Nation from Village: The Evolving Landscape for Rural Women in the First Half of the Twentieth Century*

Abstract

In the first half of the 20th century, during China’s rapid transition from tradition to modernity, three major historical events occurred successively in Ding County, Hebei Province. These events illustrate the gradual broadening of the horizons of some rural women: shifting from the Confucian expectation that “women’s rightful place is in the home” to a gradual extension into the public domain. The Zhaicheng village system took the first small step in breaking the Confucian gender norms by promoting female education in public spaces, yet it did not truly challenge the fundamental gender order of males outside the home and females within it. The Mass Education Movement saw the emergence of the first group of professional women in rural Ding County. However, they faced social exclusion as a consequence of entering the public domain. The Zhaicheng system and the gender-based teaching practices during the Mass Education Movement sowed the seeds of the impending tension and conflict experienced by women juggling dual roles within and outside the family. Amidst the bloodshed of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation (wars of Resistance and Liberation), female warriors, through sacrifice and devotion, ventured into the newly expanded public sphere of war, yet traditional gender norms continued to confine their broadened horizons to a transient phase in their lives. A collective examination of these three major occurrences shows that the gradual broadening of horizons for rural women in Ding County during the first half of the 20th century was inherent in the developmental trajectory of the village, embodying the idea that the modern nation was gradually emerging within the village in the concept of “nation from village.”