On the Awakening of Female Consciousness from the Opium War to the Great Revolution Period

Abstract

In the long period of feudal society, women were always bound by various feudal ethics, “the three obediences and the four virtues”, “husband guides wife” required their words and actions. Under the feudal system, women not only did not have the right of education, but also did not have the right of freedom and equality, regarded as male subservience. After the outbreak of the Opium War, the idea of bourgeois democracy emerged in China. In order to find ways to save the country and its people, the bourgeois intellectuals set off a wave of reform. During this period, women’s consciousness of autonomy, emotion, revolution and value was constantly awakening.