S07: Gender Revolution

• Was the New Culture Movement a gender revolution?
• Shanghai as a Fallen Woman: What’s the history of China’s largest city?
• Was it love? Discussing Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution

CCP membership change after the White Terror:

• What did the CCP right/wrong?
• How can the party survive?

Chen Duxiu:

• Continued belief in revolutionary high tide
• Like the Soviet Union, China on the verge of success, not prolonged struggle
• Continued alignment with GMD and creation of a revolutionary democratic regime in the GMD-controlled areas

• From study society to Leninist organization: Politburo and new standing committee
• Use of line struggle to resolve ideological disputes: Chen Duxiu denounced as “right opportunist” and deposed at the 3rd party congress in July 1927

• How to be a good Communist?
• “Every religion has various methods and forms of cultivation of its own.” Is communism a religion?
• What do virtues have to do with the Communist Revolution?

• What is the intellectual synergy between Marxism and Confucianism, according to the show?
• What explains the revival of Confucianism in China today?
• Why was the show commissioned? Who was the audience?

• Foreign settlements under jurisdiction of representative consul, not Chinese gov
• Disjointed and irregular development among several powers
• Shanghai as three cities within a city: International Settlement, French Concession, and Chinese city
• Source of growth or Seed of destruction?

• Shanghai in Yangzi Delta: Long commercial tradition with dense trade networks controlled by local guilds
• Chinese domination of inland commercial circuits
• Shanghai as gateway to Chinese market, bridging int’l market and inland provinces

• Influence of WWI
  • Exit of foreign firms and decline of Western import
  • Demand from Western front: minerals, etc.
  • Continued demand for post-war reconstruction
• Growth of Chinese industries: copper and flour milling as major national industries
• Rise of Chinese banks

• Case in point: Hwa Ching Tobacco, launched in 1925 in the wake of May 30 Incident
• Shanghai as epicenter of rising nationalism
• Campaigns in favor of “patriotic products”

• Symbol of modernity: Elegant women in qipao dress
• Consumer culture oriented by desires of women

• Print capitalism: 86% Chinese publishers in Shanghai in 1937
• Cinema as most popular forms of entertainment:
• New literary societies: rebellious romanticism

• Reformers believed China’s weakness was partly due to the treatment of women.
• Changing the status of women was seen as crucial for strengthening China.
• Elite (male) bias: women were not economically productive and were deficient in character.
• Confucian tradition – with its emphasis on female chastity and loyalty – singled out for criticism.

• Elite Chinese saw footbinding as barbaric, harmful, unscientific, and detrimental to China’s national standing.
• Footbound women became a symbol of China’s failures and vulnerability.
• The anti-footbinding movement became a sign of national strength and modernity for Chinese elites. The Qing banned the practice in 1902.

• 1904: girls should be taught skills required of wives and mothers at home.
• By 1907, the Qing established schools and teacher training for girls.
• However, there was concern that reading Western books would lead to a desire for freedom of marriage and disrespect towards parents and husbands.

• Qing officials and reformers viewed women as “mothers of citizens.”
• Girls needed to be physically fit and scientifically knowledgeable wives and mothers.
• They were expected to run a clean, modern home, give birth to healthy children, and raise them to be citizens of a strong nation.

• The ideal of “good wives and wise mothers” influenced women’s education in Japan and appealed to Qing officials and Chinese students in Japan.
• Chinese women studying in the United States encountered this ideal through home economics, which emphasized the domestic sphere.

• Officials and elites moved toward a consensus that women needed to be educated in public schools.
• But should that education be aimed at training women to be citizens, or mothers of citizens?

• Nora lives an idyllic life with her husband and their children.
• Five years prior, she secretly borrowed money to pay for her husband’s treatment after a nervous breakdown.
• The play follows Nora as she realizes her debt is about to be discovered.
• At the end, her husband finds out and is appalled, but Nora also becomes aware of her own infantilization by her narcissistic husband.

The most painful thing in life is to wake from a dream and find there is no way out. People who dream are fortunate. If there isn’t a way out in sight, it is important not to wake them.

• Lu Xun cautioned against simply admiring Nora’s defiant exit in Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.”
• In 1923, Lu Xun questioned what would happen to Nora after she left, suggesting she would face unattractive choices without education or employment: returning to her husband, becoming a prostitute, or starving.
• Lu Xun argued that individual gestures alone cannot change society; broader transformation is needed.

• The differentiation between “he” and “she” in Chinese emerged in the late 19th century.
• In early 20th-century China, new terms like “nüjie (women’s world),” “nü yingxiong (female hero),” “guomin zhi mu (mother of the citizen),” “nü guomin,” and “yingci (heroic female)” reflected changing gender roles and social, political, and cultural shifts.
• 1920 was a turning point when a new Chinese character for the third-person female pronoun “she (ta 她)” was invented leading to debates about its reform or abandonment.

• The Ladies’ Journal envisioned its reader as an expert manager of a small, modern household.
• The journal promoted the “happy family ideology,” focused on a middle- and upper-class urban ideal of a two-parent family with children in a well-managed home.

• The “New Woman” in journals and the press was educated, politically aware, and possibly active.
• She was self-supporting, typically working as a teacher or in an office setting.
• She possessed personhood (ren’ge), enabling independent thought and action with integrity.
• The New Woman represented the potential Nora might aspire to become after leaving.

• Bondmaids or slave girls, young girls (8-12 years old) bought from poor rural families, were commonly employed by wealthy families.
• Bondmaid contracts specified the amount paid to the seller, granting the purchaser absolute authority and the right to resell the girl.
• Defenders of the bondmaid practice argued it was benevolent, saving girls from starvation or prostitution and ensuring future sustenance as a wife or concubine.

• Japanese companies significantly increased their number of mills in Shanghai between 1919 and 1925.
• By the late 1910s, about 30,000 women worked in Shanghai cotton mills, silk filatures, and paper mills, growing to 173,432 by 1929 across various industries.
• Women constituted 61% of Shanghai’s factory workforce by 1929, and about three-fourths in cotton mills and silk filatures.

• By the 1930s, labor contractors recruited rural women, sometimes leading to trafficking, with parents signing contracts for their daughter’s factory job, housing, and safety in Shanghai.
• Women cotton mill workers relied on support networks from their native place due to the challenging environment.
• Weavers from south of the Yangzi River often looked down on spinners from the north (Subei or Jiangbei), who worked in lower-paid and dirtier jobs.

• From the 1910s, the woman worker became a subject of growing public concern.
• Missionaries and reformers deplored her working and living conditions and worried about her virtue.
• Left-wing essayists advocated for a proletarian revolution to improve her factory conditions.
• The woman worker was mainly portrayed as a social problem needing help and reform.

• British Capt. Donald Harvey: Meets his old flame Magdalen (Shanghai Lily), now a prostitute on train from Beijing to Shanghai.
• They are unaware that Henry Chang, a spy and rebel army leader, is also on the train.
• Chang’s forces attack the train and take Donald hostage.

• Lily is prepared to sacrifice herself and stay with Chang as his lover to prevent the warlord from blinding Harvey.
• Hui Fei obviates this necessity by killing Chang in a personal act of revenge for his sexual assault.
• Lily renounces her profession and recouples with Harvey in a happy resolution.

• First Chinese-American Hollywood star
• Faced typecasting and discrimination; difficult to win major roles as Asian-American.
• Journeyed to Europe hoping to land better roles and traveled to China to make her own documentary, “My China Film” (1936).
• Starred in low-budget anti-Japanese propaganda films during WWII, then mostly acted in smaller roles.
• Remembered for her pathbreaking journey and challenging of stereotyped characters.

• Sexually transgressive and suffering female characters, often facing social ostracism, poverty, abuse, disease, and death.
• Moral message: women’s sexuality should be restricted to marriage.
• Social critique: Women as victims of unfair socio-economic order.

• Set in occupied Shanghai during World War Two, with a flashback to Hong Kong.
• Wong Chia-chi: A student who becomes involved in an assassination plot.
• Mr. Yee: Head of intelligence for the Japanese-sponsored puppet government.

• A group of patriotic students staged patriotic plays to protest the Japanese occupation.
• The most innocent and accidental member of the troupe, Wang Jiazhi (Tang Wei), is also the most gifted.
• Her role of a lifetime: Wong’s mission is to become a friend of Mr. Yee’s wife and then Mr. Yee’s mistress.

• Is Jiazhi’s role as actress significant? If so, how?
• By embodying a character, did Jiazhi find their true self?
• Was the revolution itself a play? Was Jiazhi exploited in the name of nationalism?

• “She had, in a past life, been an actress; and here she was, still playing a part, but in a drama too secret to make her famous.”
• “Her stage fright always evaporated once the curtain was up.”

• What do the sex scenes reveal / conceal?
• Are they necessary?

• Why did Jiazhi let Mr. Yee go?
• Was it love? Does it matter?
• Was Jiazhi exploited in the name of nationalism?
• Is there an inherent tension between patriotic love and personal love?