Chang

Cai Chang
Born	1900 China
Died	1990
Nationality	Chinese
Known for	First leader of the All-China Women's Federation
Political party	Communist Party of China
Spouse(s)	Li Fuchun
Relatives	Cai Hesen (brother) Xiang Jingyu (sister-in-law)

Cai Chang (Chinese: 蔡畅; 1900–1990) was a Chinese politician and women's rights activist who was the first chair of the All-China Women's Federation, a Chinese women's rights organization.

Cai Chang was born in 1900 to a lower middle class family in China. Her mother left her husband, and enabled her children to attend school by selling her belongings. Cai believed strongly in women's education, and spurned the idea of marriage in favor of a vow of celibacy. Her mother aided her in this by avoiding an arranged marriage for Cai. Cai attended the Zhunan Girls' Middle School at Changsha until 1916. In the winter of 1917–1918, she became one of the first women to join the New People's Study Society, a work study program put in place by Mao Zedong and Cai's brother, Cai Hesen. This group advocated for women to create their own self-help groups and to become active in politics.

Cai, her mother, Cai Hesen, and Cai Hesen's future wife Xiang Jingyu went to Europe, where Cai was a factory worker. She studied anarchism, Marxism, and Leninism alongside other Chinese socialist feminist scholars, including at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow.

In 1922, Cai married Li Fuchun, a prominent communist.

In 1921, Cai returned to China, where she studied to become a physical education teacher. She taught for four years at the Zhunan Girls' School, which she had attended several years earlier. During this time, she joined the Communist Party of China.

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