Afterword: Putting Gender at the Center

Abstract

This chapter presents a gendered reading of a few of the main political stories of the twentieth century. It demonstrates how it might be possible to push the engendering of Chinese history further. It discusses the issue of national regeneration that has proved so central in recent times in China. Its focus is the gendered aspects of Manchu-Han relations as presented in classic, early revolutionary works such as the famous call to arms by the radical martyr Zou Rong, The Revolutionary Army. Another area of inquiry that requires further exploration is the role of gender in the formation of regional and local identities. Nationalist ideology is a constructed image of homogeneity that blankets multiple kinds of diversity. The typical treatment takes regional identity as the primary category and gender as, perhaps, an interesting illustration of regional difference—with the assumption being that regional differences are primarily generated by political and economic forces, not by gender practices.