Language

Probably the most obvious place to begin is by reflecting on the language issues involved in this literature. This literature includes essays, articles and books chapters by: Chinese academic scholars and All China Women’s Federation cadres (ACWF-the official state women’s organization) currently living in the People’s Republic of China (not including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and written in Mandarin translated to English; members of the Chinese diaspora affiliated with Western universities written in English and in Mandarin translated to English; and Western feminist scholars, presumably white and middle class, written in English in both Europe and the United States. The sociological location of these women (and there are no men) plays a critical role in understanding their interest in Women’s Studies in China. For example, it is possible that the reason why the women writing about Women’s Studies in China generally do not discuss the one child population policy is because the academic women are generally urban and of a higher class than the peasants who are impacted by the policy the most and because the ACWF is an arm of the state and as such usually supports state policy. Further, those women who do discuss the one child policy are generally women living outside of the PRC where perhaps they have more freedom of speech and where Chinese girls are being adopted by primarily white, middle class women. The point here is to consider what gets written by whom and why.

Another language issue is translation. Following are several questions for reflection while reading this literature: What key ideas are not in writing? What is NOT being translated to English, but exists in Mandarin and other languages? Does the English version capture the meaning of the author’s original intent? Is it possible to understand the author’s ideas even with a “good” translation given the historical and sociological relationship between the words used in various contexts and the concepts they signify? Women’s Studies, gender, liberation, etc. are all words whose designation, translation, and meaning are of significant theoretical importance and debate. Those writers who focus directly on issues of discourse provide illuminating reflections on how to go about understanding what is meant by these terms in this literature.