GENDER IN CHINA

"Only women and inferior men (xiaoren) are difficult to deal with"
- Confucius

"History has changed; men and women are now equal".
- Mao Zedong

From the late nineteenth century onward the goal of female liberation was quickly (and often conspicuously) absorbed into progressive political discourse on a theoretical level, in practice specific feminist agendas tended to be subordinated to or perpetually "postponed" by the ostensibly more pressing political struggle at hand (be it national salvation, anti-imperialist resistance, or socialist state-building).

How "feminist" was the modern Chinese discourse of female emancipation?

"Women, after being saved symbolically and glamorously, finally always return to the bottom rung of a new hierarchy, which is patriarchal in yet another way."
(Tonglin Lu, 3)

Hu Shi and Lu Xun were two of the preeminent May Fourth intellectuals whose work helped form the prototype of the New Woman in modern Chinese literature. The New Woman should be understood as distinct from the traditional Chinese ideal of a "good" and submissive woman.

"While the May Fourth writers no doubt saw themselves as using 'new' Western notions to 'liberate' Chinese women for the sake of the nation, a feminist view of the appearance of New Women in Chinese fiction casts a different light on the matter. A critical look at Western influence and the fictional Chinese New Women characters reveals a sort of double oppression/silencing of Chinese women. First, Chinese male intellectuals prescribed a 'new' role for Chinese women to passively follow, and secondly, the standards these intellectuals looked to for this role were foreign ones that were subtly adapted for the sake of 'modern' China, not for that of women per se". - Ying-Ying Chien (1995).

'A Doll's House' (1879) by Henrik Ibsen
It caused great controversy because it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children in order to discover herself.
"A woman cannot be herself in modern society [since it is] an exclusively male society, with laws made be men and with prosecutors and judges who assess femi…

Ibsen and 'Nora' were transmitted into the Chinese context by 'cultural authorities' such as Hu Shi and Lu Xun.

Hu Shi introduced the term 'Yipusheng zhuyi' (Ibsenism) and translated A Doll's House in 1918. He emphasized women's independence in terms of individualism and free will.

Lu Xun discussed Ibsen in 1907 and focused more on the economic and social aspects of women's issues.

In social realist texts, The Communist Party proves its ideological superiority by proclaiming the salvation of silenced and oppressed women.

In contemporary literature, the hero often reaffirms his masculinity or individuality in opposition to women's inferiority and subordination.

Men lose their individuality under communism.

Men use the female body as a scapegoat for communist ideology.

Women are used merely as symbols by both communists and individualists.

"Nora's sole solution after her departure is either a return to her husband's house or prostitution".
- Lu Xun

"Nowadays, a Nora's departure from the family is not necessarily disastrous. Because her personality and action still appear original, she may gain compassion from some people who will help her survive. However, her freedom is already limited if she needs to rely on people's compassion. Furthermore, if one hundred Noras left home, compassion would diminish. If there were thousands and thousands of them, these Noras would merely provoke aversion. The best solution is for them to hold economic power in their own hands".
- Lu Xun, Lu Xun quanji, p. 162.

He needed a woman who could satisfy his desires at any moment, cook for him, give birth to his sones and daughters, and raise them. A woman like me who thinks about her career is not serviceable to a man who also has his own. Finally, China is a male-centered society. Women, except in the roles of daughters, lovers, wives, mothers, and mothers-in-la that they successively play, can never enter the male-centred society. Once you rush in, you are no longer considered a complete woman".
- Wu Jiming, 'Women on the Top of the Tower' (Tajian shang de nuxing) 1988.

Ibsen had the ability to provide an honest depiction of the ugly realities of society. He identifies four evils: selfishness, dependency, false morals, and cowardice that are rooted in three evils of society: law, religion, and morality.

Hu Shi in 'Ibsenism' comments that the husband is a symbol of selfishness and that Nora is a "slave [who] does not need to have ideas of her own for her husband would think for her". She is "her husband's plaything, like the monkey of a beggar playing tricks for him to entertain people". (491)

"When our Chinese old people see the young generation practicing 'free marriage', they would say that it is 'immoral'. Why? Because it does not follow the social custom of 'marriage arranged through the matchmaker by the special order of the parents (fumuzhiming meishuozhiyen).' Yet these old people themselves keep many concubines at home. A practice they consider common, nothing immoral. Why? Because it is a custom...Because of social custom, the immoral becomes moral". (Hu Shi, 496)

In premodern Chinese traditions we find the terms 'de' (moral virtue) and 'cai' (literary talent).

'De' is a female sphere of knowledge and self-presentation.

'Cai' is the male sphere that includes education and learning.

This meant that reformers saw woman/literature as modern and woman/morality as regressive.

It meant that women writers embodied a contradiction between (feminine) moral virtue and (masculine) literary talent.

This echoes the division between the (masculine) public and the (feminine) private in Western society.

MING

nuzi wucai bian shi de

"In real life, the inner-outer boundary was constantly being trespassed or redrawn. Women's education was a powerful impetus to such negotiations between domestic and public space, or between male and female domains. It is no accident that the rationale for and contents of women's education were among the most contested issues in seventeenth and eighteenth century China. This debate was linked to efforts to redefine womanhood, or a woman's natural calling".
- Dorothy Ko

QING

The opposition between 'cai' and 'de' has coloured debates about women writers for centuries.

"Moral virtue is superior to literary skill"
(de zhong yu cai)

In 'Fushen liuji (Six Chapters of a Floating Life)' by Shen Fu (1763-1807), the early death of Shen's wife, Chen Yun (1763-1803), became an example of what could happen to women with excessive literary talent. Cai was valued, but it entailed a sacrifice, especially when women aspired to it.

Many scholars argued that 'de' had the ability to suppress and fight against 'cai' in women. It was believed that women with 'cai' became melancholy and pathetic.

"It is necessary to suppress 'cai' with 'de'"
(gu cai bi zhen zhi yi de)

"It is commonly said that women should not gain fame from literary talent, and those who do gain fame from literary talent will often suffer misfortune. I hardly think so. On its own, fortune is not easy to gain, and hard to hold".
- Chen Zhaolun (1700-1771), 'On Talented Women'

TWENTIETH CENTURY

REFORM MOVEMENT

• Promoted natural feet
• Freedom in marriage
• Women's education and independence
• Women's physical education
• Attacked traditional female morality.

"And, while it is not true that none of the virtuous and model ladies of China are literate and cultivated, still, the best of them are immersed in poetry, content with brush and ink [rather than useful skills and moral principles]. Words about sighing over old age and lamenting sorrow fill the women's quarters; phrases about spring flowers and the autumn moon abound in ink on paper. And the poorest are buried in stories from fiction and popular rhymes. Their fathers and elder brothers have failed to guide them according to their inclinations. On the contrary, they consider these [literary pursuits] useless and prohibit them...

...Let us rescue 200,000,000 prisoners from the dungeons, eradicate the foul and absurd customs of more than 2,000 years, propagate the Way of the Sage, and restore our great utopian commonwealth (Ta-t'ung). Alas, China, do not impoverish yourself by stopping up talents and stifling intelligence!'
- Kang Tongwei, 'On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Eduacating Women' (1977)

Traditional Chinese literature was one of the primary means by which men manipulated images of women. Therefore it was difficult to picture women as producers in the literary tradition.This is why female 'de' (physical, concrete, self-sacrificing) opposes male 'cai' (abstract, transcendent, self-promoting).

"The contemporary scholars Meng Yue and Dai Jinhua analyse literature as a masculinist discourse even more powerful than the law in its ability to create and transmit an oppressive discourse of woman". (Larson, p.60)

Untitled Slide

"Symbolic of literature's ability to construct a beautiful yet oppressive image was the transformation of the female foot; after passing through literary reconstruction, the deformed physical foot was loast and what appeared and reappeared was the magically evocative 'goldeb lotus' and the 'lotus step'".

"Since 1949, women have not only been legally guaranteed the right to work, but have almost no choice. Economically, the husband's salary usually cannot support the family." (Tonglin Lu, p.7)

"What men can do, women can also do" - Mao

"Men should not do what is not permitted of women"

"Women no longer need to submit to fathers, to husbands, to sons, or even to any particular individual. But the very state of submission has not changed. The throne of the past patriarchal figure, the emperor, is nowadays occupied by a collectivity, the incarnation of the nation. Indeed, women are no longer required to be obedient to men, but women and men together equally obey this sexless collectivity or its symbol".
Meng Yue and Dai Jinhua, 'Emerging from the Surface of History'

'Women are not as good as men even in their specialities. For example, singing songs to induce a baby in the cradle to sleep certainly belongs tot the realm of female natural instincts, but until now the best lullabies have always been composed by men. One can provide numerous similar examples. Don't try to explain them merely in terms of differences imposed by cultural and social history. To a large extent, they are proofs of men's inner superiority".
Adam, 'Adam's Bewilderment' (1986) in Chinese Women (Zhongguo funu)