The History of Women’s Studies and Feminist Movement in China

Several writers in this literature connect contemporary Women’s Studies to the writings on women from the 1890’s onward (especially during the May 4th movement). However, most focus specifically on the writing and institution building done by Chinese women in China since the early 1980’s. The search for origins aside, what is it about the contemporary movement for Women’s Studies as a discipline, (in)complete with subject matter and institutions, which interests the writers’ in this literature?

First, there is debate about what counts as Women’s Studies. Women’s Studies in China exists in two interpenetrating strands: the All China Women’s Federation (ACWF) and academia. While there is a great deal of communication and some overlap between these two groups, their orientation to Women’s Studies differs according to their sociological location, specifically their relationship to the state. In general, these authors examine the study of women emanating from the ACWF as the result of action taken to grapple with the fallout for women resulting from economic reform. Members of the ACWF generally examine women’s problems through the lens of the CCP’s Marxist perspective on women and subsume women’s issues to problems of class. Academics are more willing to consider perspectives that revise or challenge Chinese Marxism and attempt to “fill gaps” in the “scientific” enterprise with empirical data and theory. In this literature, the history of Women’s Studies in academia is dominated by a literature professor named Li Xiaojiang, often credited as the founder of Women’s Studies in contemporary China. She is a controversial figure both because of her theoretical orientation and her outspoken manner. This literature contains writing both by and on her. Both the ACWF and academics are currently building curriculum and strengthening institutions for teaching, research, and writing public policy.

There is a longer history of policy oriented, technical research and a relatively shorter history of theoretically oriented scholarship. Many academic Women’s Studies scholars point to the need for better theories and methods for understanding women. Essentialism, socialization, and psychoanalysis seem to be the theoretical perspectives for understanding women which dominate at this time. There is considerable debate on the usefulness of the concept “gender” in China (“shehui-xingbie” or literally “social sex”). Further, this literature suggests that women are most often seen as the objects of research and that the deconstruction of epistemology and the advancement of “standpoint theories” are emerging, but do not proliferate.

The relationship between Women’s Studies and women’s movement also is important. They are understood variously as separate and emerging historically parallel to one another or as one determining the other. Again, answering this question depends on what counts as Women’s Studies and what counts as women’s movements, sociologically speaking. Some writers also refer to the “Women’s Studies Movement.” In this literature there is no doubt that some relationship exists. However, the nature of that relationship is yet to be determined.

One point of convergence between “studies” and “movement” is the focus on women’s self and collective consciousness, with many arguing that this consciousness, absent under Mao, is a necessary precursor to women’s liberation. One task of understanding this theme in the literature involves unpacking: the difference between a feminine and a feminist conception of self, China’s history of subsuming the individual to the collective, the tension between women’s dependence on the state and the desire for self-determination, the conflict between the rejection of Confucianism and the rejection of imperialism, and the persistence of a logic of biological determinism for naturalizing gender inequality.