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Title: Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories by Zheng Wang, Wang Zheng ISBN: 0-520-21874-4 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: May, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: A review
Comment: Wang Zheng¡¦s Women in the Chinese Enlightenment presents five personal narratives of women who were deeply affected by May Fourth and the political turmoil in almost the entire 20th century. In Part One of her book, Wang also launches her version of the history of China after the May Fourth era as the background for her oral narratives. Her textual history supplements what Gilmartin takes for granted in Engendering the Chinese Revolution, for example she explains and redefines feminism and its close relationship with nationalism in the May Fourth era, how feminism was used for political cause by the nationalists, the CCP and the GMD, and how the women¡¦s movement evolved and changed in different periods. In a way, she deconstructs the generalization of ¡§feminism¡¨ and ¡§women¡¦s movement¡¨. Moreover, she does not stop at 1927, but argues that ¡§feminism did not ¡¥fail¡¦ or disappear at that point.¡¨ ¡§Rather,¡¨ she continues, ¡§as a viable discourse, New Culture feminism continuous affected the historical processes of twentieth-century China. A whole generation of educated women with a new subjectivity were both constituted by and contributed to the feminist discourse in China.¡¨ (359) She asserts that those new women brought or sustained institutional changes and enabled Chinese women¡¦s social advancement in the first half of the century by pursuing ¡§independent personhood¡¨. Furthering Gilmartin¡¦s search for the ¡§language and rituals of women¡¦s emancipation¡¨ the CCP kept after 1949, she argues that the first Marriage Law in 1950 which was drafted by May Fourth feminists, the general secretary¡¦s speech in 1996 socialist-feminist visions of public kitchens, nurseries, and other social welfare facilities for women ¡§tell a story of continuous feminist contestation within the system of the party-state. (360) Women¡¦s issues such as women¡¦s equal legal rights have been incorporated in the political discourse because ¡§gender equality and modernity were cemented so fast by the New Culturalists that no Chinese ruling group claiming to lead the nation toward modernity has openly tried to separate them.¡¨ (360) She admits that the CCP¡¦s ideology became the dominant one, but she also attempts to show how women contested and negotiated their feminist interest within the dominant political discourse.
Even though Wang uses oral accounts of women to challenge the dominant official history of the CCP, she believes that the influence of the May Fourth era and liberal feminism is indisputable. Her goal is to ¡§highlight the unique experience of the May Fourth women and simultaneously illuminate the differences and similarities between Chinese and Euro- American women¡¦s struggles for liberation.¡¨ (6) I am baffled by the author¡¦s purpose. Even though she maintains that she is aware of poststructuralist criticism and counter argues that she is only concerned with ¡§what might have been useful for Chinese women in their struggle for social advancement and improvement¡¨, and that Western liberalism ¡§provided a discourse of resistance, facilitating Chinese men¡¦s and women¡¦s struggles against the hegemonic Confucian framework¡¨ and it was ¡§actively deployed and appropriated by various Chinese social groups in their pursuit of self-interest and national interest¡¨ (361), it seems that Wang takes in the story of women subordination and emancipation (as in Croll¡¦s book) without questioning it. I am not sure how much of the oral narratives is edited and rearranged to present that story that ¡§highlights¡¨ the May Fourth influence, but I suspect that she has overemphasized the power of May Fourth in some of the oral narratives. Also, I do not understand why the author needs to compare China with what happen in Europe and America. Is it to prove that women¡¦s movement in China take a path on its own? Or to show there that ¡§universal womanhood¡¨ does not exist? Or to argue that Chinese feminists were so much better because they did not embrace the notions of female inferiority associated with the sex binary as the West?
Wang¡¦s goal of writing the book is inspiring and ambitious, as she says: ¡§My study grew out of both a political interest in deconstructing the CCP¡¦s myth of Chinese women¡¦s liberation and an intellectual dissatisfaction with stories about women that lacked women as protagonists.¡¨ (2) Her method of using oral histories greatly stimulates my interest. By presenting an alternative micro-history, she is successful in debunking a macro-history and teleological view, one that does not contain women as agents or actors. The discordant noises in these accounts help the readers to rethink about the contradictions, to deconstruct and demystify what has been written, and perhaps to reconstruct a fuller picture closer to the ¡§truth¡¨. It is especially important in Wang¡¦s case since she thinks that the history we have now is male-oriented and it is necessary to supply what those texts cannot do. However, I somehow think that her combination of oral and textual histories makes her book less approachable. In Part I of the book, the author informs (mesmerizes?) the reader with her questions and arguments, after that it seems the oral histories cannot be read without the author¡¦s surveillance. (Not to mention that the narrative is translated, edited, and selectively presented by the author.) Furthermore, the author attaches her interpretation after each narrative, thus the reader is further subjected to the author¡¦s psychoanalysis of the narrator. The role of the reader as a critic is limited, and both the narrator and the reader have to entrust the author with the storytelling. Nevertheless, it is a relief to know that the author is well aware of the positions of the interviewer and interviewee, and the limitations and effects of oral histories. I am notice that the interviewees were all educated women who lived in Shanghai for most part of their lives, and they were included intentionally because they were eager to participate in history-writing (from the author¡¦s point of view) and the author believes that ¡§the richest and most colorful stories were told by those who had many accomplishments before 1949 but were reduced to marginal positions in the Mao era.¡¨ (123)
Wang is successful in showing the relationship between feminist groups and other political forces, the struggle of the women in those political forces, and the hypocrisy of the male leaders in the Communist party. Even though the discourse of women¡¦s movement was at first created by men, women were inspired by the man-made feminist discourse and responded to it actively. The author successfully shows their active participation and how they were very different from the new women images constructed by the male writers. (62) She also tries to show the conflict between the belief independent personhood and the dominant ideology and how the search for independence was reflected in the women¡¦s lives. This belief, together with an independent women¡¦s movement, was dropped after Marxism came into play and socialist revolution became the first and foremost goal. To me, it seems that women¡¦s emancipation had always been used to serve a larger purpose. It was used to overthrow feudalism and tradition when nationalism was professed. Only because the anti-oppression proclamation fit well in both nationalistic and feminist purposes that there were no obvious conflicts. Despite that, Wang demonstrates how gender hierarchy persisted even in the early 20s by telling the story of Lu Xun and his wife: ¡§the male champions¡¦ sense of superiority as well as their cultural entitlement to privileges unchallenged but sustained in an age of unprecedented agitation for women¡¦s emancipation.¡¨ She uses the history of the ¡§Ladies¡¦ Journal¡¨ to reveal the change in ideologies in the women¡¦s movement and how women¡¦s reaction to the publication affect the journal. ...................
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