Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories

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 Ch