Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China

Abstract

During the 1920s and 1930s, China's reformist intellectuals in the burgeoning modernizing cities engaged in a protracted discussion about the condition of the nation's women. The apparent focus of their concern was the modem woman (xiandai funii) or new woman (xin niixing). The arguments raged, What are the characteristics of a real moder woman? and How does one identify a pseudo-modem woman? External manifestations of modernity-clothing, hairstyles, and shoe styles-were dismissed as superficial trappings. Truly mod- ern women, it was argued, had inner qualities that centered on an abid- ing concern for China's national welfare. However, focusing on the detailed behavior of China's women obscures the deeper significance of the debate. The moder woman discourse disclosed the reformist intellectual class's concerns about power and goverance in moder China during a period when they were increasingly repressed and politically marginalized. Fredric Wakeman (1972) argued that Chi- na's reformist intellectuals revolutionized the relationship between the people and the rulers during the late Qing by creating a republic and, in the process, inadvertently lost their traditional access to power. They automatically ceased to function as interpreters-brokers-of a transcendental source of legitimacy (Wakeman, 1972: 67). This preoccupation with the moral attributes of the moder woman was an attempt by some reformist intellectuals to reclaim their role as enlight- ened moral guardians and therefore leading advisers for the nation. Discussions about the policing of the modem Chinese woman, then, were synecdochical discussions about governing a modernizing Chi- nese population. During the 1920s and 1930s, China's reformist intellectuals in the burgeoning modernizing cities engaged in a protracted discussion about the condition of the nation's women. The apparent focus of their concern was the modem woman (xiandai funii) or new woman (xin niixing). The arguments raged, What are the characteristics of a real moder woman? and How does one identify a pseudo-modem woman? External manifestations of modernity-clothing, hairstyles, and shoe styles-were dismissed as superficial trappings. Truly mod- ern women, it was argued, had inner qualities that centered on an abid- ing concern for China's national welfare. However, focusing on the detailed behavior of China's women obscures the deeper significance of the debate. The moder woman discourse disclosed the reformist intellectual class's concerns about power and goverance in moder China during a period when they were increasingly repressed and politically marginalized. Fredric Wakeman (1972) argued that Chi- na's reformist intellectuals revolutionized the relationship between the people and the rulers during the late Qing by creating a republic and, in the process, inadvertently lost their traditional access to power. They automatically ceased to function as interpreters-brokers-of a transcendental source of legitimacy (Wakeman, 1972: 67). This preoccupation with the moral attributes of the moder woman was an attempt by some reformist intellectuals to reclaim their role as enlight- ened moral guardians and therefore leading advisers for the nation. Discussions about the policing of the modem Chinese woman, then, were synecdochical discussions about governing a modernizing Chi- nese population. During the 1920s and 1930s, China's reformist intellectuals in the burgeoning modernizing cities engaged in a protracted discussion about the condition of the nation's women. The apparent focus of their concern was the modem woman (xiandai funii) or new woman (xin niixing). The arguments raged, What are the characteristics of a real moder woman? and How does one identify a pseudo-modem woman? External manifestations of modernity-clothing, hairstyles, and shoe styles-were dismissed as superficial trappings. Truly mod- ern women, it was argued, had inner qualities that centered on an abid- ing concern for China's national welfare. However, focusing on the detailed behavior of China's women obscures the deeper significance of the debate. The moder woman discourse disclosed the reformist intellectual class's concerns about power and goverance in moder China during a period when they were increasingly repressed and politically marginalized. Fredric Wakeman (1972) argued that Chi- na's reformist intellectuals revolutionized the relationship between the people and the rulers during the late Qing by creating a republic and, in the process, inadvertently lost their traditional access to power. They automatically ceased to function as interpreters-brokers-of a transcendental source of legitimacy (Wakeman, 1972: 67). This preoccupation with the moral attributes of the moder woman was an attempt by some reformist intellectuals to reclaim their role as enlight- ened moral guardians and therefore leading advisers for the nation. Discussions about the policing of the modem Chinese woman, then, were synecdochical discussions about governing a modernizing Chi- nese population.