The Many Dimensions of Chinese Feminism (Breaking Feminist Waves)

T M D  C F

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BREAKING FEMINIST WAVES Series Editors: LINDA MARTÍN ALCOFF, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center GILLIAN HOWIE, University of Liverpool For the last twenty years, feminist theory has been presented as a series of ascending waves. This picture has had the effect of deemphasizing the diversity of past scholarship as well as constraining the way we understand and frame new work. The aim of this series is to attract original scholars who will offer unique interpretations of past scholarship and unearth neglected contributions to feminist theory. By breaking free from the constraints of the image of waves, this series will be able to provide a wider forum for dialogue and engage historical and interdisciplinary work to open up feminist theory to new audiences and markets. LINDA MARTÍN ALCOFF is Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her books include Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self (2006); The Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy (co-edited with Eva Kittay, 2006); Identity Politics Reconsidered (coedited with Moya, Mohanty, and Hames-Garcia, Palgrave 2006); and Singing in the Fire: Tales of Women in Philosophy (2003). GILLIAN HOWIE is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Her previous work includes Deleuze and Spinoza: Aura of Expressionism; Touching Transcendence: Women and the Divine (edited with Jan Jobling); Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration (edited with Stacy Gillis and Rebecca Munford); Menstruation (edited with Andrew Shail); and Gender, Teaching and Research in Higher Education (edited with Ashley Tauchert). Titles to date: Unassimilable Feminisms: Reappraising Feminist, Womanist, and Mestiza Identity Politics by Laura Gillman Further Adventures of The Dialectic of Sex: Critical Essays on Shulamith Firestone edited by Mandy Merck and Stella Sandford Hegel’s Philosophy and Feminist Thought: Beyond Antigone? edited by Kimberly Hutchings and Tuija Pulkkinen Femmenism and the Mexican Woman Intellectual from Sor Juana to Poniatowska: Boob Lit by Emily Hind Between Feminism and Materialism: A Question of Method by Gillian Howie Resonances of Slavery in Race/Gender Relations: Shadow at the Heart of American Politics by Jane Flax The Many Dimensions of Chinese Feminism by Ya-chen Chen

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T M D  C F

Ya-chen Chen

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THE MANY DIMENSIONS OF CHINESE FEMINISM

Copyright © Ya-chen Chen, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–10432–7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chen, Ya-Chen. The many dimensions of Chinese feminism / Ya-chen Chen. p. cm.—(Breaking feminist waves) ISBN 978–0–230–10432–7 1. Feminism—China. 2. Feminism—Taiwan. I. Title HQ1767.C4417 2011 305.420951—dc22

2010035427

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: May 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

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C   

Series Foreword

vii

Foreword

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

1

This Chinese Feminism Which Is Not “One”

1

2

More Than Three Waves of Feminism

31

3

Taiwanese Academy’s Reception of Feminist Scholars and Academic Feminism: Interviews about the 1990s

71

4

5 6 7

The Academy’s Reception of Feminist Scholars and Academic Feminism in the PRC: Interviews about the 1990s

111

French Feminist Theories in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s

135

French Feminist Theories in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s

169

Feminist Orientalism and Occidentalism: Feminist Theoretical Round-Trips, Feedback Loops, and “Not-one-ness”

195

Notes

217

Glossarial Index

265

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S  F   

Breaking Feminist Waves is a series designed to rethink the conventional models of what feminism is today, its past and future trajectories. For more than a quarter of a century, feminist theory has been presented as a series of ascending waves, and this has come to represent generational divides and differences of political orientation as well as different formulations of goals. The imagery of waves, while connoting continuous movement, implies a singular trajectory with an inevitably progressive teleology. As such, it constrains the way we understand what feminism has been and where feminist thought has appeared, while simplifying the rich and nuanced political and philosophical diversity that has been characteristic of feminism throughout. Most disturbingly, it restricts the way we understand and frame new work. This series provides a forum to reassess established constructions of feminism and of feminist theory. It provides a starting point to redefine feminism as a configuration of intersecting movements and concerns; with political commitment but, perhaps, without a singular centre or primary track. The generational divisions among women do not actually correlate to common interpretive frameworks shaped by shared historical circumstances, but rather to a diverse set of arguments, problems, and interests affected by differing historical contexts and locations. Often excluded from cultural access to dominant modes of communication and dissemination, feminisms have never been uniform nor yet in a comprehensive conversation. The generational division, then, cannot represent the dominant divide within feminism, nor a division between essentially coherent moments; there are always multiple conflicts and contradictions, as well as differences about the goals, strategies, founding concepts, and starting premises. Nonetheless; the problems facing women, feminists, and feminisms are as acute and pressing today as ever. Featuring a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, Breaking Feminist Waves provides a forum for comparative, historical, and interdisciplinary

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SERIES FOREWORD

work, with special attention to the problems of cultural differences, language and representation, embodiment, rights, violence, sexual economies, and political action. By rethinking feminisms’ history as well as its present, and by unearthing neglected contributions to feminist theory, this series intends to unlock conversations between feminists and feminisms and to open up feminist theory and practice to new audiences. —Linda Martín Alcoff and Gillian Howie

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F   

Like some recent philosophers of the West, I needed to turn myself toward the East in order to find guides and basic principles of method . . . I followed the teaching of masters for whom a daily practice—in fact, Yoga—was what could help awaken or reawaken and discover words and gestures carrying another meaning, another light, another rationality . . . with the aid of masters from the East, or trained in the East . . . little by little this allowed me to glimpse the existence of another life, not in the beyond but here below. It was possible to live altogether otherwise than I had been taught, than what I could imagine. Luce Irigaray Between East and West: From Singularity to Community, p. 6

Luce Irigaray is aware of her need to turn herself toward the East. She learns how to breathe with her Eastern master of yoga. When she turns to the East, her Eastern readers turn to the West and try to inhale the Western air of feminist and gender theories. Maybe one day Luce Irigaray will notice that this book, The Many Dimensions of Chinese Feminism, the title of whose first chapter is “This Chinese Feminism Which Is Not ‘One,’ ” is an Eastern, Chinese, and Taiwanese feminist ripple made by her book This Sex Which Is Not One. The Many Dimensions of Chinese Feminism addresses how Chinese feminist scholars develop different kinds of Chinese feminism and survival strategies within diverse academic power structures. I analyze how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan strategize their transfers, localization, and acculturation of Western feminist literary theories. I emphasize how Chinese literary theorists selectively import and filter the latest Western feminist theories and then match them with local socio-cultural trends by exerting comparative researchers’ cross-cultural and cross-lingual academic power in order to tackle the PRC’s, Taiwan’s, and Hong Kong’s own gender problems. My approach problematizes the frequently held belief that

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FOREWORD

Chinese feminism is synonymous with Communist feminism. I hope to clarify how Chinese feminism has varied under the different political conditions of the PRC, indigenous Taiwan, and post-colonial Hong Kong. I envision that this book is either the first or one of the earliest English-language academic feminist monographs to balance feminism in the PRC with feminism on the other side of the Taiwan Strait in the 1990s. Each of the two chapters on feminism in the PRC is either preceded by or follows a chapter on Taiwanese feminism. I hope to highlight the disparities within Chinese feminism in this way. There are seven chapters total: two chapters on feminism in the PRC; two chapters on Taiwanese feminism; a chapter to survey Mainland feminism from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republican era, Communist feminism in the PRC, Taiwanese feminism from the era of Japanese colonization to the present, and Hong Kong feminism from the era of British colonization to the present; and two chapters to examine and analyze prestigious academic journals, anthologies, and monographs on different kinds of feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. My insistence on balance has a parallel in Gail Hershatter, Emily Honig, Susan Mann, and Lisa Rofel’s academic collaboration Guide to Women’s Studies in China, which contains two chapters on feminism in the PRC, two chapters on Taiwanese feminism, and a chapter on Hong Kong feminism. YA-CHEN CHEN

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A      

The academic nurturing of Sally Ann Hastings, Marcia C. Stephenson, David Der-wei Wang, and Chung Ling made this monograph possible. It is my fortune that these four “academic parents” of mine “adopted” me and guided me all the way from my two MA degrees to my PhD major and minor degrees, though my biological parents firmly believe and insist that perfect daughters should always stop academic pursuits right after their bachelor’s degrees and be gradeschool teachers. It is also my good luck to have had the following scholars’ academic advice: Wendy Larson, Murray A. Rubinstein, Rebecca Allen Nedostup, Geraldine Friedman, Patrocinio Schweickart, Evelyn Blackwood, and Peter Connor. I thank the institutions or associations that helped me: the HKFW (Hong Kong Federation of Women), Fulian (a.k.a. All-China Women’s Association), TFSA (Taiwan Feminist Scholars’ Association), Fembooks (the first feminist bookstore in Chinese-speaking areas), Chinese Academy of Social Science, and Academia Sinica (the highest rank of national academic organizations in Taiwan). I also thank the dozens of my anonymous interviewees and the people who enabled me to reach them. Except for numerous research travel grants, the Modern Literary Research Award from the Council for Cultural Affairs and the Lynn Interdisciplinary Fellowship in Women’s Studies were the largest financial supports for research projects related to this manuscript. Mónica Mereno Seco, the Spanish editor of Feminism/o, and Peter de Liefde, the Dutch editor of Sense Publishers, generously allowed my academic articles on PRC feminism to appear in this book. They deserve my gratitude. In addition, I am appreciative to Hsiung Kan-lin, whose spiritual and technical guidance helped me through difficult periods before the publication of this book. I also enjoyed spiritual support from Joyce Berry and her family members during my writing process. I was introduced to French feminist literary theories in 1994 while taking two introductory courses to Western literary theories. I listened

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

to Toril Moi’s speech at National Taiwan University in 1998 and Julia Kristeva’s talk at Columbia University in 2000. I took Gayatri C. Spivak’s literary theoretical classes in 1999 and 2000. When drafting this book manuscript, I read Luce Irigaray’s This Sex Which Is Not One over and over again. My thanks then also go to Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Toril Moi, Gayatri C. Spivak, and all the other scholars who exposed me to feminist literary theories. YA-CHEN CHEN

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CH A P T ER

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This Chinese Feminism Which Is Not “One”

We now believe that the word feminism should be written feminisms, a word that better accounts for the variety of experiences and expressions that fall under the category. —Wendy Larson Women and Writing in Modern China

What is feminism? “How does one define ‘woman’ [and feminism]” (Rouzer, Journal of Asian Studies 1142–1143)?1 Wendy Larson is correct to point out the fact that different women or feminists account for different “experiences and expressions that fall under the category” (Larson, 180). I contend that all women, regardless of their differences, prove the same truth: multiplicity of feminism. In Western feminist history, it is commonly held that there are at least three waves of feminism—first-wave, second-wave, and third-wave feminism— and to the extent that Western theory includes Chinese feminism in its scope, it is regarded as part of third-wave feminism because it is this most recent stage that recognizes differences in ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, and so forth. Thus it is clear that feminism is not “one”—it evolves—and Chinese feminism is precisely a part of this multi-faceted feminism. However, whether Chinese feminism is clearly recognized or truly appreciated is still unclear. For instance, in the 1990s Western and particularly American academia tended to equate “Chinese feminism” only with the variety of feminism found in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the chapters that follow, I will explore the varieties and disparities of Chinese feminism of the 1990s through interviews with fifty feminist scholars in Taiwan and Mainland China and through a survey of prestigious academic

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journals. The survey will show that not only is Chinese feminism not reducible to a single kind—just as no individual woman from Beijing or Hong Kong, for example, could represent all of Chinese womanhood—but that the subject itself is various and multilayered, combining native and foreign (Western) influences. “What is Chinese feminism?” is a question that can be endlessly explored but never conclusively, definitively answered. Each feminist scholar or school of feminist thought has her or its own interpretations of what woman is and what feminism is. To set forth the common Western views of feminism this book will be departing and distinguishing from, let me briefly enlist several Western feminists’ opinions of what “woman” is and what feminism is. Simone de Beauvoir famously described woman as the second(ary) sex (in Le Deuxième Sexe, published in 1949). Luce Irigaray, best known for her theory of “sexual difference,” clarified that this second(ary) sex is actually not one. But even before de Beauvoir and Irigaray, Virginia Woolf had famously argued, in her series of lectures at the Cambridge women’s colleges of Newnham and Girton (published as the seminal book A Room of One’s Own in 1929), that an essential part of feminism is the struggle for a room or space of one’s own (Woolf, 627–652) and the financial security to allow independent thinking and writing. This space of women’s own may be interpreted as a room for women’s own literature, a room for women’s history, or even a room for women in the academy (Yang, Mayfair, 1–34; Showalter, 4; Sochen, ix–x; Gilbert and Gubar, xi–xv). From American novelist Alice Walker’s and other women of color or third-world feminists’ view, a crucial element of feminism may derive from an individual woman’s own racial and cultural heritage (Walker, 1–40). The poet Adrienne Rich insists that feminism should bridge the gap between different women, including lesbian feminists and non-heterosexual women (Rich, 24 & 54; Jagose, 47–48). Lila Abu-Lughod argues that feminism is “a particular constellation of ideas and political practices . . . tied to a particular history—of capitalism, personhood, political and legal arrangements” (Abu-Lughod, 32). Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl echo Wendy Larson and contend that the heretofore universal word “feminism” should be replaced by the more inclusive plural form of feminism, “demonstrating the multiplicity of perspectives and approaches called feminist literary theory and criticism” (Warhol and Herndl, ix). For Jane Gallop and Devoney Looser, the concern they share is “whose version of [feminist] history is going to be told to the next generation” (Gallop, Hirsch, and Keller, 362; Looser, 108–117).

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3

Putting aside Western conceptions of feminism, our concern here is to understand what Chinese woman is and what Chinese feminism is. Is Chinese woman as diverse as the second(ary) sex explored by de Beauvoir and Irigaray? Is Chinese feminism as complicated as that described by the authors above?

W  F   C C R What we ask about women and feminism generally can also be asked of Chinese women and Chinese feminism. What is Chinese woman? What is Chinese feminism? What role does diversity play in regard to Chinese women and Chinese feminism? Let’s start with the variety of ways Chinese women can be viewed or categorized, beginning with a brief look at the various designations identified by historian Tani E. Barlow. Taking yinyang qiankun (the Chinese Confucian and Taoist terms for men, women, fathers, and mothers) into consideration, Barlow makes distinctions among nü (unmarried women), nüzi (girls or young women), nüren (female person), fu (married women),2 mu (women after childbirth), funü (mass of women),3 xianfu (“a wife who, grasping the powers accorded yin, masters her domain through her familiarity with the sort of protocols”),4 nüxing (a modern term for the female gender),5 and feinü (non-females— that is, women who cannot become mothers).6 Although all “formations of women possess multiple [and] complex genealogies” (Barlow, “Theorizing Women,” xxx), some nü and nüzi are still treated simply as something exchanged among men and between families through arranged marriages (Gayle, 157–210). Some funü, xianfu, and mu are deemed nothing but birth machines or babysitters for men; therefore, some barren women become those whom husbands and in-laws abandon or ignore. In one way or another, all types of women in mainstreams of Chinese patriarchal society are reduced to the “second(ary) sex.” As for what Chinese feminism is, the versions or periods that academics in the West and the PRC discussed most prominently in the 1990s were usually feminism as it was from the late Qing Dynasty (the Qing Dynasty lasted from 1644 to 1911; the late Qing period is usually regarded as from about 1891 to 1911) to the May Fourth period (1917–1921), the early Republican era (1911–1920s), the People’s Republic of China (PRC, 1949 to the present), and feminism related to the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and the NGO Forums on Women in Beijing scheduled for 2010.

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However, should feminism as it was in any of these earlier historical periods be considered as the whole of Chinese feminism, or should gender problems that existed then be regarded as the entirety of Chinese gender problems? Likewise, should women in these three periods represent all women in China? Perhaps instead we should consider feminism in the late Qing Dynasty, the early Republican era,7 and PRC feminism as three types or phases of Chinese feminism.8 Before considering answers to these questions, we could ask a further question: Should the late Qing Dynasty plus the nation-state of the PRC represent the whole Chinese cultural realm9 (regardless of the PRC’s “One China Policy”)?10 The complicated history of modern China began with the Opium Wars (1840–1842 and 1856–1860). In 1839, seeking to suppress the trade of opium that the United Kingdom had illegally imported into China, Commissioner Lin Zexu confiscated and burned all the opium that British dealers owned in Guangdong (Canton). The United Kingdom retaliated by attacking China, thereby starting the Opium War. The Qing government lost to Western imperialists and by the unequal terms of the Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking) in 1842, China surrendered Hong Kong and other ports to the United Kingdom. In 1860, following a second opium war, this time involving France and Britain against China, the Qing government was compelled to surrender Kowloon. Additional territory was also given to the United Kingdom in 1898. As a result, female Hong Kongers have had very different lifestyles from their Mainland counterparts since then.11 The year 1895 witnessed China’s loss of the Sino-Japanese War as well as Japan’s colonization of Taiwan. As a result, since 1895 Taiwanese women and feminists have had their own set of gender and equality problems and issues, separate from the social and political issues faced by women in the late Qing Dynasty, Republican China, and Communist China. Feminist developments in Hong Kong and Taiwan illustrate that feminism in those parts of the Chinese cultural sphere differ markedly from the Mainland version. Since 1842, the history of feminism in Hong Kong has been different from the Mainland, whether that of the late Qing Dynasty, Republican China, or the PRC.12 In Taiwan, both activists and public officials who advocated Japanization or antiJapanization pressed for reforms in the treatment of Taiwanese women by unbinding women’s feet, establishing girls’ schools and teachers’ colleges, and opening job markets for women. After the Nationalist Party (also known as the Kuomintang, or KMT) lost the civil war and moved to Taiwan in 1949, the semi-governmental women’s

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organizations and meetings led and arranged by Soong Mei-ling, also known in the West as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, were the only large organizations or conferences of women in Taiwan before the rapid economic boost between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. Since the 1980s, especially since the lifting of martial law in 1987, more and more Taiwanese women have been studying Western feminist theories and participating in feminist activism in order to overcome long-standing gender inequalities, improve opportunities for women, and bring about equality between the sexes. None of these developments in Taiwanese and Hong Kong feminist history should be either obscured by or equated with events in Mainland China. The Chinese cultural realm and the nation-state of the PRC are not entirely congruent. In other words, the broader Chinese cultural sphere is larger than the PRC: women’s and gender problems in Taiwan,13 Hong Kong,14 Macao,15 or Tibet16 are also significant—not to mention the fact that they certainly are important to the individuals affected. And so, it logically follows that any understanding of Chinese feminism must include not only Qing China and the PRC but also feminism as conceived and practiced in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other areas of the Chinese cultural realm.

C In terms of Chineseness, in order to be comprehensive, Chinese feminism should include within its scope studies or activism about women or gender issues in as many periods and places as possible: prehistorical through Imperial China, Republican China, colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and other Chinese-speaking areas. An examination of feminism in the PRC should include feminist ideas and activism not only among Chinese Communists but also among academic scholars, Tibetan advocates of human rights and women’s rights, acculturated or sinicized feminism from the West, and queer studies and activism. Similarly, Taiwanese feminism includes or should include studies or activism about all periods of the island’s history: from pre-historical Taiwan through aboriginal and matriarchal periods; under the political control and socio-cultural influence of Chinese dynasties; under Japanese colonialism; and afterward, under the political dominion of the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Taiwanese feminism also includes everything related to women’s, queer, and gender issues. All of these subjects should be included when scholars discuss Chinese feminism and gender studies. They will be kept

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in mind in this book, as I compare academic feminism in the PRC and in Taiwan during the 1990s in order to show the disparities and varieties within Chinese feminism. Further, this comparison will also substantiate my argument that Taiwanese feminism should be included in any discussion of Chinese feminism. I aim to clarify how feminism has varied across the divergent Chinese political conditions. Western and especially American scholars would have a more realistic conception of Chinese feminism if they recognized that second-generation Chinese immigrants or Asian American women are different from Chinese women who have never left the PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, or other parts of the Chinese cultural realm. Yet, at the same time, it is equally important to be aware that women in the PRC are not exactly the same as women in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and other parts of the Chinese cultural realm.

U R  F A What Chinese feminism is deserves scholars’ endless exploration in the spirit of intellectual dialogue.17 However, the issues of “which version of [feminist] history is going to be told to the next generation” and how to teach new generations about women and feminism in the Chinese cultural realm are questions that cannot wait for diverse scholars to finish arguing over or to articulate an answer that satisfies everyone (Gallop, Hirsch, and Keller, 362; Looser, 108–117). Similarly, questions of how women and feminists in the Chinese cultural realm, especially non-Mainland areas, should identify themselves—by gender, ethnicity, geography, political affiliation, and so on—cannot wait until this debate is over. Because anthologies are generally intended for classroom use, and because for that reason they can be very influential, for better or for worse, it would be useful to analyze a number of feminist anthologies to illustrate the unbalanced representation of women and feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. In this chapter, I will examine the following English-language feminist anthologies: • • • • •

Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Criticism and Theory The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory Re-Orienting Western Feminisms Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings Contemporary Feminist Theories

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

7

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism About Chinese Women Chinese Women Organizing Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State Women’s Work in Rural China Women of China Daughters of the Dragon: Women’s Lives in Contemporary China Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China Women in Chinese Society Social and Political Philosophy: Classical Western Texts in Feminist and Multicultural Perspectives Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives Beijing Women Organizing for Change: A New Wave of the Chinese Women’s Movement The Feminist Papers Feminism in Our Time: The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present Feminism Meets Queer Theory Spaces of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China Feminist Studies/Critical Studies

With regard to Chinese-language publications and academic theses, I will include Zhongguo nüxing zhuyi (Feminism in China); Nüxing zhuyi wenhua chongtu yu shenfeng rentong (Feminist Cultural Conflicts and Identity); Zhongguo shehui xingbie de lishi wenhua xuancong (Selected Series on Chinese Gender History and Culture); Zhongguo nüxing de ganqing yu xing (Love and Sexuality of Chinese Women); Jindai zhongguo funü yundong shi (A History of Women’s Movements in Modern China); Taiwan xifuzai de shenghuo shijie (The Lives of Sim-pua: The Stories of Taiwanese Daughters-in-law); “Yijiuwuling niandai Taiwan de ‘baohu yangnü yundong’ ” (“The Movement to Protect Adopted Daughters in Taiwan of the 1950s”);

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Qingting tamen de shengyin (Listening to Their Voices); Ama de gushi (Stories of Grandmothers); and, Xiaoshi zhong de taiwan a ma (Taiwanese Grandmothers Who Are Disappearing). Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Criticism and Theory (1991), edited by Robyn Warhol and Diane Herndl, one of the most well known feminist anthologies in American academia, focuses only on Asian American feminists and ignores Asian feminists.18 It is ironic— certainly not representative of global thinking—for a feminist anthology that omits Asian feminists, Asian literary criticism, and Asian women’s studies to be published under this title. It would be more accurate if this anthology had been titled Western Feminisms: An Anthology of Western Literary Criticism and Theory.19 (For instance, James Sterba cautiously specifies that what his book includes is “Western” in the subtitle of Social and Political Philosophy.) Chilla Bulbeck is also aware of the difference between “Western feminisms” and “feminisms” with the title of her book, Re-Orienting Western Feminisms. Of course, Robyn Warhol and Diane Herndl may not have intended to omit feminists in the Chinese cultural realm, but this example serves to show that no anthology can possibly give a representative view of feminism in the Chinese cultural realm by printing only the work of Asian American or Chinese American feminists. The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory (1997) is as perplexing as Feminisms in terms of how it addresses—rather, how it does not address—feminists in the Chinese cultural realm. Why does the editor include only one Asian feminist scholar, who is from India, among the many Western feminist scholars (Nicholson, 1–6 & 356–378)? If this anthology is selected for use as a textbook, does the editor want to imply to students that the Chinese cultural realm has contributed nothing of significance in feminist theory, and that the only writings really worth studying are those by Western—particularly European and American—authors? Some authors and editors of publications on Chinese feminism do appear to recognize the difference between the Communist and Taiwanese versions. Women in Chinese Society, for instance, includes a chapter on women and childbearing in Hong Kong (Johnson, 213– 241). Huang Lin includes at least one Taiwanese feminist scholar in her Chinese-language publication whose title translates as Zhongguo nüxing zhuyi (Feminism in China). Chen San-ching takes feminism in both the PRC and Taiwan into consideration when editing Jindai zhongguo funü yundong shi (A History of Women’s Movements in Modern China). Gail Hershatter, Emily Honig, Susan Mann, and Lisa Rofel have two chapters on Taiwanese feminism, two chapters

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on feminism in the PRC, and one chapter on Hong Kong feminism in Guide to Women’s Studies in China (1999). In 1972, Margery Wolf published a book entitled Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan; in her later book Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China (1985), however, she does not distinguish the differences between PRC and Taiwanese feminism. As for other books that acknowledge distinctions, or that do not assume the Mainland is the only China, the title of Cecilia N. Milwertz’s book, Beijing Women Organizing for Change, is admirably free from the endless confusions among “China.” In addition to it, Niamh Reilly’s Without Reservation clearly specifies Beijing to avoid the ambiguity in “The Beijing Tribunal on Accountability for Women’s Human Rights.” Authors and editors who do not respect distinctions between the Mainland (PRC) and other parts of the Chinese cultural sphere risk alienating their feminist readers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and beyond. Miriam Schneir’s anthology, Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings, first published in 1972 and updated and republished in 1992, does not contain many articles by Asian feminists.20 As of the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, one out of every four people on Earth spoke Mandarin Chinese. One out of every five people on Earth is Chinese. In other words, one out of every five women is likely to be a Chinese woman; and, even if she is not 100 percent ethnically Chinese herself, one out of every four women may have some Chinese cultural background. In addition, a number of Western studies in recent decades share a similarly limited conception of what constitutes Chinese feminism. For example, Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization (2001); Tani Barlow’s above-mentioned The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism (2004); Julia Kristeva’s About Chinese Women (1976; 2000); and Chinese Women Organizing (2002) include feminism only as thought and practiced in the PRC.21 This limited scope is not found only in the West. A number of Chinese-language publications on Chinese feminism often assume that the PRC represents the whole of Chinese feminism. Li Xiaojiang, for instance, mainly focuses on women in the PRC in Nüxing zhuyi wenhua chongtu yu shenfeng rentong (Feminist Cultural Conflicts and Identity). The same is the case with Du Fangqin’s Zhongguo shehui xingbie de lishi wenhua xuancong (Selected Series on Chinese Gender History and Culture).22 What we are finding, in other words, is that not only is there widespread ignorance or obliviousness on the part of Western authors and editors concerning the complexity of Chinese feminism, there is a parochialism or even a provincialism on the part

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of Mainland Chinese feminists that they are the center and sometimes even the entirety of feminist thought, with little or no regard for Taiwan, Hong Kong, or other places in the Chinese cultural realm. Below are some of my own comparative analyses of feminism in the PRC and Taiwan in order to illustrate why and how the abovementioned publications exclude many varieties of feminism in the Chinese cultural sphere. Take for example the most influential historical and cultural events on the Chinese Mainland 23 —including, as mentioned above, the May Fourth Movement (1919), the establishment of the PRC (1949–present), and the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum (1995). These events did not affect Taiwanese feminist developments as deeply as Taiwan’s lifting of martial law in 1987. While Taiwanese feminists paraded through the Kaidagelan Avenue in front of the Presidential Palace after the lifting of martial law, post-Maoist Communist leaders probably still did not believe that feminist activists had a genuine radical social movement in the way that the May Fourth elites carried out protests and petitions in Tiananmen Square during the prodemocracy movement in May and June 1989. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) became the ruling party in the Chinese Mainland, Fulian (a.k.a. the All-China Women’s Federation, whose earliest mission was to cultivate female Mainlanders’ loyalty to Chinese Communism) has been serving as a women’s organization for the CCP as well as the PRC. Since 1949, the term Fulian has been mentioned frequently both by Mainland feminists and by American Asianist and Western scholars of Chinese feminism. The CCP does have its Fulian; however, the Nationalist Party (KMT) has its own Fulian24 and the Democratic Progress Party (DPP) has its own organization 25 for women members that functions exactly the same as the CCP’s and the KMT’s fulians.26 Even Hong Kong and Macau have their own fulians: Xianggang fulian (a.k.a. Hong Kong Women Development Association)27 and Aomen fulian (a.k.a. the Women’s General Association of Macau). The CCP’s Fulian seems more monopolistic than both the KMT’s Fulian and the DDP’s women’s organization mainly because it has been the ruling party’s women’s organization 28 for decades without any other women’s organizations to compete with in the PRC.29 In fact, the CCP’s Fulian is not useful to most non-Mainland women, especially Taiwanese women. Membership in the CCP’s Fulian is usually not available to non-Mainland women. Authors and editors of publications, such as Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization and other works mentioned along with it, do not pay any attention to

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this fact, adding to the feeling among many Taiwanese feminist readers that they are not taken into account in studies of mainstream Chinese feminism. For instance, in Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper’s Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives, Zhu Hong’s research subject lies in women and women writers in the PRC—not including female Hong Kongers and Taiwanese (Zhu, Hong, 96–102). The “China” that Lin Chun, Liu Bohong, and Jin Yihong discuss is also only in the PRC in Alison M. Jaggar and Iris M. Young’s A Companion to Feminist Philosophy (Lin, Liu, and Jin, 108–117). These are not the only two examples. Both Sharon K. Hom’s “Female Infanticide in China” and Anna Han’s “Holding Up More Than Half the Sky” in Adrien K. Wing’s Global Critical Race Feminism are also good examples (Hom, 251–259; Han, 392–408).

F O The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be “Oriental” . . . but also because it could be—that is, submitted to being—Oriental . . . Orientalism is . . . a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient . . . Edward W. Said, Orientalism

If PRC feminism is only a part of feminism in the whole Chinese cultural realm, then why is the PRC version presented as the entirety of Chinese feminist thought when scholars attempt to represent it in the publications mentioned above? If Asian American or Chinese American feminism is, in fact, an aspect or layer of feminism in American culture, rather than in the Chinese cultural realm, then why should Asian American feminism or Chinese American feminism be “made Chinese,” “sinicized,” or “Orientalized” when Western scholars gather materials for their anthologies and publications on “Chinese feminism”? The editors of these Western feminist anthologies and authors of these publications are taking advantage of academic power structures and their power positions, or what Edward W. Said calls “positional superiority,” to make PRC feminism appear to be synonymous with Chinese feminism (Said, 7). Edward W. Said takes Flaubert’s representation of an Egyptian courtesan, Kuchuk Hanem, as an example when explaining how the lands east of Europe are “Orientalized.” “[Flaubert] speak[s] for [this Egyptian courtesan] and tell[s] his readers in what way she was ‘typically Oriental’ ” (Said, 6). Of course, Flaubert’s representation of

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what is “typically Oriental” is not free from bias or exclusion. Even Flaubert’s interest in the Orient is actually “political” and thus probably a sort of “hegemony of European ideas about the Orient . . . [or] European superiority over Oriental backwardness” (Said, 12; 7). Said compares this kind of interest in the Orient to a type of heroism to “reconstruct the Orient’s . . . languages, mores, . . . lexicography, grammar, translation, cultural decoding, . . . philology, history, rhetoric, and doctrinal polemic” (Said, 121). Of course, Flaubert has the right to say what he wants about the Orient. However, distortion is unavoidable when Flaubert is not aware of his positional superiority or hegemony when he lets only one Egyptian courtesan represent all the other women in the Orient and then serves as a mouthpiece for a silent exotic woman from the Orient. A novelist as influential as Gustave Flaubert can shape cultural perceptions, and, combined with the cumulative effect of other writers who see the non-European world in the same way, social and political repercussions (such as colonialism?) may follow. Orientalist misconception, as in Flaubert’s oversight, has not disappeared. For instance, the Japanese geisha who marries an American lieutenant in Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly is “made Oriental/ Japanese/Asian/Asian American” and misrepresents all the Japanese, Asian, or Asian American women in the United States (Ma, 9–60). In M. Butterfly (1989), inspired by Madame Butterfly, David Henry Hwang, an Asian American playwright, arranges the Chinese transvestite Song Liling, to interrogate, Consider it this way: what would you say if a blonde homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? He treats her cruelly, then goes home for three years, during which time she prays to his picture and turns down marriage from a young Kennedy. Then, when she learns he has remarried, she kills herself. Now, I believe you would consider this girl to be a deranged idiot, correct? But because it’s an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner—ah!—you find it beautiful. (Hwang, 17)

Song Liling’s statement illustrates how Madame Butterfly cannot represent all women in Japan, Japanese colonies, China, Asia, the Orient, or even Asian American communities. Rene Gallimard, the main character, who is a French civil servant, suffers because he is ignorant about different kinds of women in the Asian cultural realm. In addition to examples of how the Japanese geisha in Madame Butterfly and the Chinese transvestite in M. Butterfly are not synonymous with women in the Orient, some third-wave feminists’ concerns

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about women of color and women in the third world—with whom women in the Chinese cultural realm share some problems—may also offer interesting evidence. But their situations are not quite the same. Many women of color in the third world are poor, uneducated, and dependent; not all Chinese women share this same poverty, lack of opportunity for education, and lack of ability to be more successful than men. For instance, although a few Chinese American feminist scholars still consider China as a part of the third world, Taiwan of the early 2000s is already a developed area, no longer a developing country—and much of Mainland China, too, is developed and even surpassing the United States in more ways than Americans would like to admit. Like Flaubert, editors of these Western feminist anthologies and authors of these publications run the risk of speaking for women and feminists in the whole Chinese cultural realm and telling their readers who do not travel to or live in non-Mainland areas of the Chinese cultural realm—both Westerners and Mainland Chinese—to what extent PRC feminism, Chinese American feminism, or Asian American feminism is labeled as “typically Chinese.” Editors of these Western feminist anthologies and authors of these publications are certainly entitled to freedom of speech, including what Chinese feminism is or is not. But they may academically endanger themselves if they are not made aware of the effects of the scholarly hegemony that results from their positions of authority within academic power structures. If Orientalism includes biased, partial, or improper representations of the reality in Asia, then Asian American and Chinese American misrepresentations of Chinese feminism might be a kind of feminist Orientalism. This phenomenon results from some Caucasian feminists’ EuroAmerican-centeredness or what Said describes as the “Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said, 3). This phenomenon suggests how the West constructs the Orient and how “the Occident . . . ‘misrepresent[s]’ the Orient”—for instance, how “Anglo-Saxon racism and Social Darwinism had planted in the collective mind of America a powerful mental map in which, predictably, the ‘civilized’ powers—the United States and Western Europe—controlled a descending array of underdeveloped, even ‘primitive’ Asians” (Hunt, 79 & 163 & 77; Little, 10; Chen, Xiaomei, 4; 48). In the PRC, Chinese believers and revisers of Western socialist and Communist philosophers, such as Marx, Stalin, and Lenin, tend to replace feminism in the Chinese cultural realm with Chinese socialist

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or PRC feminism. Chen Xiaomei observes that, just as suggested by Edward Said’s model, the ‘pure Chinese’ self-understanding . . . had already been historically ‘contaminated’ and even constructed by cultural and cross-cultural appropriations that belong to the whole of Chinese-Western relationships, relationships that to a marked degree have been determined— and overdetermined—by the way that the West has understood itself and China. (Chen, Xiaomei, 4)

And so, just as Chen Xiaomei defines the central hegemony over “the ‘national minorities’ such as Tibetans, Uighurs, and Mongolians, . . . [as] national-cultural-imperialism” (Chen, Xiaomei, 47), I regard PRC feminism’s misrepresentation of diverse kinds of Chinese feminism as a kind of PRC feminist Orientalism. Because the publications that I survey and analyze seldom explain differences between PRC feminism and non-Mainland feminism in the Chinese cultural realm, and because the above-mentioned Western feminist anthologies seldom explore the feminist Orientalism in the cases of “third-world women of color,” I feel it is necessary to stage a dialogue with scholars in the West and in the PRC, though there certainly are better feminist anthologies30 and publications31 that do not exclude women and feminism in non-Mainland areas of the Chinese cultural realm. For Western feminist scholars, I would like to clarify that Asian American or Chinese American varieties of feminism are not the same as Chinese feminism, which global feminism claims to include. To Western Asianists and scholars in the PRC, I would like to stress that it is more useful for understanding the richness and complexity of the subject if publications on feminist thought in the PRC do not try to imply that they represent feminism in the whole Chinese cultural realm. To both groups of scholars at the intersection of Asian studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and women’s studies, I would like to restate what Chinese feminism is and what it is not, to point out some Western anthologies’ exclusion of Asian or Chinese women’s studies, and to emphasize that neither the Asian American, Chinese American, nor PRC version represents feminism in the whole Chinese cultural realm. When Virginia Woolf complained in A Room of One’s Own that academic gatekeepers blocked women’s entrance to libraries unless they had letters of recommendation from men, it was beyond her imagination (in the late 1920s, when she gave the famous lectures and published the book) to consider the fact that a considerable number of

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Asian women were illiterate or that they might wish to be readers in a library. Illiterate women in the Chinese cultural realm were not educated enough to have a dialogue with Woolf in the same way that black feminists converse with first-wave white feminists. Far from enjoying the luxury of reading in a library or having a room of their own, in the late twentieth century, because of female infanticide a large number of Chinese baby girls were denied even the opportunity to live. When Simone de Beauvoir published her interrogation on why women have been relegated to being the second(ary) sex, could she imagine how many Asian baby girls were abused, abandoned, and sold like animals or even objects?32 They were not merely the second sex but secondary human beings at that time. It is a pity that Asian women have not shared the chance to publish their responses to reading Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal volume in the same way that, for example, feminists of color have been able to do, or as third-wave feminists have replied to second-wave comrades. I am certainly not the first reader to demand the right to be recognized. For instance, black feminists have felt that mainstream feminism did not include them (Roth, 1–13; Walker, 171–174; Hoeveler and Boles, 1–20). “[L]esbians felt that they were marginalized . . . [because some second-wave feminists, such as Betty Friedan, tended to] distance [themselves] from lesbianism” (Jagose, 44–45). Third-world feminists feel the same, too (Narayan, 1–40). This is why the third wave of feminism works to emphasize its diversity and multiculturalism and its inclusion of African-American women, third-world women, nonheterosexual women, women with disabilities, and so on. As a Taiwanese feminist reader, I cannot see where Woolf and de Beauvoir might locate illiterate Chinese women and abused Taiwanese child brides in their texts on different kinds of women’s problems. Theirs was a simpler, more monochromatic world. This is probably the reason why Patricia Williams, in The Alchemy of Race and Rights, has to tell her grandmother’s story. She likely cannot locate her grandmother in pioneer Caucasian feminists’ discourses and has to talk about her grandmother, a black slave raped and mistreated by her white master. It is hard to say where Taiwanese and other nonMainland Chinese women would be placed within such anthologies as, for example, Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Criticism and Theory; The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory; Chinese Women Organizing; About Chinese Women; and Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization. By rethinking exactly what Chinese feminism is and is not, I hope to find where the room of Chinese women’s own would be within these.

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F O Since both Orientalism and Occidentalism are “reciprocal relation[s]” or cultural conflicts between the East and the West, it is impossible to avoid feminist Occidentalism in discussions about feminist Orientalism (Tavakoli-Targhi, 23). While talking about Orientalism with an interviewer in 1987, Edward W. Said confessed that he “was attacking the notion of the Orient and, for that matter, the notion of the Occident” (Paul, 46). If Occidentalism is the East’s view of the West, then what would be Chinese feminism’s corresponding (or counterpart) view of the West? In an analysis of the West’s cultural power over the East and the “Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said, 3 & 40; Barbour, 3), Judith Snodgrass asserts that Western dominance is “embodied in the ‘unequal treaties’ that had been imposed upon it decades earlier by Western nations” (Snodgrass, 16). Unequal treaties forced Qing China (1644–1911) to make certain political and commercial concessions to Western powers. Because Western and Japanese imperialists jockeyed for the position of power, Chinese scholars and feminists were compelled to be educated in Western skills and knowledge, such as aviation, engineering, chemistry, and Western feminist thought. Since China was defeated by Japan and the West, almost everything, especially technical knowledge, scholarly endeavors, and academic degrees in Japan and the West have been viewed as superior to what China had before the Opium Wars (1839–1860), just as the Chinese saying goes: dongyang du yin xiyang du jin (Everything from Japan is electroplated with a layer of silver; everything from the West is gilded). Beginning in the mid-1800s, the Qing government sent students overseas to Japan and the West and had these students return to apply what they had learned to reform and strengthen China. For example, Yung Wing, the first Chinese overseas student, graduated from Yale University in 1854. From 1872 to 1875, the Chinese government had over one hundred overseas students in the United States. Qiu Jin, as one of the earliest and most famous feminists in modern China, advocated Chinese women’s study abroad in Japan. Most Nationalist leaders in the Republican era, Communist doyens who established the PRC, and scholarly pioneers who achieved significant Chinese academic advancements have studied abroad in Japan, Russia, or advanced Western nations. So far, nearly all Chinese winners of the Nobel Prize have been educated or lived in the West.

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As mentioned above, China was compelled by treaty to give Hong Kong to the United Kingdom (1842–1997) and gave Taiwan to Japan (1895–1945). Macau was colonized by Portugal from the Ming Dynasty and 1849 to 1999. Like all colonized people, Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, and people in Macao have been labeled as the “other,” the inferior, the less civilized, the less educated, and the marginalized, by their colonizers. In other words, colonialism, imperialism, postcolonialism, and post-imperialism have undermined their psychological confidence. For instance, almost all early feminists in Hong Kong were English-speaking women with high social status and good family background. A considerable number of Hong Kongers place a higher value on academic degrees from England, especially the University of Oxford and Cambridge University, than the equivalent diplomas in Hong Kong. Taiwan’s post-colonial loss of self-confidence kept scholars enthralled by the latest research trends in Western academia. Taiwanese feminist scholars are no exception. They began to import feminist developments and theories from Japan and the West early in the Japanese colonial era (1895–1945) (Yang, Tsui, 449–454 & 521–525 & 586–589). The era following the lifting of martial law in Taiwan (1987) is also a golden age for Taiwanese transfer of Western feminist theories. Under the unbalanced power structures between the East and the West, it is unavoidable for Chinese scholars and feminists to transfer what they learn from the West to Chinese academia and the Chinese cultural realm. Some Chinese scholars and feminists cannot avoid the influence of Occidentalism, such as “English language fever”: dreams of studying abroad and establishing international connections with Western researchers and feminists. However, most Chinese scholars and feminists are aware of how important it is not to lose their Chinese roots. In order to balance themselves between the Occident and the Orient, Chinese overseas students who returned from either Japan or the West to serve the Qing Dynasty and Republican China began a scholarly etiquette, known as zhongxue wei ti xixue wei yong (functional adaptation of Western sciences and knowledge but the maintainability of an inner Chinese substance). Chinese feminists also strategize their own acculturation and critical reception of Western feminist theories and match them with local socio-cultural trends in the Chinese cultural realm. In the chapters 3 and 5, I will examine how Taiwanese feminist scholars exert their cross-lingual and cross-cultural power to match the most fashionable Western feminist literary theories with local socio-cultural trends. In

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chapters 4 and 6, I will look at how feminist scholars in the PRC balance themselves between the Chinese Communist nation-state’s political control over post-Maoist academic feminism after the Tiananmen Square Incident (June 4, 1989) and their transfer, acculturation, and practice of Western feminist theories. In the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese women rarely had original feminist theories of their own. Instead, it was in Japan and the West that Chinese overseas students learned about feminist ideas and activism, such as Japanese socialist feminist movements and American feminists’ achievement of voting rights or suffrage (in 1920). However, I contend that not all feminist ideas and activism circulating in the Chinese cultural realm came only from the West, because for many decades Chinese feminists in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been developing their own “homegrown” varieties of feminist thought based upon their own assimilation, revisions, and reformulations of originally Western feminist ideas. I hope that the transfer of feminist theories can be bidirectional between the East and the West. As Chen Xiaomei has observed: [B]oth Orientalism and Occidentalism in whatever form never refer to a ‘thing-in-itself,’ but to a power relationship. Whether this projection into the Other is positive or negative depends, of course, on the problematic and often paradoxical social, political, and economic conditions in the indigenous culture in question—and on one’s own place in structures of power. (Chen, Xiaomei, 48)

More and more Western feminists and Asianists began their academic pursuit of different types of Chinese feminism and started to learn more about what Chinese feminism is and is not, especially after the PRC opened its door to the West. More and more feminists and Asianists in the West published monographs and anthologies about multiple aspects of feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. As Trinh Minh-Ha points out, “the West is . . . made to realize the existence of a Third World in the First World” (Trinh, 98). The Occident’s power over the Orient may be more or less balanced by the two-way transfer of academic feminism between the East and the West. When nonWestern feminists’ theoretical feedback can influence Western feminists in equal measure with the Occident’s influence on the Orient, this two-way transfer may form a sort of feedback loop of intellectual influence between the East and the West, the first world and the third world, the advanced countries and the developing countries.

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The “two-way” transfer of academic feminism is perhaps part of the “round-trip” of theories that travels when Lydia H. Liu mentions that James Clifford suggests, “theory nowadays takes the plane, sometimes with round-trip tickets” (Clifford, 158; Liu, 21).

E T-W/R-T Q   A I fully concur with Liu and Clifford’s idea of the “two-way” and “round-trip flights” of theoretical comprehension about Chinese feminism, and I would like to see an ongoing, mutual, reciprocal quest for the answer to what Chinese feminism is. With reference to what Chinese feminism, PRC feminism and Taiwanese feminism are, I stress the abysmal difficulty or even impossibility to easily conclude diverse feminism in various Chinese cultural realms during different periods of time. In this book, I choose to focus on the decade of the 1990s because of the following reasons. First, this decade follows the Tiananmen Square Incident (June 4, 1989)33 and includes the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women and Feminist NGO Forums (1995).34 Second, this decade follows the lifting of martial law in Taiwan (July 1987)35 and the resumption of the traffic between two sides of the Taiwan Strait (November 1987),36 includes the rise of Taiwanese localism37 and the change of rules of college teachers’ promotion,38 and precedes the year the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) defeated the Nationalist Party (KMT) in the presidential election and became the ruling party (2000).39 In chapters 3 and 4 of this book, I present the perspectives of fifty interviewees who provided me their views about what constituted feminism in the PRC during the 1990s. In chapters 5 and 6, the difficulty of pinning down what exactly Chinese feminism is can be seen in the ways in which PRC and Taiwanese academic and feminist journals of the 1990s take many theories. The kinds of feminism in the PRC and Taiwan in the 1990s were different from other decades. Indeed, one of my interviewees points out that the same type of research conducted for this book should be done continuously, at least once every decade, in order to secure a truly updated and more complete understanding of what Chinese, PRC, and Taiwanese feminism are in different decades. The answer(s) to this question should not be (over)simplified. Except for the normal educational purpose of presenting students with an accessible, introductory summary of what Chinese feminism is in textbooks or anthologies for class-

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room purposes, to hastily provide a seemingly conclusive but actually oversimplified answer to the question of what Chinese feminism is would be an act of intellectual violence. To reduce this vastly complex subject, to violently force the multiplicity of feminism into a stifling corner would be in a sense to academically “rape” or “massacre” the diversity of Chinese feminism that deserves researchers’ perennial interest and attention, from East to West and from West to East. Therefore, the question of what Chinese feminism is—and PRC and Taiwanese varieties, too—should be a subject of ongoing scholarly conversation, held in a spirit of intellectual dialogue. Although it is difficult and hardly possible to concretely conclude what Chinese, PRC, and Taiwanese feminism are without sacrificing their diversity and multiplicity, it is unquestionable that Chinese feminism is not “one.”

C O This book addresses on socio-cultural grounds how Chinese feminist scholars create different strains of Chinese feminism and develop survival strategies within diverse academic power structures. I also analyze how scholars in the PRC and Taiwan strategize their transfers, localization, and acculturation of Western feminist literary theories. In addition, I aim to present a dialogue with feminists in the United States and the PRC. In presenting this dialogue, I emphasize how Chinese theoretical appropriators and “gatekeepers” select and filter as they import the latest Western feminist theories and then match them with local socio-cultural trends by exerting comparative researchers’ cross-cultural and cross-lingual academic control with the goal of tackling the PRC’s, Taiwan’s, and Hong Kong’s own gender problems. I hope to clarify how Chinese feminism has varied across the divergent political conditions of the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. After this introductory chapter, chapter 2 is a historical outline of feminism in modern China since the Opium Wars. Chinese feminists transfer and localize the Western feminist ideas that they consider suitable for their own socio-cultural and political-historical backgrounds in order to deal with Chinese gender problems and develop China’s own feminism. I point out that Chinese academia’s ways of taking in and reshaping Western feminist theories in a manner suitable to Chinese culture derived from China’s scholarly conventions of transferring, acculturating, and then applying Western knowledge that have been in place since the late Qing Dynasty. The accultura-

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tions of Western feminist theories undertaken by late Qing China, Republican China, the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are actually different versions of Chinese feminist histories—each its own diverse, many-layered history. My chapters 3 and 4 are analyses of current conditions based upon anonymous interviews. Since the summer of 2002, I have interviewed twenty-five feminist scholars in Taiwan and twenty-five in the PRC. Maintaining anonymity in order to protect their careers, I analyze these scholars’ valuable experiences in dealing with problems in their academic environments in the 1990s. Among the problems and issues explored are the influences of their identity or label as “feminist,” difficulties in being promoted, different academic fields’ attitudes toward feminist research, and differences among feminist scholars. In chapters 5 and 6, I analyze prestigious literary journals in both Taiwanese and Chinese academia of the 1990s: Zhongwai wenxue (Chinese and Foreign Literature/Chung Wai Literary Monthly) and Wenyi lilun (Literary and Artistic Theories). Although both journals display a preference for French feminist literary theories in the 1990s, I show that Taiwanese and Chinese academia chose the same feminist theories for different socio-cultural reasons, such as impacts of the Tiananmen Square Incident within Chinese academia and post-colonial backgrounds within Taiwanese academia. Chinese and Taiwanese appropriators’ choices of timing for theoretical transfers, which caused Western feminist theories to be enthusiastically embraced, as well as cross-cultural strategies to assimilate Western feminist thinking—these are more important to the following discussion than how Western feminist theories originally appeared in the West. The subtitle of my concluding chapter is “Feminist Theoretical Round-Trips, Feedback Loops, and ‘Not-one-ness.’ ” If Orientalism is the term for the way in which the East is misunderstood and misrepresented by the West, then American Asianists’ and PRC feminists’ publications in which Communist feminism in the PRC overshadows all the other kinds of feminism in the (non-Mainland) Chinese cultural realm may reflect a subconscious, perhaps unintentional kind of feminist Orientalism. Mizuyo Sudo mentions early Chinese feminists’ views of the West in the 1900s and 1910s;40 Clara Sarmento asks an interesting question: “Eastwards/Westwards: which direction for gender studies” (Sarmento, 1). It is my hope that feminism will no longer travel only from the West to the East. The two-way transfer of academic feminism is perhaps part of the round-trip of theories described above (Clifford, 177–188; Liu, 21).

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It is my hope that this book can be a part of the “round-trip” of feminism between East and West and help decrease the unbalanced and distorted feminist Orientalism described above. As suggested above, and as I hope this book will show, Chinese feminism is too rich and diverse to be oversimplified into any one “intellectual snapshot”; it cannot be academically forced into any “one” kind or the “one-ness” of PRC, Communist, or any other single kind of feminism. So, rather than seeking to come to a conclusion, I hope to pen up the question of what Chinese feminism is and to keep the question open in order to highlight the “not-one-ness”: the multiplicity and variety that deserves the widest possible interest and attention.

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CH A P T ER

2

More Than Three Waves of Feminism

What Chinese feminism is and is not should be what scholars have to face at the intersection of women’s/gender studies and Asian/Chinese studies. In recent US and People’s Republic of China (PRC) academia, the most discussed three waves of Chinese feminism include the May Fourth Movement (1919), the rise of Chinese Communism (1949), and the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995). However, is Chinese feminism nothing but the three waves of Chinese feminism that academics in the United States and the PRC discuss the most? I argue that feminists or elites in the Chinese cultural realm reshaped Western1 feminism and applied their knowledge about Western feminism in order to tackle all kinds of gender problems in the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), the Republican and Nationalist era (1911–1949), the PRC (1949–present), Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the rest of the Chinese cultural realm—not merely Mainland gender problems in the May Fourth era, the early Communist era, and the period of the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women. For instance, the three waves of Hong Kong feminism are different from the above-mentioned three waves. They took place in the 1940s–1970s era, the decade between the middle of the 1970s and the middle of the 1980s, and the post-1980s era (Tsang, 277–283). The significant developments of Taiwanese feminism are also different from the above-mentioned three waves of Chinese feminism. They were motivated by the Japanese colonization (1895–1945), the lifting of martial law (1987), and the Democratic Progressive Party’s social movements (underground social movements before the lifting of martial law, 1979–1987; social movements of the opposition party, 1979–2000; social movements of the ruling party, 2000–present).2 As a matter of fact, whether the three waves of Chinese feminism that scholars in the US and the PRC are most familiar with are

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undeniably the true Chinese feminism is a question. The three waves are actually not free from researchers’ suspicion at all. This chapter outlines the transfer of Western feminist thought and developments of Chinese feminism in different areas of the Chinese cultural realm from the Opium Wars to the early twenty-first century. In addition, I would like to also highlight academics’ doubts about the three waves of Chinese feminism as well as the feminism of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the feminism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

A S  W K A  M C Like engineering or aviation, Western feminism is a sort of Western knowledge appropriated to modernize3 China after the West repeatedly defeated China since the Opium Wars (1839–1860). Chinese localization of Western feminist thought is an integral part of the history of modern China, especially when gender issues cannot be avoided in studies of modernity, subjectivity, and history (Barlow, Gender Politics in Modern China, 3). I contend that early Chinese feminism was critical reception of Western feminism—that Western feminism was a sort of Western knowledge that was appropriated to modernize China and to tackle China’s own gender problems. Different from Western feminism’s origination from middle-class white women’s self-awakening to the necessity of fighting against patriarchal men, the earliest Chinese feminist thoughts were propagated by Chinese revolutionists who appropriated Western knowledge in order to modernize China.4 In contrast to patriarchal men’s hostility toward the women’s movements in the West, there was a strong confederation between Chinese male reformers and the earliest feminist notions in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican era. Chinese male elites enthusiastically embraced feminism, and they regarded it as one of their tools to transform China. As long as women’s liberation, which they started and participated in, helped modernize China and did no harm to the male privilege that they wanted to maintain, Chinese male elites were more than happy to see the development of Chinese feminism. The earliest Chinese feminists’ awakening was to the need for the modernization and strengthening of China, not against sexual discrimination and gender inequality. Early Chinese feminists fought against the old corrupt China—neither patriarchy nor men. The Western feminist thought imported to China by male elites served

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as a part of Western knowledge to improve China’s status, instead of anything hostile to Chinese men. Even after greater China split into the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in 1949, Chinese feminism—like Euro-American democracy or Soviet Marxism—was adapted by male Nationalists, Communists, and post-colonialists to achieve their political goals. Several male Republicans and Nationalists did put feminist beliefs into practice. For example, they made laws of sexual equality, such as laws to abolish foot-binding and polygamy. Male Chinese Communists also claimed that they liberated women. However, what motivated them to be feminists might have been their political goals, not pure feminist ideals only. As for male post-colonialists or those who fought against colonizers, they might have been more concerned about (post-)colonial cultural impacts than (post-)colonized women. Although some scholars, such as Christina Gilmartin, hesitate to remark about male Communists’, Nationalists’, and postcolonialists’ motivation to participate in Chinese feminism, I do not deny that there must be true male participants or scholars in Chinese feminism as well as Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kong women’s and gender studies. For instance, Liu Dalin established the first museum on sexuality in the PRC. Zhou Huashan, Fu Tawei, Pi Heng-ta, Ka Weibo (Ning Ying-bin), and Su Tzi-chung (Martin Su) are all famous male scholars who touched upon feminist theories as well as women’s and gender studies. I do not refute that some feminists did try their best to fight for women under the political power of the CCP, though women’s benefit might not always be the main concern of the CCP. For instance, in the early twenty-first century, the CCP tentatively proposed to discourage students and caretakers of children, the sick, and the elderly from being on the job market, in order to tackle the problems of unemployment in the PRC. Because most caretakers are female, this proposal would influence women’s job market. Although some scholars, such as William Parish and Martin Whyte, criticize that Fulian (a.k.a. the All-China Women’s Federation) is only a national state organ and a semi-governmental bureaucracy under the CCP’s control (Parish and Whyte, 39; Barlow, “Theorizing Women,” 132–160), Fulian fought for women’s rights and successfully stopped this tentative proposal. Endless cultural-historical events kept motivating Chinese revolutionaries to accept Western feminist theories. That is to say, sociopolitical changes usually portended Chinese reformers’ transfers of Western feminism. Because nationwide revolutionaries were mainly

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under male elites’ control, Chinese feminism still had a significant number of male participants. For example, Chinese male Communists “united” socialism and feminism, claiming their valuable contribution to women’s liberation (Hartman, 7–8). The rise of Chinese Communism (1949– present) and the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) facilitated introductions with Western feminists in the PRC. In Taiwan, influential feminist activism began as a part of cultural modernization and democratic social movements. Japanese colonial modernization (1895–1945), the Nationalist Party’s political intimacy with the United States (1949–present), and the rise of the Democratic Progressive Party (the establishment of the DPP: 1987– present; the DPP as the ruling party: 2000–2008) smoothed the process of transferring Western feminist thought into Taiwan. Hong Kongers combined post-colonialism with grassroots feminist social movements. British colonial Westernization (British colonization of Hong Kong: 1842–1997; British colonization of Kowloon and New Territory: 1898–1997), the awakening of post-colonial localism, and the 1997 political return to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) ruling system either stimulated or influenced Hong Kong feminists’ interplay with the West. In other words, Chinese cultural-historical events indirectly decided when and how Chinese men and women could passionately embrace Western feminism. The Chinese reception of Western feminism was not simply a Xeroxed copy of Westerners’ acceptance of feminism. It was not only one kind of Chinese feminism that served as the Chinese part of the diversity that the West wanted, either. The Chinese reception of Western feminism was entirely controlled by the Chinese, not Western feminist theorists.

T I C R  W F The Chinese academic convention of transferring Western knowledge was a critical background for why feminism was regarded as a kind of Western knowledge appropriated to modernize China. Therefore, I would like to sketch the initial Chinese reception of Western knowledge as well as Western feminism to modernize China from 1839 to 1949—namely, the modern Chinese history that the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong had in common. The Opium War5 in 1839 is usually where many critics designate the beginning of modern Chinese history. China lost this war to Western imperialists. According to the first Sino-Western unequal

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treaty in 1842, China ceded the island of Hong Kong in perpetuity (Schoppa, The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History, 16). In addition, China ironically paid twenty-five million silver dollars to England. Portugal also colonized Macao. After this war, unequal treaties, foreign colonization, and Western settlements extended into China. China lost the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and gave Taiwan to Japan for half a century.6 Although the imperialism and colonization in these two wars had nothing to do with gender problems, they made the life experiences of women in Taiwan and Hong Kong extremely different from those of female Mainlanders. These two wars indirectly resulted in the diversity of Chinese feminism in Republican China, the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The Opium War revealed not simply political, commercial, diplomatic, imperial, and colonial problems. It also started all the modern Sino-Western conflicts and cultural exchanges. As “the first clash with the West” (Spence, The Search for Modern China, 110), the Opium War crushed Chinese isolation and resulted in China’s revolutionary changes. Chinese elites were forced to recognize and accept the need for Western knowledge—natural science, military technology, humanities, and so on (Hsiao, 388–408; Rozman, 183–202; Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 84–121). The Qing government sent students to the West and had overseas Chinese students use their Western knowledge “to advance reformist and revolutionary policies” (Scalapino and Yu, 109). For example, Rong Hong (Yung Wing), the first Chinese overseas student, graduated from Yale University in 1854 and conceived that “through Western education China might be regenerated, become enlightened and powerful” (Fairbank and Reischauer, 342 & 388). From 1872 to 1875, the Chinese government had 120 overseas students in the United States (Liang, 719). In 1896, the first thirteen Chinese students in Japan began their studies (Ching, 15). The first group of Chinese female overseas students returned from the West to China as women physicians in the late nineteenth century (Ye, Weili, 315–346).7 A great number of Chinese overseas students began a scholarly etiquette known as zhongxue wei ti xixue wei yong (functional adaptation of Western sciences and knowledge but the maintainability of an inner Chinese substance).8 The predicament of Chinese women was a part of the Chinese research subjects as well as a target for Western missionaries’ public criticism.9 Some missionaries, most of whom were Westerners,10 lent a hand to China. They established Western-style schools and offered classes about Western knowledge. For example, in 1844 Mary Ann Aldersey of the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East established

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the first Chinese girls’ school in Ningbo. Western knowledge taught in this school included biology, geography, mathematics, and physics (Ono, 28–29). Western feminist thought became a part of the xixue (Western knowledge) that both male and female reformers applied to strengthen China. For example, Kang Youwei (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao (1873–1929) supported the anti-foot-binding associations from 1883 to the end of the nineteenth century (Wang, Zheng, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment, 12). Tan Sitong (1865–1898) advocated women’s education, women’s freedom to choose spouses, and women’s occupation (Wang, Zheng, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment, 38). Jin Tianhe, in 1903, published Nü jie zhong (The Women’s Bell), which is perhaps the most influential late-Qing publication about women’s rights.11 Western missionaries’ contribution to girls’ education motivated Chinese people’s establishment of girls’ schools. The first girls’ school founded by Chinese people themselves was established in Shanghai in May 1898. In 1907, the Qing government started the first girls’ normal college. Female overseas students who studied in Japan12 and the West13 also helped enhance China’s self-strengthening and Chinese women’s modernization. They made the earliest Chinese acceptance of feminism possible (Ching, 270–272). For instance, in the late Qing era, Qiu Jin (1875–1907) returned to China after her studies in Japan and then put emphasis on the significance of women’s education, including physical education and studies abroad. Qiu Jin advocated elite Chinese women’s awakening (Rankin, 39–66; Dooling and Torgeson, 51) and participation in revolutionists’ overthrow of the Manchus. As a feminist writer, Qiu published articles written in vernacular Chinese language and encouraged Chinese women to participate in political revolutions.14 Rethinking cross-cultural interpretations between the East and the West (Liu, xv & 30), Qiu Jin regarded Madame Anita Roland, Joan of Arc, Yangmen nüjiang (women generals of the Yangs), and Hua Mulan as their ideal role models (Hung, Chang-tai, 155–156; Hu, Ying, 154–196). She also established Zhongguo nübao (Chinese Women’s News) and organized the Encompassing Love Society15 and the All-Women’s Political Association.16 After the end of the Qing Dynasty, the reception of Western knowledge modernized China with strong ideology against the Western imperial invasions and colonial oppression. Chinese overseas students acculturated and transplanted their own understanding and revisions of Western knowledge. For instance, Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925)17 organized the Nationalist Party, overthrew the Qing Dynasty, and

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established the Republic of China (ROC) in 1911 (Gentzler, 134– 136; Scalapino and Yu, 148–230 & 260–320). A lot of these Chinese Nationalists were overseas students who sinicized what they learned about Western legal systems, human rights, and democracy (Sun, 1–18; Chen, Xulu, 402–507; Li, Dun Jen, 115–125). For example, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, based upon different Western imperial and democratic political systems, created the Chinese Nationalist version: the Three Principles of the People (Sanmin zhuyi/San-min chu-i: the Principle of Nationalism, the Principle of People’s Sovereignty, and the Principle of Livelihood).18 These Nationalists, who established the ROC in 1911, also started the first voting rights for both male and female citizens19 and the first widely successful anti-foot-binding policy in China.20 In 1919, the repercussions from the settlement of World War I created a defining movement in the construction of Chinese modernity. World leaders’ agreement upon Japan’s control of German-held Shandong Province at the postwar Versailles Conference (bali hehui) outraged patriotic youth in China. Three thousand college students voiced their protest in Tiananmen, Beijing, on May 4, 1919, and began the May Fourth Movement (Schoppa, The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History, 67; Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 160–177). They believed that China’s political and diplomatic dignity needed not only the past self-strengthening but also cultural changes (Teng and Fairbank, 240–246). Criticism of traditional Chinese culture, which occurred in Xinqingnian (New Youth/La Jeunesse), edited by Chen Duxiu, a Chinese scholar with academic studies in France, involves hostility toward “the Confucian Shop” (Su, 99; Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 189). Intellectuals proposed possible ways to reform traditional Chinese culture, such as through democracy and science, 21 abolishing feudalism, and doing away with superstition. In addition, men of letters, such as Hu Shi, advocated replacing the classical Chinese writing with vernacular writing. Xü Zhimo, who had been an overseas student at Clark University, Columbia University and Cambridge University, “introduced Western forms of meter and rhyme to modern Chinese poetry and helped found an influential journal, Crescent Moon Monthly” (Chang, Natalie Pang-mei, 5). In 1917 Sophie H. Chen published “One Day,” “arguably the first piece of vernacular writing in modern Chinese literature” (Chen, Sophie H., “My Childhood Pursuit of Education,” 35).22 Among all that the May Fourth elites proposed, educating women and opening job markets to women were two of the most powerful strategies to emancipate Chinese women. According to

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the male intellectuals’ ideal in the late Qing era and the Republican era, educated women would become mothers of better citizens and thus build the foundation of a stronger China in the future. In addition, women’s freedom to choose spouses, to enjoy romantic love, to have birth control, to design their Western hairstyles and dresses, to relieve domestic burdens, and to decrease domestic violence also concerned participants of the May Fourth Movement. For example, Lu Xun reveals concern with women’s problems in his literary work, Xianglin sao (Sister-in-Law Xianglin). Sister-in-law Xianglin’s plight in Lu Xun’s Xianglin sao echoes Nora’s predicament in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879) in terms of women’s marital predicaments and married women’s family burdens (Ono, 98–99). At that time, some reformists believed that having “individuals liberated from the old passive thinking and from the self-sufficing and paternalistic family and clan system based on an agricultural society would strengthen the nation” (Schwartz, 99). For instance, xiao jiating (nuclear families) started in the 1910s (Glosser, 1–26). He Zhen is another good example. She was an anarchist feminist interested in domestic violence in China. She tried intervening on behalf of battered wives (Zarrow, 796–813). In addition to Lu Xun’s and He Zhen’s concerns about women’s domestic predicament, intellectual elites established their own journals and newspaper offices in order to propagate their ideals, such as women’s emancipation as a tool to achieve Chinese modernization (Ching, 169–303). The earliest Chinese feminist publications prospered, unlike the earliest Anglo-American feminist writings, which were rejected by the mainstream press in the West. In the late 1910s Shenzhou nübao (Women’s News in the Heavenly State) was established in memory of Qiu Jin. In the feminist journals, newspapers, or publications that May Fourth elites established, early Western feminism was translated as nüzi zhuyi (the principle of women), funü zhuyi (the principle of women), or nüquan zhuyi (the principle of women’s rights).23 Therefore, the May Fourth Movement marked one of the largest socio-political changes that included Chinese feminist activism (Judge, “Talent, Virtue, and the Nation,” 765–803; Cheng, 107–144; Lan and Fong, 75–220; Institute of History in Chinese Academy of Social Science, 100–107). Some scholars regard the May Fourth Movement as the first climax of feminism in modern Chinese history. In other words, some scholars think that Chinese feminism began to prosper around the May

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Fourth Movement. But feminism in China, so far, has lacked a united, detailed, and specific historical outline because of a lot of disputes, though a rough outline is possible. In other words, this wave of feminism was contentious. Whether the May Fourth Movement was truly the beginning of Chinese feminism is debatable for many reasons. First, the wave of Chinese feminism seemed to be led by many male elites and only a few female intellectuals. Some scholars even feel that some of these male propagators were actually patriarchal and selfish. They suspect that these male revolutionists equated women with a main cause of China’s weakness and deemed women’s movements as only one of their tools to modernize China. Because true feminism and gender egalitarianism must be put into practice in everyday life, not simply slogans, scholars presented a number of historical facts that disproved these male elites’ feminist ideals and gender ideology in their personal life. For instance, Christina Gilmartin points out that Chen Duxiu, in fact, was selfish. Chen complained that his wife did not sell her bracelet in order to help him study abroad. He completely disregarded what gold bracelets meant for his wife. With a male-centered perspective, Chen never questioned himself what he, as a husband, sacrificed for his wife. He simply blamed his wife for not sacrificing her gold bracelets for him (Gilmartin, 317–318). Other male elites, like Liang Qichao and Xü Zhimo (1897–1931), had bad records, too. Liang Qichao, who claimed to liberate and educate women, actually enjoyed the patriarchal privilege of polygamy, and he had a concubine with him when he was an overseas student in Japan (Chang, Natalie Pang-mei, 119). Xü Zhimo compared his legal wife, who never bound her feet, to a bumpkin with tied feet in order to justify his extramarital love affairs (Chang, Natalie Pang-mei, 109–127). Examples like this undermined the possibility that this wave of Chinese feminism could be counted as a true high point of Chinese feminism. Second, China, at that time, had an extremely large territory with a largely illiterate population. How influential this limited number of male and female elites could be is subject to question. If this small number of May Fourth elites benefited only a tiny number of Chinese elite women and improved simply a diminutive part of the whole big Chinese territory, then how could this be the first “wave” of Chinese feminism? How much influence on the overall social trends could qualify a certain kind of feminist activism as a wave of feminism? What the first wave of Chinese feminism was, therefore, turns out to be thorny and controversial.

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S M-’ KMT F A After the May Fourth Movement, Chinese-established girls’ schools continued advancing Chinese women’s education. For instance, in February 1920 Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940), the president of Beijing University, accepted the first female college students in China.24 Female overseas students who finished their studies abroad and returned to China continued exploring China’s gender issues. For example, Sophie H. Chen, 25 the first female professor in Beijing University with a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago, explored modern Chinese women’s dilemma between career and marriage in her novella entitled Luyisi de fannao (Sorrow of Louise)26 in the 1910s. After the May Fourth Movement, Soong Mei-ling (1899–2003)27 was arguably the most influential Chinese female overseas student in the Nationalist era.28 With a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, Soong returned to China and married Chiang Kai-shek 29 in 1927. When Chiang was kidnapped in Xi’an in 1936, Soong Mei-ling negotiated with his kidnapper, Zhang Xueliang (Wu, Qin, 36–41; Zhou, 126–134; Liao, 18–21),30 and the Communist representative, Zhou Enlai. She agreed to temporarily stop the KMT’s antiCommunist policy.31 Of course Soong’s negotiation might not be the only reason why Zhang released Chiang in historians’ diverse viewpoints. However, opposite to the male-centered tradition of Prince Charming rescuing Princess Snow White, Soong Mei-ling made a long and dangerous journey to rescue her husband. She traveled from Shanghai to Nanjing on December 12 and then flew from Nanjing to Xian on December 22. This was the first time that Soong played a significant role as a woman savior in modern Chinese history. The second time was when she accepted US President Roosevelt’s invitation to give a speech to Congress in 1943. She requested American governmental help in the Sino-Japanese War. She became the most honorable Chinese first lady in the United States at that time.32 As the chair of the KMT’s aviation committee, Soong negotiated with Claire L. Chennault as well as other American military and civil officials. She helped make it possible for Chennault to lead an American volunteer group of pilots (the Flying Tigers) to fight against Japan. Even after her husband lost the civil war against Chinese Communists in 1949,33 Soong Mei-ling still used her American human resources to assist the KMT in Taiwan. As the first lady, Soong Mei-ling founded orphanages and military schools in order to take care of and educate dead soldiers’ descendants.

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She also used sewing machines to make clothes for soldiers at the front line, and she encouraged other Chinese women to support the Chinese army in the same patriotic way. When most Chinese wartime survivors could not afford to carry on any nationwide feminist activism, these women’s activities arranged by Soong Mei-ling seemed to be one of the few remaining women’s social movements in China. Although there was no evidence to deny Soong’s capability to unite Chinese women, whether Soong was an entirely devoted Chinese feminist activist was still debatable. When Soong organized these women’s activities, it was extremely possible that her political motivation was actually much stronger than her motivation to purely benefit women. The fact that her women’s activities always included only high-ranking officials’ wives and wealthy women was what people usually criticized. Did she contribute to all the feminist activism purely for Chinese women? Or did she do all this only to support her husband’s political party and to strengthen her husband’s political power? After the May Fourth Movement, few Chinese female overseas students were more influential in modern Chinese history than Soong (Benson, 134–135; Chen, Duxiu, 80–83; Collins, 620; Ding, 105–107; Edwards, 115–147; Gilmartin, 308).34 However, no matter how efficiently Soong united Chinese women in this era, whether she was really a Chinese feminist remains unclear.

M F   PRC Except for overseas students, another May Fourth elite worth mentioning was a male college student named Mao Zedong (1893–1976) in the First Hunan Teachers’ College. Similar to May Fourth intellectuals’ application of Western knowledge to China in order to modernize China and to tackle its problems, Mao and the Chinese leftists transferred socialism, Marxism, and Leninism into China (Franke, 181–182; Scalapino, 190–215).35 The CCP was founded by Chen Duxiu in Shanghai in 1920 and then Mao Zedong in Hunan in 1921.36 Like all the other kinds of Western knowledge appropriated by China, Chinese Communism was never just a Chinese imitation of German Marxism or Russian socialism (Scalapino and Yu, 486–569). Chinese Communists’ goal was to reform and strengthen China with China’s own socialism. With Marxism as the spiritual guide, Chinese Communist leaders declared that putting political beliefs into practice would be the only way to reexamine socialism in China.

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The PRC was established on October 1, 1949.37 Mao Zedong highlighted women’s capability and responsibility, which, he said, should be equal to men’s in this year. Mao’s exact wording was that women could “chengqi ban bian tian” (prop up half of the whole sky). This famous slogan indicated that women could and should prop up half of the sky when men prop up the other half of the sky. In 1949, the CCP established its governmental organization for women: Fulian (a.k.a. the All-China Women’s Federation). The CCP’s “correct political line” to mix Marxism with feminism was probably the biggest socio-political reform that stimulated women’s movements after the May Fourth Movement (Stalin, 22–23). Fulian was probably the CCP’s first and strongest semi-governmental system to organize women in the PRC. Women’s movements in the PRC became the outcome of the socialist power to organize women from the central governmental level down to the local level.38 Fulian has been the most powerful unit to organize Chinese women and to execute all the Communist political decisions related to women. For instance, Fulian, more or less, assisted the CCP to abolish traditional femininity (Brownell and Wasserstrom, 255–268 & 361–383), to forge a genderless Communist woman, and to create the image of “iron girl” in the PRC (Hung, Nung, 62–67; Li, Xiaojiang, “With What Discourse Do We Reflect on Chinese Women?” 261–277; Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui, “From Gender Erasure to Gender Difference,” 35–67; Jiang, 5). The Maoist policy of de-gendering resulted in the “non-difference” of the two main sexes (Yue, 118). The CCP’s one-child policy was also undeniable proof of Fulian’s execution of governmental decisions, which I will include in my discussion of post-Maoist feminism. From 1949 to the present time, the CCP has been claiming the completion of a perfect liberation of the underprivileged in feudalist and capitalist hierarchical systems, including women. To the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong, the oppressed—including women,39 peasants, proletarians,40 and all the other kinds of social underdogs—were those whom Communists could persuade to help defeat the KMT, the CCP’s political enemy (Siu, 120–150). However, not every historical fact provides evidence for the CCP’s claim of the first liberation of women in China. For example, the first governmental policy of anti-foot-binding began in the Qing Dynasty’s One Hundred Days of Reform in 1898 (Lo, Jung-pang, 38–39; Reynolds, 109). The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom started the first governmental policy of monogamy and love matches in China (Snow, 14–18; Ono, 10–20; Qiao, 17). More than twenty years before the CCP became the ruling party, the Nationalist government

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declared that wives should have as many opportunities to be heads of their households as did husbands (Hsia, 43). The first internationally well-known first ladies in China were Soong Ching-ling, Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s second wife; and Soong Mei-ling, Chiang Kai-shek’s second wife. The first Chinese government to give women voting rights was the Nationalists’ Republican government, not the CCP. The CCP’s “approach to marriage, family, and state-society relations owed much to Republican-era visions” (Glosser, 200). In other words, PRC feminism is not as historically unique as the CCP claimed. Another problem of PRC feminism is the incomplete liberation of women by the CCP. Many people question the truth behind the CCP’s feminist slogans. For example, Ding Ling, one of the most famous female writers in the PRC, complained that women were half-liberated from the private sphere—in the daytime only—because they were still expected to finish the same amount of housework in the private sphere every evening. By delivering an article entitled “Sanbajie you gan” (“Thoughts on March 8”) on March 9, 1942,41 Ding Ling pointed out the CCP’s double standard: requiring women to work in both the public sphere and the domestic sphere but requiring men to work only in the public sphere (Ding, 105–107). In this article of hers, Ding Ling directly criticized the [Communist] party for failing to make good on its promise of equality between women and men. The party reacted with a barrage of criticism of Ding Ling personally and of the use of . . . short critical essays, to critique the party. [Under such a strong Communist circumstance] Ding Ling [could not but confess] her “errors” on June 11, 1942, at a mass meeting, and claimed that “this article [of hers] is a bad article.” (Larson, 169)

Ding’s apology after her complaint is maybe an appropriate illustration of how the CCP dealt with women’s complaints about gender inequality. Christina Gilmartin also points out that Chinese Communist leaders systematically excluded women from high leadership roles within the party while claiming to seek to liberate them (Gilmartin, 299–329). Echoing Gilmartin, Lisa Rofel also notices that Chinese Communists liberated women from the private sphere to the job market but not from lower positions as cheap labor to higher positions with more administrative power. In other words, these female factory workers were only half-liberated, not truly equal to the male gender. Rofel asks, If women and men are equal . . . how is it that there are so many competent women in [the] factory who don’t get promoted to be

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managers? . . . [M]en are stronger than women . . . [in terms of] physical strength . . . [However] that strength does not lead to intelligence. Didn’t people in China have a popular saying, anyway, to the effect that those who have brawn do not have brains? (Rofel, 228)

Wendy Larson believes that the CCP “clearly considered women’s [predicaments] secondary to the overall [political] resistance movement” (Larson, 88). The abolishment of Fulian during the Cultural Revolution, for example, indicated that feminist activism and women’s organization were far less significant than political power struggles. Rey Chow remarks, The Chinese Communist government serves . . . [as] an agency speaking for “minorities” in order to mobilize an entire nation. . . . For intellectuals working on “women” in the China field, therefore, the first critical task is to break alliance with this kind of official sponsorship of “minority discourse.” Instead, they need to use their work on Chinese women to deconstruct the paternalistic social consequences resulting from a hegemonic practice. (Chow, Rey, 112)

Legal studies about laws related to domestic violence, sociological case studies about the lack of crisis centers or women’s hotlines in the countryside, and anthropological field studies about battered women or abandoned baby girls, for instance, could problematize whether the CCP truly took good care of every woman or every minority. From Ding Ling’s example and women Communists’ lack of significant leadership in the party in the pre-1949 era, the post-1949 problems of female factory workers’ promotion, and the Cultural Revolution, to the unnamed period that Rey Chow comments on, things changed over time but whether feminist changes that absolutely benefit women really occurred is still a puzzle. In addition to the above-mentioned scholars’ doubts about PRC feminism’s problems, Ellen Judd also discloses another kind of suspicion. She frankly indicates that most academic publications about women’s movements in the PRC could not include what the Chinese Communist authorities labeled as bad examples (Judd, 78). Therefore, how much political propaganda was there within what the Communist Party allowed researchers and publishers to expose is truly an unanswerable question.

PRC F   P-M E The post-Maoist era followed Mao Zedong’s death in 1976. Deng Xiaoping was the first possessor of the ruling power in this era.

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China gradually opened her door to the West—including Western feminism (Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 359–400). Some feminist scholars considered the post-Maoist transfer of Western feminism since the 1980s to be a climax of feminism in China. For example, Chinese feminist scholars, such as Zhu Hong, introduced the English translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex to China in the 1980s. Rosemary Roberts states that the first course on feminist literary criticism was taught at Beijing University in September 1988 (Roberts, 227). In the fall semester of 2003, Fudan University tried to offer the first two classes about same-sex love in China.42 This post-Maoist era was the first time for a large number of women with higher educational backgrounds to professionally theorize and analyze women. Although the post-Maoist social trends seemed more liberal, there were still problems. In the post-Maoist era, some post-Maoist policies still placed women at a disadvantage (Wolf, Revolution Postponed, 239–240 & 250). For instance, the CCP’s one-child policy stopped the worrisome increase of the population in the PRC. It compelled people in the PRC to have birth control. It also forced people in the PRC to abandon their preference for large families. However, this Communist gender policy could not change many Chinese families’ preference for a son; it thus caused problems of female infanticide.43 Some people “drowned, smothered, or abandoned” baby girls (Honig and Hershatter, 310). Abortion is neither immoral nor illegal in the PRC,44 and it cost no more than RMB250 (around US$32)45 in the 1980s and the 1990s. The one-child policy increased the availability of abortion. Most feminists elsewhere regarded abortion as women’s right to decide whether they wanted to have children. Hence abortion was women’s right in feminists’ viewpoint outside of the PRC. However, feminists in the PRC seldom regarded abortion as part of women’s rights in the 1990s. Abortion did not mean the same thing in the PRC. It sometimes symbolized sexual discrimination against baby girls in the PRC. Some pregnant women in the PRC decided to have an abortion when gynecologists predicted that their babies would be female. “Between 1982 and 1989 the number of boys born per 100 girls born rose from 107 to 114, well above the biologically normal level of 105 to 106” (Greenhalgh and Li, 601–641 & 621 & 628 & 631–632). In 1989, “the sex ratio was 110 in China’s cities, 113 in the towns, and 114 in the largely rural counties” (Hull and Wen, 29). Two to three decades after the initiation of the onechild policy, male mainlanders are increasingly finding there are not enough eligible women to wed; November 11 is therefore currently “Singles’ Day” or “Bachelors’ Day” in China.

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In 1989, there was another well-known problem. College students took advantage of Gorbachev’s visit and arranged their radical political movement in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The CCP regarded them as rebels. But according to Western media reports, the Chinese Communist government, on June 4, suppressed all the college students’ demonstrations with military force, using tanks and guns. This was a shocking movement after the Cultural Revolution.46 Although this social movement in 1989 was not a feminist social movement, it indirectly influenced feminists in the following decade (see my explanation in the following paragraph). China spent years healing broken relations with the West after the Tiananmen Square Incident. One of China’s efforts was to host the United Nations’ World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. After the Cultural Revolution and the Maoist era, the United Nations’ World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 was probably another socio-political force to nurture feminism in the PRC. Wellknown Chinese feminist scholars, such as Jin Yihong, Tan Shen, and Liu Bohong and many Western feminists emphasized positive influences of this conference on overall feminist activism in the PRC. Generally speaking, the CCP widely opened its door to the West and arranged for possibly important international meetings to be held in China. The World Conference on Women helped boost Chinese people’s positive attitude toward feminist movements—even after most people in the PRC became tired and afraid of too much damage caused by other social movements. However, the international political propaganda of the PRC after the Tiananmen Square Incident (see Barmé, “The Chinese Velvet Prison” & “The Greying of Chinese Culture”) was probably more important for the CCP than women’s benefit. In the CCP’s viewpoint, to host this international conference was to amend the damaged image of China in Western media.47 After Deng Xiaoping died in 1997, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao led the PRC. The socialist economy in the PRC was gradually transformed into the current semi-Communist but semi-capitalist economy, especially after Hong Kong’s return from British colonization to the CCP and Taiwanese businessmen’s investments (Sullivan, 151–153). However, political problems were still unsolved, though Chinese Communist leaders claimed that their tentative Taiwanese policy was yiguo liangzhi (one China but two systems). Since the 1990s, Taiwanese enterprises began to find branch factories and offices in the PRC. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait participated in the WTO in 2003. The large san tong (“three links”: direct transport link, direct postal link, and direct trade link across the Taiwan Strait)

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was not feasible until December 15, 2008, though the mini san tong (three limited links between Xiamen and Jinmen, Mawei and Mazu, and Quanzhou and Jinmen) began in January 2001. In addition, economic and political differences between the PRC and Taiwan resulted in brand-new Chinese gender problems. For instance, some women in the PRC married Taiwanese men for wealth. Some women illegally emigrated from the PRC to Taiwan to become prostitutes. Some Taiwanese businessmen illegally had second wives in the PRC and betrayed their legal spouses in Taiwan (Choi, “Identities and Diversities,” 100). These were new challenges for feminists in both the PRC and Taiwan. In addition, the late 1990s and early 2000s were the time when the number of teenage boys and young men became gradually larger than that of teenage girls and young women in the PRC. Although in the early twenty-first century the PRC government began guanai nühai xingdong (actions taken to love and take special care of girls) and forbids gynecologists to disclose whether unborn babies are male or female in order to prevent pregnant women from aborting daughtersto-be, It was inevitable that three to four million Chinese young men found no wives in the mid of the 2000s. The one-child policy also sacrificed women’s personal privacy because even menstruation cycles were under strict control (Wolf, Revolution Postponed, 242 & 258). Even in the early twenty-first century, women in some regions of the PRC are still fined if they do not have contraceptive intrauterine devices inserted after their first childbirths. Whether the post-Maoist era is truly liberal remains mysterious. Except for the above-mentioned problems, the Communist government’s attitude was still contentious while the CCP gave postMaoist feminists more freedom of international academic interaction and freedom to embrace Western feminism. For example, some feminist Asianists, such as Emily Honig, thought that the Chinese government’s commitment to women’s liberation was not truly strong (Honig, 329–330). They even believe that women’s liberation was never a main concern of the CCP. Before 1949, women’s liberation was the CCP’s tool to win more citizens’ hearts in order to defeat the Nationalist Party. In the Maoist era, it was Mao’s political slogan. In the post-Maoist era, women’s liberation was one of the CCP’s tools to show the West that Communists improved China and to repair the damaged friendship with the West. Some scholars, such as Phyllis Andors, Kay Johnson, Li Xiaojiang, and Judith Stacey, strongly deny that Chinese women were fully liberated by the Communists (Andors, 34; Johnson, 25 & 111 & 128 & 151; Stacey, 10 & 211 212;

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Li, Xiaojiang, “Economic Reform,” 372). Li Xiaojiang firmly believes that true gender egalitarianism was not possible because even postMaoist China still lacked enough economic development (“The Dilemma,” 140–160). On the other hand, according to Sharon Wesoky, some other feminists, such as those in the Central Party School’s Women’s Studies Center and Fulian, have not been so willing to blame the state socialist system for women’s persisting inequality (Wesoky, 55–57). Taking both contradictory sides into consideration, some other scholars, like Bert Klandermans and Wang Zheng, tend to regard the state-level Marxist ideological perspective on male-female equality as both the target of contemporary Chinese feminists’ critique and a source of current Chinese feminists’ critical strength in the post-Maoist era (Klandermans, 182; Wang, Zheng, “Research on Women,” 9–12). In other words, gender problems could be why feminist critics blamed the CCP on the one hand. They could be what motivates and stimulates better feminist developments in the future on the other hand. In short, mutual disagreements, differences of opinion, and controversy led to the lack of a united, detailed, and specific historical outline of feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. This lack of everybody’s agreement on the same Chinese feminist history is similar to what Susan Jolly says about the impossibility of her and Ge Youli’s original intention to co-write a draft on the same Chinese feminist topic. It was really difficult to have one unified “we,” and nobody can represent any other, not to mention the whole of Chinese feminism (Ge and Jolly, 61–78).

F  H K So far, I have outlined feminism in China before 1949 and in the PRC after 1949.48 However, neither the May Fourth reception of Western feminism nor the PRC executions of feminist policies could represent all kinds of Chinese feminism. Feminism in pre-1949 China and the PRC was never equal to all the other kinds of Chinese feminism. So I have to highlight feminism in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Hong Kong used to be a British colony. It became a part of the PRC after 1997. In Hong Kong, feminists focused on practical and non-theoretical issues almost all the time. Owing to the colonial socio-cultural backgrounds, almost all the early feminist activists in Hong Kong49 were English-speaking upper-class women, such as participants of the Hong Kong Chinese Women’s Club in 1938 and the Hong Kong Council of Women (HKCW)50 in 1947. This early wave

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of Hong Kong feminism ranged from the postwar era to the mid1970s. The second wave of Western feminism influenced the second wave of Hong Kong feminism, which started “in 1975 and lasted for around ten years” (Tsang, 278). Yet the post-colonialist and decolonialist backgrounds of Hong Kong started to be the major forces to develop the third wave of Hong Kong feminism after the mid1980s (Choi, “Identities and Diversities,” 95–102; Tsang, 283). The identity with local grass roots,51 stance in de-colonization, struggles for the oppressed, and Chinese socio-cultural context collaboratively gave birth to the Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association (HKWWA, 1989–present), the Hong Kong Women Christian Council (HKWCC, 1988–present),52 the Association for the Advancement of Feminism (AAF, 1984–present), the Committee for Asian Women (1981–present), the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE, 1985–present), the Hong Kong Federation of Women (1993– present), and Queer Sisters (Tsang, xiii–xvii).53 Because of Hong Kong feminists’ participation in the United Nations’ World Conference on Women in Beijing, Chinese Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO) Forum of the World Conference on Women aroused disputes among Hong Kong feminists. Wu Lo-sai, for instance, exposed the mutual disagreements between the Federation-led Hong Kong NGO Working Group and the pro-China Hong Kong NGO Working Group (Wu, Lo-sai, 7–8). Because the Hong Kong Federation of Women is close to “the power center in Beijing” (Choi, “Women,” 396–399), local Hong Kong feminist organizations were worried that the semi-governmental Fulian would gradually intervene, annex, or control grassroots Hong Kongers’ feminist activism (Choi, “Identities and Diversities,” 100). Even after the above-mentioned NGO incident in 1995, a drastic 1997 socio-cultural problem affected Hong Kong feminist activism. Before 1997, Hong Kong feminist activists and queer groups feared the Communist censorship of social movements. Hong Kong’s lesbians’ organization, for instance, was deeply influenced by the Communist social climate after 1997. In addition, there have been problems of self-identity for Hong Kong feminists. Before Hong Kong was returned to the PRC, Hong Kong feminist activists identified with and spoke for Hong Kong women only. But after 1997, Hong Kong women were also considered women in the PRC. For Hong Kong feminists, the original mission to be simply Hong Kong feminists was extremely different from the brand-new post-1997 role to represent and speak for all Chinese women. Since then, Hong Kong feminists have wondered which

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self-identity to assume when they speak out (Choi, “Identities and Diversities,” 99). As for feminist research, Hong Kong feminist scholars organized their own association named Xin funü xiejin hui (the Association for the Advancement of Feminism).54 Hong Kong feminist scholars focused on research about social movements and practical solutions. A number of scholars, such as Choi Po-king, Tsang Gar-yin, Day Wong, Chun Hing-chan, and Lee Ching-kwan, underline the abolition of concubinage,55 equal pay for equal work, separate taxation, maternal leave benefits, legalization of abortion, and women’s right to inherit land (Lee, 227–258). In addition to feminists working on practical levels of Hong Kong women’s problems, there are also many other different kinds of feminists. For instance, Hong Kong has strong post-colonial feminists. The experience of being colonized by the United Kingdom for almost an entire century brought a darker post-colonialist color to Hong Kong feminism. In addition, some Hong Kong feminists disliked being labeled as “feminists” in Hong Kong’s particular academic systems. The lack of enough academic encouragement and support influenced Hong Kong researchers so much that not all the Hong Kong feminist scholars were willing to label themselves as feminists. All these different types of Hong Kong feminists show the diversity of Hong Kong feminism. Choi Po-king states, “diversification is a sign of maturation and an increased level of sophistication of the women’s movement” (Choi, “Identites and Diversities,” 102). Tsang Gar-yin contends that the pluralization of Hong Kong feminism deserves admiration and celebration (Tsang, 289).

M T H  F Taiwan is an island off the southeastern coast of China. Taiwan is about the size of the Netherlands. Aboriginal tribes in Taiwan shared similar linguistic systems with Polynesians. In the seventeenth century, farmers and fishermen in today’s Fujian (Fukien) and Guangdong (Canton) provinces had difficulty making a living in China. Therefore, they emigrated to Taiwan (Vermeer, 45–83). Those from Fujian became Taiwanese people with Southern Min heritage. Those from Guangdong became Taiwanese people with Hakka heritage. They were all Han (the largest and mainstream ethnic group of Chinese people) and fought against aboriginal tribes. Among people with Southern Min heritage, immigrants from Zhangzhou and those from Quanzhou had feuds, too.

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As an island, Taiwan was subject to imperialist actions by seafaring nations. Sailors from the Netherlands occupied Taiwan from 1522 to 1660 (Wills, 84–106). Taiwan was not governed as an important part of China except for a brief interval from the end of the Ming Dynasty (1367–1644) to 1895. Nothing was done to rescue Taiwanese people from Dutch colonization until the remaining army force of the Ming Dynasty retreated from China to Taiwan in 1661. Toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) expelled the Dutch. He made Tainan the capital of Taiwan. Koxinga’s ambition was to use Taiwanese support to win China back and revive the Ming Dynasty. Unfortunately, he did not succeed. Neither did his son. The Ming Dynasty never defeated Manchurians of the Qing Dynasty. Shi Lang (1621–1697) overpowered Koxinga and merged Taiwan into China’s domain. China was united in 1684 by the Emperor Kangxi (1654– 1722) of the Qing Dynasty (Wills, 84–106; Gordon, 1–3). This part of early Taiwanese colonial history was probably the earliest evidence of how people in China took advantage of Taiwan and were never truly concerned about Taiwan. They always asked Taiwan to provide them support when they were defeated in China. Taiwan sheltered the remaining prince of the Ming Dynasty, Koxinga, and their people. But the Ming prince and Koxinga focused only upon how to win back China. Their development of Taiwan was simply an unavoidable by-product for them to win China back, not a central concern at all. Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty was even worse. Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty planned to desert Taiwan because Taiwan was too small. Later on, he changed his mind— not because he started to sincerely care about people in Taiwan but because Shi Lang wanted Taiwan to serve as the front line to prevent China from direct attack (Shepherd, 107–132). According to the plan of the Qing Dynasty, Taiwan was what China sacrificed first once battles began.56 After the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 (see my previous delineation of the Opium War and the Sino-Japanese War in the section on pre1949 China), Taiwanese people with Southern Min and Hakka heritage established the underground Taiwanese Democratic Republic in order to fight against Japanese colonizers. Aboriginal partisans also sacrificed lives to wrestle with Japanese colonizers. Taiwanese people suffered under Japanese colonization (Lamley, 201–260). They grew rice of high quality for Japan, but Japan seldom allowed them to eat any rice. Instead, Taiwanese people were forced to have rotten yams as their main dish. This was why sweet potatoes turned out to be a symbol of Taiwan and what Taiwanese people identified them-

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selves with. Taiwanese people were forced to give up their mother languages: Mandarin Chinese, Southern Min dialect, Hakka dialect, and aboriginal tribal languages. The linguistic policy for all the Taiwanese people to give up their original languages and use Japanese showed Japanese imperialists’ intention to deepen their colonial control over Taiwan and to cut Taiwanese people off from all Chinese ancestral roots. In addition, Japan requested Taiwanese young men to fight for Japan and Taiwanese young women to serve as nurses and comfort women in the southern Asian battlefields during World War II. Unfortunately, China, as Taiwanese people’s zuguo (ancestral nation/home country), did not save Taiwanese people from Japanese colonial suffering. For instance, Japan used Taiwanese women as both nurses and prostitutes for the Japanese army. There is no record to verify the total number of Taiwanese comfort women, but in 1992 Itoh Hideko, ex-member of the House of Representatives in Japan, discovered three surviving telegrams about Japan’s request for more Taiwanese women. This was undeniably Taiwanese women’s predicament, which Nationalists should have paid more attention to either during World War II or right after Japan surrendered to the Allies. No matter how differently people looked at political problems between the PRC and Taiwan, Taiwanese women faced their own predicament, which feminists in China did not deal with. It was not until Taiwan developed her own feminist thought that the fact that the Japanese army sexually abused Taiwanese comfort women became a noted issue.57 This convincingly proves that what Western feminists and Asianists called “Chinese feminism” should not be feminism in the PRC only. Feminism in the PRC should not have represented all the other kinds of Chinese feminism because its main mission did not aim to tackle non-Mainlanders’ special gender problems. Three Waves of Taiwanese Feminism Although three waves of feminism in general are commonly acknowledged by Western gender scholars, Taiwan’s past three waves of feminism deserve the same attention from researchers and foretell future waves of Taiwanese feminism. This chapter explains Taiwan’s recent three waves of feminism: first, women’s rights during the Japanese colonial period; second, the Nationalist Party’s women’s organizations; and third, the lifting of martial law and the rise of grassroots feminists. Every wave of Taiwanese feminism is unique and has its own disadvantages.

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As a matter of fact, whether current worldwide scholars are familiar with the three waves of Taiwanese feminism is undeniably at question. Even though some elites and academics have done research about the three waves of Taiwanese feminism and participated in feminist activism, the three waves are actually not free from researchers’ criticism at all. This chapter also highlights scholarly critiques about the three waves of Taiwanese feminism.58 Women’s Rights and Organizations during the Japanese Colonial Period According to what current historians have rediscovered about modern Taiwanese history, the earliest Taiwanese feminism probably occurred in the Japanese colonial era. In this era, Japanese colonizers and anti-Japanese elites were two significant groups of people for the initial feminism in colonial Taiwan. Japanese colonizers modernized Taiwanese women’s education because Taiwanese women were deemed Japanese citizens. Anti-Japanese elites also advocated feminist thought because of their political ideal of attracting Taiwanese women’s support for their activism against Japanese imperialism. Japan helped Taiwanese women unbind their feet (Brown, 88–89).59 Japanese colonizers established prestigious girls’ high schools.60 Japanese imperialists established women’s magazines, such as Furen yu jiating (Women and Families) and Taiwan furen jie (Taiwanese Women’s Field). Japan also organized Taiwanese women in the patriotic women’s system (Yang, Tsui, 100–130 & 165–167);61 they organized Japanese-styled aiguo furen hui (Ladies’ Patriotic Association). But Japanese colonizers benefited Taiwanese women not because they really cared about Taiwanese women but simply because Taiwan was Japan’s colony. Whether what Japan did for Taiwanese women can be considered the earliest feminist ideology in Taiwan is an unanswerable question. Except for Japanese colonizers’ feminism in Taiwan, local Taiwanese people had their own feminist thought early in the Japanese colonial era. For instance, local Taiwanese elites’ mainstream anti-imperialist newspapers and magazines, such as Taiwan xinminbao (News of New Taiwanese Folks) and Tai-oan chheng-lian (Taiwan qingnian/Taiwan Youth),62 ambitiously advertised the earliest local Taiwanese feminist notions in order to encourage women’s participation in anti-Japanese social movements (Lu, 84–94). For the sake of Taiwan’s modernization, some Western feminist activism, such as American women’s pursuit of the right to vote, was introduced to their Taiwanese readers

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(Yang, Tsui, 226–252, 298–315, 449–454, 521–525, 586–589). In 1920, Tai-oan chheng-lian included Peng Hua-ying’s essay entitled “Do Women’s Problems Exist in Taiwan?” In this essay, Peng compares Western women, who enjoyed voting rights, with submissive women in the East (Lu, 83; Peng, 62). Owing to their Japanese language ability, anti-Japanese elites depended on Japanese or Chinese translations of Western feminist activism, especially when some of the anti-Japanese elites studied or traveled to Japan or the Chinese mainland (Lu, 79). The elites’ introduction of Western feminist activism, therefore, was restricted within what was already translated, and they might miss what was not yet translated. Their introduction, however, at least made it possible for Western feminist activism to be known in Taiwan. Whether the events we have discussed so far could be truly the first wave of modern Taiwanese feminism is debatable. Although there were tiny women’s organizations in the period of Japanese colonization, how influential they were at that time is unknown. The dispute over their influence has arisen from the concern that this Taiwanese feminist activism might not have been strong enough to change the average social ideology about gender issues. For instance, stereotypical gender roles, such as men who are too proud to do housework and women who are timid brides with dowry63 or well-behaved caretakers with steady income, remained unchallenged (Wolf, Women and the Family, 128–149). This kind of labor division, which Japanese colonial chauvinism endorsed, prospered and became rooted in the Taiwanese capital at that time: Tainan. The fact that Tainan brides, on average, had the greatest dowries was proof. As for other proof, it might lie in most Tainan people’s patriarchal view of the best jobs for men versus the best jobs for women: for men, physicians64 and for women, either physicians’ wives or children’s caretakers, such as nurses and schoolteachers. Lai Ho’s literary works about physicians also reflected the attention paid by local Taiwanese people to physicians because of Japanese colonial impacts. One of Lai Ho’s famous literary works is even entitled Xinse ma (The Physician’s Mother or The Doctor’s Mother).65 These, perhaps, evidenced the residual chauvinist division of labor since Japanese colonialism. Even in the late twentieth century, medical schools were still the most popular schools for students from the First Tainan Boys’ Senior High School; normal universities and teachers’ colleges were the so-called best choices for students from Tainan Girls’ Senior High School. Taiwan’s previous first family, Chen Shui-bien’s family, with

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a history in Tainan, chose a physician as its son-in-law and turned its daughter into a physician’s wife as recently as the beginning of the twenty-first century. Hsieh Chang-ting (Frank Hsieh), the prime minister in 2005–2006, with an administrative history in the south of Taiwan, has a physician as his son-in-law, too. If “the term ‘postcolonial’ . . . refer[s] to ‘all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day’ ” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, 194), this preference for physicians as sons-inlaw is part of the Japanese post-colonial influence on contemporary Taiwanese culture. The Lifting of Martial Law and the Democratic Progressive Party’s Social Movements After the Qing Dynasty was terminated and the Kuomintang (KMT/ Nationalist Party) defeated Japan during World War II, Taiwanese people expected the KMT to take better care of them in order to compensate them for China’s giving Taiwan to Japan. Taiwanese people set off firecrackers to celebrate the day Taiwan was formally returned to China by Japan. Some of them even dressed up and went to the harbors in order to welcome the Nationalist troops that took over Taiwan in 1945. But the more Taiwanese people expected, the more disappointed they were. Taiwanese people with Southern Fujian heritage did not think the KMT treated them well. After China had abandoned Taiwan and then reaccepted Taiwan, the KMT did not compensate Taiwan and thus failed to satisfy local Taiwanese people. On the contrary, Nationalist soldiers deeply disappointed local Taiwanese people because they wore straw slippers, used frying pans as shields, and looked more embarrassing than Japanese colonial troops when local Taiwanese young men lined up to welcome them at the harbors. Some of them even raped young girls in the Taiwanese countryside, occupied local Taiwanese people’s houses, and married either poor aboriginal Taiwanese women or mentally handicapped women. From the KMT’s perspective, Chiang Kai-shek wanted only to defeat Chinese Communists and return to China. Taiwan was merely where Chiang temporarily stayed and thus might not be important enough for Nationalists at that time. Maybe because of their keen desire to return to China, Nationalists did not seem to fully understand how local Taiwanese people felt. The 228 (February 28) Incident in 1947, described below, did not draw attention until the lifting of martial law in 1987. The KMT’s

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official interpretation before the lifting of martial law was that the government maintained social order by taking advantage of the police and military forces. From the local Taiwanese people’s viewpoint, this incident did not result from social disorders at all; on the contrary, this incident highlighted Taiwanese people’s disappointment and anger.66 It also exposed the conflicts between waishengren (newcomers from other provinces in China) and benshengren (native people in Taiwan province—namely, Taiwanese people with Southern Min heritage, Hakka heritage, or aboriginal heritage). On February 27, 1947, the police hit a senior woman, Lin Chiangmai, and killed a passerby, Chen Wen-hsi, because Lin had sold cigarettes in Taipei City. Some people in Taipei City were furious and demonstrated the next day in protest. The KMT shot the protesters. This made more benshengren rage. More and more people gathered in Ban-chiao and Hsin-chu train stations to protest the KMT’s military suppression. On March 1, 2, 6–9, and 11, 1947, the police and the KMT army shot more benshengren. Some benshengren began to avenge their dead by beating and killing waishengren. The Nationalist official interpretation was that benshengren disliked waishengren. On March 13, 1947, the KMT government confiscated all the newspaper offices and burned publications about this event. For this reason, Taiwanese critics at that time did not dare to talk about the 228 Incident. In 1949, more than two million people followed Chiang Kai-shek to take refuge in Taiwan after the CCP defeated the KMT. Chiang possessed the Taiwanese administrative power, and he announced that Taipei would be the capital. In the same year, he started martial law, which strictly disallowed Taiwanese people’s civil rights: peaceful protests, establishments of new political parties, petitions, private organizations of large conferences, freedom to travel back to China, and so on. Like Koxinga, Chiang Kai-shek cared only about how to win China back, developing Taiwan merely because he wanted to prepare for future wars against Communists. He hated Japan because of the Sino-Japanese battles in China, not because of how heartlessly Japanese colonizers had tortured Taiwanese people. But Chiang’s biggest mistake in Taiwan was probably baise kongbu (the white terror). In the scarring era of white terror, whoever complained about the KMT would risk his or her life. The white terror lasted after Chiang Kai-shek died. After the United States discontinued its official relationship with the ROC and regarded the PRC as the only China in 1978, the strict political control was worsened. In 1979, non-KMT political figures were enthusiastic about an electoral campaign, but the KMT government stopped this election

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because of the United States’ new friendship with the PRC. This irritated the non-KMT people; they established a journal entitled Meili dao (Formosa) to express their political ideal of canceling martial law. The editorial board of this journal planned to have a memorial conference for human rights on December 10, 1979. The KMT government disallowed this plan. On December 9, the editorial board of this journal had conflicts with the police in Ku-shan, Kaohsiung. Two of the non-KMT people were arrested and then released. This was called the Ku-shan Incident. Because of this incident, the editorial board of the journal decided to still have their memorial conference for human rights in Kaohsiung. The police stopped the audience from participating in the conference, and the audience, police, and non-KMT people fought against one another. This incident is referred to as either the Formosa Incident or the Kaohsiung Incident. Some of the non-KMT people involved with the journal Formosa were put in jail. Neither the Ku-shan Incident nor the Formosa Incident conveyed an obvious feminist flavor, but one of the most important Taiwanese feminist pioneers, Lü Hsiu-lien, was involved. She was imprisoned for twelve years after the incident (Wang, Ya-ko, 69–73).67 The more the KMT forbade citizens to complain, and the more orphaned and abused Taiwan seemed to be, the more violently people in Taiwan struck back. Discontent among citizens finally reached a boiling point. In 1987, Chiang Ching-kuo finally announced the lifting of martial law. Non-KMT people immediately established their own political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). With the lifting of martial law, Taiwan stepped into a more open-minded, democratic, and diverse era. Since 1987, for the obvious political purpose of justifying their distance from the PRC, people in Taiwan have increasingly claimed Taiwanese identity to be an amalgam of Han culture and ancestry, aborigine culture and ancestry, and Japanese culture (but not ancestry), in the making for almost 400 years, and separate from Mainland China for the entire twentieth century (Brown, 2).

Social trends became more varied and colorful. More and more new Western thoughts were introduced to Taiwan: post-modernism, postcolonialism, post-structuralism, new historicism, environmental protection, feminism, multiculturalism, anti-homophobia, anti-racism, Marxism, and so forth. Taiwanese feminist movements, like feminism in the May Fourth Movement and Chinese Communism, were also mixed with

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socio-political changes. For example, the lifting of martial law and social movements related to the rise of the DPP were both significant sociopolitical changes. They initiated Taiwanese people’s recent understanding of protests and petitions in the democratic system. Diverse and inconclusive feminism in modern Taiwanese history has also been developing prosperously since then. Before 1987, the modern Taiwanese history of feminist activism was only what the KMT was willing to praise: Soong Mei-ling’s contribution to the KMT alliance for women in Taiwan. However, after 1987, more and more hidden Taiwanese history68 related to women was rediscovered and dug out. The DPP arranged different social movements and parades by uniting the oppressed—including women. The pluralism that Hong Kong feminist scholars celebrated also appeared in Taiwan after 1987. Taiwanese feminist activists like Lü Hsiu-lien and Lee Yuan-chen69 were probably the first generation of this kind of activist pioneers (Wang, Ya-ko, 55–56): Lü was not simply a female pioneer70 in the DPP but also the author of Xin nüxing zhuyi (New Feminism); Lee taught in Taiwanese academia before she retired. Lü Hsiu-lien and Lee Yuan-chen’s feminist followers include Ku Yan-ling, Su Chien-ling, and Cheng Chih-hui. Most of these followers have been teaching in Taiwanese academia. Generally speaking, Lü and Lee established a Taiwanese feminist convention: to make possible the overturn of governmental gender policies. Some Taiwanese feminist scholars felt proud of this convention because even feminists in post-Maoist China were not able to do so. Taiwanese feminists could also highlight this in order to differentiate themselves from PRC feminist scholars and activists.71 Although early Taiwanese feminist activism, such as that of Soong72 and Lü, was closely related to political power, subsequent feminists became more and more diverse and independent from political parties in the 1990s. For instance, NGO feminist activism was not subordinate to any political party at all. Unlike Soong Mei-ling, these feminist activists would no longer face any questions about whether their feminist organizations were truly based upon sincere concerns about women or merely on the benefit to the political parties they belonged to. In addition, the diversity of women’s organizations enabled each organization to focus on its own particular concerns, instead of on any political party’s slogan. For instance, Wanqing (Late Sunshine: to live a good life after divorce, which was like the loss of sunshine for traditional Chinese women) specialized in helping divorced women. Caihong (Rainbow) assisted child prostitutes. Taiwanese feminism of the 1990s had its own problems, however. Some feminists regretted the fact that most influential feminist

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activism in Taiwan had not been initiated until some tragic social incidents had happened. Campus sexual harassment is probably the best example. From 1995 to 1997, several cases of sexual harassment on college campuses attracted a lot of attention (Wang, Ya-ko, 122).73 Feminist organizations, such as Funü xinzhi (the Awakening), collaborated with feminist lawyers to help these women victims in courthouses. The media frequently highlighted these cases so that nearly all of Taiwanese society became aware of the problem of campus sexual harassment (Lo, Tsun-ying, 61–102). Several accused male professors either quit or were fired by their universities. Not until then had Taiwanese academia started to become aware of how serious the problem of campus sexual harassment was.74 On the avenue in front of the Presidential Palace, Josephine C. Ho75 led a radical feminist protest against sexual harassment on university campuses in which feminist participants threw sanitary napkins into the air. Their progressive slogan was zhi yao xing gaochao, buyao xing saorao (We want only orgasm, not sexual harassment). In addition, the rape and assassination of Peng Wan-ju76 and the female graduate student’s homicide case in National Tsing Hua University77 are also excellent examples. A lot of practical and influential feminist activism about women’s safety did not begin until Peng’s death. It was not until after the homicide case on university campus shocked almost all of Taiwanese society that Taiwanese academia started to notice the necessity and importance of creating some required classes about gender egalitarianism and feminism in university curricula.78 In brief, Taiwanese feminist activists did not do much until many tragedies took place. This fact was one of the largest drawbacks of Taiwanese feminism in the 1990s. The History of Academic Feminism in Taiwan In addition to activist feminism, academic feminism in Taiwan is also diverse. Some feminist scholars did not participate in any petitions, protests, or parades but preferred writing down their feminist digests in offices. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, scholars such as Chien Ying-ying and Song Mei-hua with backgrounds in Western literary studies introduced and translated Anglo-American feminist theories. Generally speaking, literature and sociology were the biggest cradles of scholarly Taiwanese feminist thought, but historians, anthropologists, and researchers at law schools and medical schools also touched upon gender issues in Taiwan. Many Taiwanese scholars transferred the feminist thought they had learned about when

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they had studied abroad in the West in order to tackle Taiwan’s own gender problems. For instance, some scholars applied their training in or knowledge of literary textual analysis, legal studies, anthropological and sociological backgrounds, (multi)cultural studies, or women’s oral history to research topics related to local Taiwanese women’s education and marriage, including Taiwanese comfort women (Wang, Ya-ko, 129–136), child brides,79 adopted daughters,80 parental control and conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in traditional kinship structure (Levy, 204–205 & 289–349), and girls’ education under Japanese colonization. Some anthropologists focused on Hakka women;81 some Taiwanese literary researchers explored aboriginal women’s literature; and some sociologists published academic articles to problematize various marital issues about “Mainland brides” (women from the PRC who married Taiwanese men)82 and “foreign brides” (brides mainly from the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and other Southeastern Asian countries).83 In addition to the above-mentioned women’s predicaments regarded as research topics by feminist scholars, the lack of college and graduate programs for gender studies was also an important part of Taiwan’s gender problems from the past. The first graduate program of gender studies in Taiwan was not established until enough Western feminist theories had been transplanted into Taiwan. The first center of women’s studies was not established until 1985 at National Taiwan University (Lin, Wei-hung, “Funü yanjiu,” 27–43).84 This center offered classes but no certificates for degrees in gender studies. Since then, most other national universities have gradually started their own centers for gender studies. The first master’s program in gender studies was founded at National Kaohsiung Normal University in 2000.85 The next year, Kaohsiung Medical University also had its own master’s program in gender studies.86 The third master’s program was established at ShuTe Technological University.87 The fourth was established at Shih Hsin University in 2003.88 Although a number of feminist scholars organized Nüxing xue xuehui (the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars’ Association),89 many Taiwanese feminists in the 1990s had different opinions about what Taiwanese feminism should be. Even when facing the same social problem related to gender issues, such as public prostitutes (Lin, Fang-mei, 58; Wang, Ya-ko, 136–141), many Taiwanese feminist scholars took different standpoints, disagreed with one another, and sometimes became enemies.90 Some Taiwanese feminist scholars even stayed at a

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distance from the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars’ Association for this reason. Therefore, so far, which feminist scholars should be included or excluded in the Taiwanese feminist historical outline has still been a great puzzle. Chinese Feminism, PRC Feminism, Communist Feminism, and Taiwanese Feminism Based on the historical quest for Chinese feminism, PRC feminism, Communist feminism, and Taiwanese feminism, I contend that Chinese feminism includes studies or activism about women or gender issues in pre-historical China; matriarchal and patriarchal China; every dynasty in Imperial China; Republican China; democratic and Communist China; polygamous and monogamous China; colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, and Manchuria; the PRC territory; post-1997 Hong Kong; post-1999 Macao; and the rest of the Chinese cultural realm. PRC feminism should include not merely Communist feminism but also academic feminism, acculturated or sinicized feminism from the West, activist feminism, academic queer studies, lesbian-gay-bisexualtransgender/transsexual/transvestism (LGBT) activism, activism and research about Tibetan women’s human rights, and any other feminist or queer issue in the PRC political region. Similarly, Taiwanese feminism should include studies or activism about women and gender concerns in pre-historical Taiwan, aboriginal and matriarchal Taiwan, Taiwan under the political control and socio-cultural influence of Chinese dynasties, polygamous and monogamous Taiwan, Taiwan under Japanese colonialism, postcolonial Taiwan, indigenous Taiwan, Taiwan under the political dominion of the KMT and the DPP, and the rest of Taiwan. Taiwanese feminism includes everything related to women’s, queer, and gender problems in Taiwan. When scholars discuss Chinese feminism and gender studies, none of the above-mentioned details, including the three waves of feminism in Mainland China and the three waves of feminism in Taiwan, should be ignored. Taiwanese feminism should be neither excluded from the contents of Chinese feminism nor replaced with any other kind of Chinese feminism.

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Appraisal”). Tongshi jiaoyu jikan (General Education Quarterly) 7(1) (March 2000): 27–43. Liu, Lydia H. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. Lo, Jung-pang. Kang You-wei: A Biography and a Symposium. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1967, pp. 38–39. Lo, Tsun-ying. “Shoushi qianbao de meiti jiangou: zhongguo shibao ‘shida an’ ji ‘huli an’ xinwen baodao zhi wenben fanxi bijiao” (“To Be Aware of Media’s Construction: Textual Comparative Analyses of the Normal University Case and the Hu-Li Case in China Times”). Xing, Baoli, Xinwenyan (Sex, Violence, Eyes for News). Wang Songyin edt. Taipei: Shuoran, 1995, pp. 61–102. Lu, Hsin-yi. “Imagining ‘New Women,’ Imagining Modernity: Gender Rhetoric in Colonial Taiwan.” Women in the New Taiwan: Gender Roles and Gender Consciousness in a Changing Society. Catherine Farris, Anru Lee, and Murray Rubinstein edt. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. Lü, Hsiu-lien. New Feminism in Taiwan. Taipei: Youth, 1974. Lutz, Jessie G. Pioneer Chinese Christian Women. Bethlehem: Leigh University Press, 2010. Ma, Yuxin. Women Journalists and Feminism in China, 1989–1937. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2010. Mu, Yi and Mark V. Thompson. Crisis at Tiananmen. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, 1989. Nie, Jing-Bao. “The Problem of Coerced Abortion in China and Related Ethical Issues.” Abortion. Belinda Bennett edt. Burlington, VT: Ashgate/Dartmouth, 2004. ———. Behind the Silence: Chinese Voices on Abortion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Ono, Kazuko. Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850–1950. Kathryn Bernhardt trans. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 1989. Parish, William and Martin King Whyte. Village and Family in Contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Peng, Hua-ying. “Do Women’s Problems Exist in Taiwan?” Tai-oan chheng-lian (Taiwan qingnian/Taiwan Youth) 1(2) (1920): 62. Polumbaum, Judy. “ ‘Professionalism’ in China’s Press Corps.” Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Yen-bo Wu edt. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Qiao, Yigang. Duocai de xuanlü—zhongguo nüxing wenxue zhuti yanjiu (Colorful Melody—Studies of Themes in Chinese Women’s Literature). Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 2003. Rankin, Mary Backus. “The Emergence of Women at the End of the Ch’ing: The Case of Ch’iu Chin.” Women in Chinese Society. Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke edt. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975, pp. 39–66. Reynolds, Douglas R. “A Golden Decade Forgotten: Japan- China Relations, 1898– 1907.” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 4(2) (1987): 93–153. Ririchun (Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters/COSWAS). Yu chang tongxing, fanchiang yuejie: gongchang kangzheng yundong wenji (To Walk with Prostitutes, To Move across the Wall and the Boundary: A Collection of Public Prostitutes’ Protests). Taipei: Juliu, 2001. Roberts, Rosemary. “Women’s Studies in Literature and Feminist Literary Criticism in Contemporary China.” Dress, Sex, and Text in Chinese Culture. Antonia Finnane and Anne McLaren edt. Clayton, Australia: Monash Asia Institute, 1999.

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Rofel, Lisa. “Liberation Nostalgia and a Yearning for Modernity.” Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State. Christina Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, Lisa Rafel, and Tyrene White edt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, pp. 226–249. Rozman, Gilbert. The Modernization of China. New York: The Free Press, 1981. Scalapino, Robert A. “Prelude to Marxism: The Chinese Student Movement in Japan, 1900–1910.” Approaches to Modern Chinese History. Albert Feuerwerker, Rhoads Murphey, and Mary C. Wright edt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, pp. 190–215. Scalapino, Robert A. and George T. Yu. Modern China and Its Revolutionary Process: Recurrent Challenges to the Traditional Order 1850–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Schoppa, R. Keith. The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. ———. Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002. Schwartz, Benjamin. In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Selby, John. The Paper Dragon: An Account of the China Wars, 1840–1900. New York: Praeger, 1968. Seldon, Mark. “Limits of the Democratic Movement.” Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yen-bo edt. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Shepherd, John R. “The Island Frontier of the Ch’ing, 1684–1780.” Taiwan: A New History. Murray A. Rubinstein edt. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999, pp. 107– 132. Shi, Jianguo. Chen Hengzhe zhuan (Biography of Sophie H. C. Chen). Shanghai: Shanghai Yuandong, 2010. Siu, Bobby. Women of China: Imperialism and Women’s Resistance 1900–1949. London: Zed Press, 1982. Snow, Helen Foster. Women in Modern China. Paris: Mouton, 1967. Soong, Ching-ling. “Women and Revolution.” The Struggle for New China. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1952. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. ———. Zhuexun xiandai zhongguo (The Search for Modern China). Wen Chia-i trans. Taipei: Shibao, 2001. ———. To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960. Boston: Little, Brown, 1969. ———. The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895–1980. New York: Viking Press, 1981. Spencer, Cornelia. Three Sisters: The Story of the Soong Family of China. New York: J. Day, 1939. Stacey, Judith. Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Stalin, Joseph. “Report on the Work of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U (B.).” Problems of Leninism. J. V. Stalin edt. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1947. Su, Kaiming. Modern China: A Topical History. Beijing: New World Press, 1985. Sullivan, Lawrence R. China since Tiananmen: Political, Economic, and Social Conflicts. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995.

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CH A P T ER

3

Taiwanese Academy’s Reception of Feminist Scholars and Academic Feminism: Interviews about the 1990s

The question of what Chinese feminism is is a question about Chinese reception of feminism. Within various academic environments,1 Chinese acceptance of feminism equates with Chinese academia’s acceptance of feminist or female scholars. In this chapter, I will investigate Taiwanese academia’s reception of both feminism and feminist scholars in the 1990s. In Taiwan of the 1990s, there were in total more than one hundred fifty colleges and universities. Because of fundamentalist and traditional requirements for female graduate students and female faculty members to be married, to give birth to babies, and to serve as caretakers for children, parents-in-law, and ill family members, women were usually not given enough socio-cultural encouragement or even equal opportunities to pursue their degrees, teaching positions, tenure, administrative positions, promotion, or better academic reputation. Therefore, in 1998 only 32.3 percent of master’s students were female according to the Ministry of Education, 2 and 20.2 percent of doctoral students were female. In all the colleges and universities in Taiwan, 34.5 percent of faculty members were female. In other words, only one third of faculty members were female. Before the late 1990s, Taiwan had no assistant professors. Lecturers who taught for three years and published three articles in professional journals could apply to be promoted to associate professors. Most lecturers already had master’s degrees or Ph.D. candidacies at that time. As long as they finished their doctoral programs, they would be immediately promoted to associate professors. After the late 1990s, lecturers with the same accomplishments could be promoted as assistant professors, not associate professors. Assistant professors who

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taught for three years and published four articles in acceptable academic journals could be promoted to associate professors, while associate professors who taught for three years and published five articles in good scholarly journals could be promoted to full professors. All applications for promotion had to be approved by the departmental committee, collegial committee, and university committee. If applicants did not accept the final decision, they could request a detailed explanation of their shortcomings or ask for a re-reviewing process. Sometimes, different departments or universities would have different requirements for faculty members who sought to be promoted. For instance, some departments or universities would replace four or five journal articles with an academic monograph and two journal articles. However, most departments and universities, under the Ministry of Education’s control, shared similar criteria when deciding faculty members’ promotion (see National Taiwan University’s criteria as an example in Table 3.1). Table 3.1 National Taiwan University’s Criteria to Decide Faculty Members’ Promotion

Continued

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Table 3.1 Continued

Continued

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Table 3.1

Continued

Source of data: Official Website of Center for Teacher Education at National Taiwan University: http://www.education.ntu.edu.tw/ website information retrieved in March 2011.

The number of male lecturers was almost the same as, actually 1.3 percent higher than, that of female lecturers. However, if female or feminist scholars did ambitiously seek tenure, promotion, or significant administrative positions, they were much more likely to be rejected than their male peers. Feminist scholars and feminism still faced difficulties in being accepted and appreciated. Thus the number of male assistant professors was 2.6 times higher than that of female assistant professors. The number of male associate professors was 3.2 times larger than that of female associate professors. The number of male full professors was more than seven times greater than that of female full professors. That is to say, there is an undeniably obvious bottleneck between assistant professorship and associate professorship as well as associate professorship, full professorship. In brief, Taiwanese women in graduate programs and female faculty members, especially those who were promoted as associate professors, full professors and those who had important administrative positions, were still a kind of “on-campus minority” in the 1990s, especially when compared with American female faculty members. Taiwanese academia’s acceptance of feminist scholars and academic feminism, to the degree that it occurred, derived from Taiwanese elites’ transfers of Western feminism under the impacts of zhong xue wei ti xi xue wei yong (functional adaptation of Western

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sciences and knowledge but the maintainability of an inner Chinese substance), 3 a part of Chinese academic convention since the late Qing Dynasty. However, Taiwanese feminist scholars did not always escape problems even though feminism originated in the West. Taiwan’s feminism was not always free from internal disputes. For instance, academic feminism experienced power struggles among various academic branches while rising as a promising neonate. Taiwanese feminist scholars also broke through bottlenecks and overcame difficulties incrementally in order to survive by working on women’s/gender studies in various academic environments. If we would like to really understand the bittersweetness Taiwanese feminist scholars experienced in the past, we must investigate what Taiwanese feminist scholars faced in various academic environments. Therefore, I interviewed Taiwanese feminist scholars and, while maintaining their anonymity, report and analyze these discussions here. The rise of Taiwanese feminist studies, as a newly established research field, was not free from obstruction. Although most elites agreed upon the need for gender equality, Taiwanese feminists still faced various difficulties and obstacles. Women in universities coped with gendered power struggles as a result of Western feminists having become the mouthpiece of global feminism. It is my hope that Taiwanese feminist scholars will also have an equal chance to be heard. In the summer of 2002,4 I interviewed a total of twenty-five Taiwanese feminist scholars anonymously. All of my Taiwanese interviewees taught courses related to women’s/gender issues. All of them were assistant professors, associate professors, full professors, or program directors when I interviewed them. All of them already had master’s degrees. Twenty-one of them had also earned doctoral degrees either before the 1990s or in the 1990s. Among all of these interviewees with doctoral degrees, two of them had studied in Germany; two of them had studied in England; three of them had completed their doctoral programs in Taiwan; all of the rest had earned their doctoral degrees in the United States. I gave every interviewee a designation (see Table 3.2). In this chapter and the following chapter, I list and analyze the data that I collected from interviewees. Generally speaking, it is qualitative research. To preserve the anonymity of these interviewees who related their personal experiences in academy and tenure and promotion processes, I do not disclose details that may expose any specific interviewee’s affiliation, academic status, or tenure/promotion reviews, to do quantitative or statistical research.

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Table 3 . 2 Ta i w a ne s e I nte r v ie we e s’ D e s ig n at ion s (Designations given in order of surnames in Hundreds of Family Names) Taiwanese Interviewees in Non- Taiwanese Interviewees in Literary Research Fields Literary Research Fields TW1 TW2

TWL1 TWL2

TW3

TWL3

TW4

TWL4

TW5

TWL5

TW6

TWL6

TW7

TWL7

TW8

TWL8

TW9

TWL9

TW10

TWL10

TW11

TWL11

TW12

TWL12

TW13

TWL13

In addition to these twenty-five interviewees, I had TWL13 at the end of my list. TWL13 was not an interviewee but helped me reach some of my interviewees. Besides these twenty-six feminist scholars, I contacted ten others, but they were reluctant to be interviewed. I persuaded those who were willing to be my interviewees to describe to me some academic power struggles that Taiwanese feminism and Taiwanese feminist scholars were involved in. When they started to delineate difficulties and academic environmental problems, I could clearly see their need for moral support and reassurance.5 If they did not feel safe enough to reveal their own personal experiences, I shifted their focus from themselves to others and asked them about the power struggles that other Taiwanese feminist scholars faced according to their understandings and opinions. Feminist scholars faced various types of bottlenecks in Taiwanese academia of the 1990s. Different feminist scholars had different personalities, life experiences, academic environmental problems, beliefs, and survival strategies, all of which affected how they dealt with power struggles. Anonymity6 assured the sense of safety that interviewees needed when disclosing their experiences. In other words, I could get to the real depth of their feelings about Taiwanese academic power struggles.

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T’ P- C C Reception of Western Feminism and Establishment of Local Taiwanese Feminism Taiwan’s post-colonial experiences influenced how Western feminist theories were accepted by Taiwanese academia as a sort of “fashionable” Western knowledge. Taiwan’s original self-confidence more or less was influenced as a result of being orphaned by China and mistreated by colonizers from Japan, Holland, England, Spain, and so on. One of my anonymous interviewee disclosed indigenous Taiwan’s postcolonial self-identity as an orphan. She said, Whenever people in China got into trouble or wanted support, Taiwan always satisfied them. However, whenever they did not need Taiwan, Taiwan was one of the first areas that China gave away. Although Taiwan was called Formosa (Beautiful Island) by Portuguese sailing explorers, China seemed to disdain such a marginalized and tiny place. Taiwan was merely something that China gave away in order to protect herself. Taiwan was a yaxiya de gu’er (the Orphan of Asia) (Chang, Shung-sheng Yvonne, 274), cruelly deserted by China and violently abused by various kinds of colonial imperialists (Chang, Pang-mei Natasa, 274).

On the one hand, because of the loss of the original self-confidence in Taiwan, some Taiwanese scholars started to pursue the most advanced research in powerful countries. On the other hand, because of the same loss of the original self-confidence in Taiwan, some Taiwanese scholars refused to admit that some Western feminist literary theoretical research was even worth appreciating. Their self-confidence was damaged to such a degree that they misunderstood Taiwanese acceptance of Western feminist literary theories to be acting as a humiliated and slave-like imitator of Western feminists. For example, TWL5 complained that appropriators of Western feminist literary theories might be misinterpreted as foolish followers of Western fashions. In any case, this lack of Taiwanese self-confidence resulted in both the acceptance and the hatred for Western feminist theories in different literary fields. Generally speaking, there were at least three significant literary fields in Taiwanese academia of the 1990s: first, Chinese literature; second, foreign/Western/comparative literature; and, third, Taiwanese literature. The Chinese literary field and the Taiwanese literature field did not accept women’s literature and Western feminist literary

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theories to such a great extent as the foreign/Western/comparative literary field (see the section about the feminist label). Regardless of whether they were resistant or fascinated, one of the most influential factors in determining their attitudes was likely Taiwan’s history of being defeated and colonized. For instance, TWL7’s and TWL8’s Taiwanese PhD students in the field of Chinese literature/Taiwanese literature rejected inclusion of any Western feminist literary publications in their preliminary reading lists. Their excuse was a lack of sufficient English language ability to comprehend publications in English and other Western languages. Their lack of Taiwanese self-confidence drove them to unconsciously assume that the languages used by those who had defeated or colonized Taiwan/China seemed much more “advanced” and therefore must be more difficult and harder to master than either Mandarin Chinese or Taiwanese dialects. The more they lacked Taiwanese self-confidence, the more they resisted Western feminist literary publications, and the farther they stayed away from Western feminist literary publications (except for limited Chinese translation of Western feminist literary theories), the less competitive they seemed. After they finish their doctoral degrees and go on to teach in Taiwanese academia, they will probably join the above-mentioned scholars in opposing new feminist literary theories from the West. Taiwanese academia’s pursuit of the West and Taiwan’s alteration and use of Western feminist theories were like two sides of the same coin. Taiwanese feminist scholars never wanted to be simply followers of the West. But on the other hand, some Taiwanese feminist scholars confessed that Taiwan was still transferring the latest Western knowledge and thus running after the West in terms of the most fashionable feminist theories. Since early in the era of Japanese colonization, Taiwanese elites began to chase the most advanced knowledge in Euro-America or Japan. Taiwanese feminist theorists, frankly speaking, were no exception. For instance, French feminist theories became fashionable in American universities during the late 1980s and 1990s. Therefore, Taiwanese feminist literary theorists enthusiastically embraced them in the 1990s. I will analyze this Taiwanese reception of French feminist theories in my fifth chapter. TWL1 agreed that Taiwan did transfer feminist theories from the West. Scholars in foreign/Western/comparative literary fields accepted the most Western theories and went to the West the most frequently. But according to TWL1, what mattered the most was their understanding and afterthoughts in the process of theoretical

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introduction, not necessarily what feminist theories originally were in the West. TWL1 stated, “People said that we did gender studies only because feminism was trendy . . . The obvious French feminist theoretical flavor in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s reflected Taiwanese academia’s enthusiasm.” TWL1 believed that Taiwanese martial law indirectly endorsed the arrival of Western theories. The transplanting and application of Western research theories might turn Taiwanese scholars into a mere tool for Western theories to globalize themselves. Yet for Taiwanese literary scholars, the introduction of Western theories was a way to escape from socio-political burdens in their local environments because almost all the modern Chinese literature in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was labeled as left-wing and thus banned in the era of martial law. To appropriate Western literary thought, for Taiwanese scholars, became a good way to avoid political problems resulting from left-wing literature in the PRC. Feminist theories were considered part of the most popular, advanced, and useful Western theories. Therefore, Taiwan’s transfers of Western feminist literary thought were reasonable and understandable. TWL2 compared literary fields with other academic fields and concluded that literary fields were the earliest fields to include feminism in Taiwanese academia. According to TWL2, there were already some kinds of feminism in the 1980s, but the 1990s were the golden age. TWL2 informed me, In all of Taiwan’s universities, departments of foreign/Western/comparative literature offered at least one class about gender studies every semester. The overall proportion of undergrad and graduate classes related to gender studies was around 1/2, 2/3, or even more in the 1990s.

The increasing number of feminist classes meant that more and more kinds of feminism were taught in classes. TWL4 pointed out that different academic branches had different attitudes toward feminist scholars and feminist theories in the same Taiwanese academia. Chinese literary fields’ insistence on classical elements and reaction against foreign chic, for example, was perhaps the reasons why Chinese literary fields accepted Western theories much less zealously than foreign/Western/comparative literary fields. TWL7 and TWL8 echoed TWL4. They believe that Taiwanese scholars in Chinese literary fields usually had less ability to decode publications in Western languages than those in foreign/Western/

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comparative literary fields. Even though they could depend on Chinese translation of Western publications, the quality and quantity of Chinese translation would be a problem that Chinese literary scholars could not deal with. Considering this, scholars in Chinese literary fields, of course, would be reluctant to expose or emphasize their weakness. One of the best ways to evade their lack of Western language ability was to avoid or to decrease their absorption of Western theoretical elements. Even among Chinese literary studies, scholars who worked on Taiwanese literature might accept feminist thoughts better than those who examined only mainstream classical Chinese literature. TWL8 believed that this was because Taiwanese literature shared the same marginalized, oppressed, and inferior position with women’s literature and feminist literary studies. To sum up, Taiwanese reception of feminism, Western feminist theories, and feminist scholars varied dramatically even within the same academic area. According to my interviewees, both Taiwanese feminist scholars in literary fields and those in non-literary fields agree that feminist theories came from the West. For instance, TW1, TW5, TW6, TW7, and TW9 contended that feminism derived from the West. TW5 did not belong to the literary fields, but she immediately thought of scholars in foreign/Western/comparative literary fields upon my mentioning Taiwanese absorption of Western feminism. When TW7 played host to Western feminist scholars who visited Taiwan, she discovered that most Western feminists assumed Taiwanese feminist scholars were the same as them because they likely further assumed that Taiwanese feminism derived from the West. As for TW9, she did not think that Taiwanese feminist scholars wholeheartedly focused on how Western feminists viewed Taiwanese feminism. She argued that the true target was how Taiwanese feminist scholars adopted Western theories and research methodologies in order to deal with local Taiwanese gender problems. TW1 echoed TWL1’s emphasis on Taiwanese acculturation and localization. According to TW1, because feminism originated in the West, we should pay more attention to whether what we transferred was suitable for our local Taiwan. She warned, Even though we were aware of the problems of applicability, we might still unconsciously be influenced by Western theories . . . Taiwanese gender studies were above the overall Asian average. But I was worried that we transferred Western feminist theories too vigorously. Learning about traditional China, I felt uncomfortable about this from time to

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time . . . On the one hand, Western feminist theories were stimulus and enlightenment to me. However, on the other hand, I saw some of my colleagues, who transferred Western feminist theories, orally claimed to be careful about Taiwan acculturation but never really put localization of Western feminist theories into practice in Taiwan . . . Acculturation was the most significant. If it were not achieved, feminist research would be unreal and a-historical.

In TW6’s academic field, some well-known Taiwanese scholars began to emphasize Taiwan’s own localization and acculturation of Western research theories. Although many Taiwanese researchers were still unconsciously following Western masters’ academic steps, Taiwanese reviewers would encourage journal articles to include citations related to local Taiwanese case studies as well as suggestions on how Taiwanese academia might connect itself with Western academia.

T F L To Be or not to Be, That Is the Survival Strategy! Although pursuits of gender egalitarianism were already commonly accepted, academic exile of feminist scholars was still not uncommon. For example, the tragedy of Luce Irigaray’s being expelled from the male-centered psychoanalytical field is just one example of how those with academic power struggled against feminists. Even groups who expelled feminist scholars from their fields sometimes tried to claim they were open-minded. Often they viewed feminism as something much smaller, less mature (in fact, younger), less rational/controllable (actually, more outspoken and more progressive), less significant, less prestigious, less orthodox, and less advanced than their fields, such as classical literature. Perhaps as a result of their disdain for women’s studies, they successfully barred feminists from their academic territory. TWL10 wrote a textual analysis of the boudoir laments of ancient Chinese women. One of her male sinological readers denied all possibility that this kind of Chinese women’s literature could be part of Chinese literature. In a male-centered perspective, love and sex in women’s literature were not significant enough to be considered “literature.” TWL10’s male readers commented that such a literary textual analysis was “not [an article in the field of] literature, but women’s studies.” TWL8 proposed a research project about Taiwanese women’s Han poetry. She was subsequently rejected because some of her

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anonymous reviewers thought that her brand of poetry was not professional poetry. In 1994, TWL8 sought to offer an undergraduate class on women’s literature. The chairman of Chinese literature disapproved and asked her, “If there is such a class on women’s literature only, then what do you want male students to do?” This chairman should not have assumed that male students would not appreciate women’s literature, because women read men’s literature for hundreds or even thousands of years before literary anthologies included female writers. The case of a friend of TWL7 offered another illustration of how women’s literature was often underestimated by anti-feminists. This friend, an activist feminist scholar teaching literature, was promoted to a full professor in “literature” after publications of her textual criticism on women’s literature. Unfortunately, the textual criticism on women’s literature by a full professor in “literature” was still deemed merely “feminist” research, not “literary” research, according to some male-centered critics. TWL7 strongly indicated to me that such an insensitive academic environment posed a hardship for feminist literary scholars. TW4 mentioned an academic conference hosted by Guojianhui (the Council for National Constructions). A male philosopher was invited to be a discussant for a male gender scholar who worked on marital sexual violence. This philosopher argued that marital/sexual violence was far too insignificant for the council of national constructions to take it into consideration. After this critique, this philosopher immediately offered his own opinions about other issues as well. He entirely ignored this male gender scholar’s conference paper despite the fact that he was to serve as a discussant. Some feminist literary scholars’ strategy was to reject their feminist label in Taiwan. They clearly showed concern for women’s literature and gender egalitarianism. They even applied a considerable number of contemporary Western feminist literary theories to their textual analyses. However, they refused to be too closely related to feminism or women’s studies. Some of them confessed to me that they hoped their research would be labeled as literary research only—not feminist research. Some of them disclosed that they were afraid of being regarded as feminists and that they disliked activist feminists. For instance, TWL13 published many textual analyses of women’s literature, taught graduate-level classes about Western feminist literary theories, and even guided master’s theses and doctoral dissertations on feminist literary textual analyses. However, when I told her

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that my interviewees would be called “feminist scholars,” she was unwilling to participate under this obvious label. Instead of participating, she referred me to other scholars, who were less concerned by the feminist label. On the one hand, some feminist literary scholars cautiously alienated themselves from the feminist label, but on the other hand, the fact that they were truly feminist literary scholars motivated them to help arrange my meetings with other feminist scholars. TWL13 introduced me to many outspoken feminists who assured me that my interview project was a worthwhile one for them to participate in. Why was a woman literary scholar, who specialized in women’s literary textual analyses and was skilled in feminist literary theories, reluctant to identify herself as a feminist? The main reason was likely anti-feminism within her academic environment. Anti-feminists usually group anything feminist with something new, radical, modern, revolutionary, Western (Euro-American), theoretical, or chic. Some opposed the new, revolutionary, up-to-date, progressive, and modern nature of feminism. Why? Maybe it was because they decided to rely on old-fashioned motives, or because they were too conservative to wish to learn about something new. Maybe it was because they worked on traditional, ancient, and classical subjects only. Or maybe it was because they were willing to recognize the value of only classics and age-old thought. Some of them opposed the Western (EuroAmerican) backgrounds of feminism because they were sinologists, or because China/Taiwan was defeated by Western enemies. Some of them opposed feminist literary theories because they wanted to avoid exposing their lack of background knowledge about these theories. Some of them were opposed to feminism because they believed it somehow threatened their male privilege; they were misogynists; they generally looked down upon feminism; or, they had their own misconceptions about feminism. TWL1 likened feminist scholars’ courage to accept the feminist label to openly gay people refusing to hide their sexual orientation. TWL1 confessed that fifteen years ago most Taiwanese feminist literary scholars did not dare to be “out of the closet” because their academic environments would not allow sufficient space for feminists. Even when most feminist literary scholars dared to show their true nature in the 1990s, some academic institutions used feminist literary scholars’ research in order to make it appear that the university was open-minded and progressive. According to TWL1, the university she taught in, as a matter of fact, was still “overseeing [outspoken feminist literary scholars], warning them to be cautiously aware of

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the limitations, and keeping [outspoken feminist literary scholars] in academic custody.” TWL1 felt they were forced to work extra hard so that nobody could find fault with them, in order to protect themselves. TWL1 also believed that their promotion would take a great deal of time. TWL2’s strategy to obtain a decent teaching position and win her success in Taiwanese academia of the early 1990s was to call herself a literary critic of drama and then hide her feminist ideology under Shakespeare. William Shakespeare was a big enough name in the literary fields to protect TWL2 from anti-feminist attacks. According to TWL2, to identify oneself with a feminist scholar would be to marginalize oneself in the 1990s due to the fact that there were no fields that regarded feminist scholars’ interdisciplinary nature as authentic or solid training. Unlike American academia, which regarded feminist scholars’ interdisciplinary backgrounds as an asset, Taiwanese academia did not fully appreciate interdisciplinary training in the 1990s. At that time, feminist scholars were forced to compromise their beliefs by participating in traditional single-discipline fields, such as literature, history, and sociology. They were not able to concentrate fully on feminism or gender studies. The hope for full acceptance of cross-field feminists in the 1990s, in TWL2’s opinion, was like waiting for senior, patriarchal gatekeepers to retire. TWL3 remarked that chairpersons had opportunities to exert their academic power in deciding who would review the research of feminist scholars. If chairpersons selected hostile reviewers for feminist scholars under consideration for promotion to full professors, then the promotion would likely be rejected. TWL4’s survival strategy in the Taiwanese academia of the 1990s was to avoid being radical. Even though gender equality was already generally accepted, feminist scholars who claimed to be radical feminists or homosexuals would still face opposition in the 1990s because of the feminist label that most male colleagues or supervisors would place on feminist scholars. TWL4 secretly joined women’s social movements but behaved “normally” in academia. The gap between the academic performance and the underground activism was significant. TWL5 frankly told me that anti-feminist reviewers sometimes trivialized and degraded feminist literary scholars as blind chasers of new, modern, Western (Euro-American), theoretical, and feminist “fashions.” In her literary field, scholars who focused on women’s literature would be considered readers of inferior literary works and therefore not be seen as strong researchers in the 1990s. She defended,

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“Even if we were truly influenced by these fashions, it did not mean that our articles were entirely value-less. Foreign and trendy things should not have been equal to sinful things. There were not merely stylish and exotic components in these academic essays but also other valuable insights.” It required a strong personality, tenacity, a fighting attitude, and a lot of toughness to succeed in these academic circumstances. TWL5’s exact phrase on this point was “Otherwise, you would have no tenure. You will even not know where you were stranded.” TWL5 confessed to me that she herself was not strong enough to proclaim herself as an activist feminist because “this was a matter of the inborn toughness within your innate personality. It was not something your academic efforts could compensate. The toughness of those who dared to bear such a strong activist feminist label would, more or less, prevent attacks from weaker anti-feminists. A strong personality, tenacity, and a fighting attitude protected them, to some extent.” TWL1’s opinion was close to TWL5’s. She explained, In the 1990s, feminist scholars were usually mis-regarded as aggressive women because of their feminist label. Milder anti-feminists might dare not to fight against these aggressive feminists.

TWL4 seems to agree with the need for the protection under the feminist label. She believed that conservative participants in Taiwanese academia of the 1990s dared not even focus on outspoken feminists, who received frequent coverage in the media. For some women literary scholars in Taiwan, their overt feminist label immediately resulted in the open hostility of anti-feminists. For instance, TWL6 was even denigrated by her colleagues’ wives. They misinterpreted that her vigorous feminist pursuits were simply posttraumatic “disorders” after her divorce. TWL6’s department chairs threatened to fire her many times. Only friends in feminist activism provided her spiritual comfort. Yet TWL6 used the same survival strategy as TWL9 in the Taiwanese academia of the 1990s: not to confront colleagues and supervisors in their respective departments. Instead, all of TWL6 and TWL9’s feminist pursuits took place outside of their academic affiliations. In the research field that TWL7 belongs to, academic careers would not be problematic as long as scholars avoided an emphasis on feminism. TWL7 disclosed that her academic field expected women researchers to be feminine, tender, mild, and sweet-natured.

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Acceptance of feminist scholars, according to TWL7’s understanding and experiences, would be unlikely if their research subjects were women’s problems in literary works. TWL8 believed that feminist scholars’ personalities, life experiences, and academic training also affected Taiwan’s acceptance of feminist scholars. TWL8 experienced difficulties in her personal life since childhood. The patriarchal environment taught her that to be outspoken was to be a martyr and to preclude her own survival. Therefore, TWL8’s strategy was not to expose her opinions, even though she had many thoughts against gender inequality. TWL8 disliked feminist activists’ street parades, but she took a supportive view of housewives’ organizations for ecological concerns. She also paid extra attention to women’s literature. TWL9 clearly argued that feminist scholars should be united as a team—not separate and distant individuals fighting lone battles and enduring trivial defeats. TWL9 agreed with me that on occasion the reason behind the mainstream’s allowance of a limited space for feminist scholars was only so that they could claim diversity—not truly to accept, understand, and respect the under-represented. However, even though this might be the case, TWL9 advocated that Taiwanese feminist scholars should still use this to their advantage in order to unite with other minorities and to ultimately deconstruct the mainstream’s oversights or misconceptions. TWL9 named this survival strategy a policy of jieli shili (to exert one’s own power by taking advantage of others’ power). In TWL11’s viewpoint, prevention was a better survival strategy than problem-solving. She assumed that she was safe from criticism because she carefully chose “feminist-friendly” institutions in which to teach, and she cautiously avoided academic organizations that might be hostile to feminism and queer studies. TWL12’s ceaseless struggles for the rights of women to receive graduate degrees, obtain parental affection, and use family resources in daily life resulted in parents’ physical violence and emotional abuse. TWL12 solved the problem of sexual inequality by reporting cases of domestic violence to the police station, the violence center, hospitals, and mental health clinics as well as to the courthouse. And then, she cut off her connections with the abusers. TW1’s feminist label resulted in male colleagues’ trivialization of her feminist research subjects. In TW1’s experiences, male colleagues were careful not to explicitly declare that feminism was unimportant. But they would clearly imply that feminism was not significant enough for them to address.

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Comparing different research fields’ attitudes toward Taiwanese gender studies, TW5 felt that larger, more stable, and secure fields, such as legal studies or political studies, did not regard gender studies as anything too threatening. Yet smaller academic fields, such as departments of domestic science in normal universities, would be more vigilant and watchful. Some of TW5’s reviewers recognized her as a feminist and immediately assumed that she might be very opinionated with too strong a personality. Like those of TW5, TW4’s reviewers also assumed that scholars who worked on gender issues were radical researchers. TW6 and TW7 frankly verified the “glass ceiling” that trapped feminist scholars. TW8 termed this “academic hegemony” against the feminist label. Regardless of whether top professors sincerely agreed about the feminist label, to have at least one as a major advisor in a PhD program could prevent peers’ attacks (Reis, 118–119). This was an efficient part of TW6’s survival strategy. The feminist label was occasionally also misinterpreted to be a dearth of rationality, marital harmony, and obedience to religious beliefs. TW9’s senior male peer criticized a well-known American feminist historian as feng pozi (a madwoman), exactly like the “madwoman” that Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar mentioned in their famous book title. According to TW7, scholars having the feminist label were criticized as shige nüren yige wa (“ten women but only one baby”: this discriminatory phrase indicated that feminist scholars usually have something wrong or cannot be married out so that most of them become childless).7 A friend of TW12 taught at a religious school and her supervisors were unhappy about her support for women’s right to have an abortion. Feminist scholars developed different survival strategies partly because of different personalities and backgrounds. TW12’s friend was not willing to be a wage-slave and therefore decided to leave the religious school. TW3 thought that feminist historians were fortunate because they could use undeniable historical facts as amulets to protect themselves. TW2’s survival strategy was to push the government to develop political policies of gender equality so that patriarchal colleagues and academic gatekeepers could not oppress feminist scholars. TW6 believed that scholars with the feminist label had to work harder and wait to be promoted. Both TW7 and TWL7 failed the first time they sought promotion. Notified that the reviewers were all male, TW7 never received an explanation of why she failed. The strategies TW5, TW7, and TW10 suggested to address the problems of the feminist label were to collect more data of feminist scholars’ failures

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in being promoted and properly respected so that these feminist scholars will no longer be only faceless martyrs without any recourse for improving future academic systems.

I C  T F S Both Taiwanese absorptions of the latest Western feminist theories and the impacts of the feminist label were problems that many Taiwanese feminist scholars shared in the 1990s. However, these troubles did not always endear Taiwanese feminist scholars to one another. Neither did these problems protect them from internal power struggles and rivalry.8 Although most Taiwanese feminist scholars were fully aware that it would be dangerous to lose their Taiwanese roots, Taiwanese academia’s tendency to pursue the latest Euro-American research trends and Taiwan’s post-colonial complex still created the misconception among some feminist scholars that the more Euro-Americanized they looked, the more prestigious, advanced, and respected they would be. Dongyang du yin xiyang du jin (Silver are scholars doing further studies in Japan; golden are those who received terminal degrees in the West) was still a popular ideology in Taiwanese academia of the 1990s. Some Taiwanese scholars with degrees in either Japan or the West looked down upon those who never studied in dongyang (the eastern ocean—namely, Japan) or xiyang (the western ocean—in other words, the West). For instance, TWL12 was verbally attacked by family members of a Taiwanese woman who studied as a master student at Syracuse University when TWL12 pursued her master’s degree in Taiwan. Were degrees in Japan and the West really more valuable than those in Taiwan? Or might this phenomenon result from the historical fact that Taiwan was forcefully colonized and defeated by both Japan and the West? To Taiwanese feminist scholars, this was really not only a socio-cultural problem but also an academic one. Even among Taiwanese feminist scholars with degrees in the West, those who graduated from schools of higher ranking tended to look down upon others. TW13, for example, said to TWL12 face to face that TW10 was superior to TWL12 only because the university where TW10 got her PhD was ranked higher than the school where TWL12 received her PhD. Did the so-called ranking of universities really guarantee any higher quality of feminist training for Taiwanese researchers? Could all these so-called ranking systems of schools all

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over the world become convincing excuses for Taiwanese feminist scholars to discriminate against or look down upon one another? Taiwanese academia expected scholars to publish articles in either significant Western journals or SSCI journals. Scholars who were better accepted by the Western publishing industry succeeded to a greater extent than those who never published anything in the West. It was absolutely a good thing that Western feminist reviewers appreciated Taiwanese gender studies. However, most of these journals had primarily Western reviewers who might neither know nor respect nonWestern academic research and thus might not be qualified to fairly evaluate local Taiwanese gender studies. That is to say, Taiwanese scholars had to sacrifice their original “Taiwanese-ness” and fit into the Western view in order to be accepted by important Western journals. For instance, in the 1990s Hypatia and NWSA Journal included a few articles on Asian American women and women in the PRC but no articles on Taiwanese women. In most Western feminist journals of the 1990s, the proportion of articles on Taiwanese women was usually smaller than that of papers on Asian American women and women in the PRC. This proportion might indicate Western academia’s leanings in regard to this unbalanced acceptance of PRC feminism, Taiwanese feminism, and Asian American feminism. When TWL10’s friend studied in the West, her advisor warned her that it would be much more difficult to survive in Western academia by working on only Taiwanese feminist research subjects. While Western academia seldom required most scholars from the PRC to “open their doors to Taiwan,” TWL10’s friend was pushed to “open her door to [Mainland] China.”9 Most Western feminist journals’ reception of Western feminism and Eastern feminism was unbalanced, too. In the 1990s, the average number of articles by oriental feminist authors was much smaller than that of papers by Western feminist authors in most SSCI journals and significant international feminist journals. One of my interviewees termed it “Western academic hegemony” while talking to Taiwanese journalists about this issue. Unfortunately, even Western linguistic hegemony was sometimes a part of the “Western academic hegemony” involved in Taiwanese feminist scholars’ internal power struggles. TWL10’s friend worked as a research assistant when she was pursuing her terminal degree in the United States. One day, TWL10’s friend needed to talk to another Taiwanese female research assistant. She happily spoke Mandarin Chinese, but the Taiwanese female research assistant felt the need to compete with her in terms of who sounded more Westernized.

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She rejected speaking to her in Mandarin Chinese. She said that she no longer used any Chinese language because she “has been in the US for a much longer time,” as if she were a truer American than TWL10’s friend. As a matter of fact, staying in the West for a longer period of time could not be a persuasive reason not to use the Chinese language. She used it as an excuse to invalidate her original self-identity with Taiwan. With reference to why she felt the need and pride in emphasizing her new self-identity with the United States, her lack of Taiwanese selfconfidence was probably behind it. She did not have confidence in her original Taiwanese self-identity. Perhaps because of this reason, she imagined that to be a truer American was to be superior to TWL10’s friend, who was a “fake” American. Internal power struggles did not appear among the abovementioned feminists only. For instance, TW12 had a doctoral degree in England. TWL12 received her PhD in the United States. One day, TW12 met with TWL12, and TW12 suddenly indicated that people who studied in the United States were American-centered. TWL12’s strategy to deal with TW12’s attack was to indirectly point out the Asian background they shared, in order to downplay the difference between where their doctorates were obtained. TWL12 did not say anything about America or where she got her PhD. Instead, TWL12 told TW12 how she confronted American racists who discriminated against Asians. Cross-field competitions and interdisciplinary prejudice were another kind of internal power struggles among Taiwanese feminist scholars. More practical trainings, such as sociology, legal studies, medical research, and psychotherapy, usually provided more assistance to Taiwanese feminist activism. For instance, the feminist anthology edited by Hu Yu-hui included a great deal of practical feminist concerns but hardly any feminist literary research.10 In fact, the number of feminist literary scholars was not small. The first two presidents of the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association (TFSA) were literary scholars. Feminists in almost every academic field agreed that feminist literary scholars made a great contribution in terms of transferring Western feminist theories to Taiwan. However, occasionally literary feminist scholars were deemed impractical and less useful feminist activists. For instance, TWL7 indicated that feminist scholars in literary fields did not have much to offer to women victims. Taiwanese scholars who did not really understand what feminist literary research was might misinterpret feminist literary scholars to

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be women full of romantic imagination and sensitivity. Women who read literature in Taiwan were sometimes criticized as impractical daydreamers concerned only with love and intimacy. In addition, theorists routinely gave ordinary people the impression that they were not practical. Feminist literary theorists did not find an easy escape from this frequent misconception. TWL12 personally experienced this. A feminist historian misunderstood her literary training and criticized, You literary people do have verbal sensitivity. This sensitivity is good to sense gender problems in stories. But except for this sensitivity, you literary people can hardly do anything else.

Taiwan’s change of regulations for researchers’ status and promotion after the late 1990s resulted in unequal treatment and the rise of protest against it.11 Originally, Taiwan did not have any assistant professors. Tenured lectures could be promoted as associate professors based on their publications only—the doctorate was not necessary. Scholars became associate professors right after they received doctorates. TW11’s colleague, for example, taught as an associate professor right after her graduation in 1992 and then was promoted to full professor in 1996. However, after the Ministry of Education changed the rules, researchers with doctorates had to start with an assistant professorship. Different universities in Taiwan began the reform in different years. For instance, National Taiwan University started it in 1998; National Cheng Chih University, National Yang Ming University, and National Taiwan Normal University in 1999. No matter when the reformed criteria for promotion began, it was not entirely fair for younger scholars to be reviewed by older scholars, who were not required to be assistant professors previously. TW11 bluntly articulated, “This was undoubtedly unjust.” Older scholars easily became associate professors and then were promoted only once to be full professors, without running any risk of being fired. However, younger scholars usually had more solid training from better universities, but this superior background did not help them in the academic environment. Tenured lectureship, assistant professorship, associate professorship, and full professorship—the academic hierarchy was set up originally to distinguish different levels of academic credibility. It usually honored well-known researchers and indirectly brought prestige and authority to them. This prestige and the authority made honored researchers the dominant. In this sense, younger researchers, who had not yet received such honors, were emergent.

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The interactions between the dominant and the nondominant, according to Raymond Williams, might be a type of dynamics of possibility. It [might be] this seizure [of the dominant’s ruling definition of the social] that [would] especially . . . be resisted. For there [would be] always, though in varying degrees, practical consciousness, in specific relationships, specific skills, specific perceptions, that [would be] unquestionably social and that a specifically dominant social order neglect[ed], exclude[d], represse[d], or simply fail[ed] to recognize. (Williams, 125)

In a natural, democratic, uncensored, just, and nonpolitical atmosphere, the nondominant and the dominant would be forever influenced by endlessly changing possibilities and are thus dynamically modifying each other. Unfortunately, such an ideal thing probably does not exist. The academic environment is neither perfectly righteous nor completely natural, democratic, and just, after all. Critical writing and critical training . . . [might] not envision a social setting for the critical act, nor [might] they offer any truly sustained examination of the critic’s political identity and of criticism’s political force. (Merod, 4)

The highly honored and dominant researchers would be accustomed to prestige and authority, which the academic hierarchy awarded to them. That is to say, the dominant would gradually become used to being dominant and enjoying the perks that came with that—high self-esteem, power, and satisfaction, for instance. Once the emergent new scholars successfully break through and became the new dominant, the old dominant run the risk of losing their prestige and becoming merely the residual (Williams, 123).12 In these circumstances, the dominant scholars are threatened when the emergent ones attempt to their place. Thus “[s]ome sort of ‘hegemony’ . . . prevailed just to keep things operating [with no change]” (Fromm, 4). An inevitable part of human nature is to desire to satisfy oneself and to hold onto the previous prestige. Under the academic hierarchy, the dominant might “exclude all but a single, continuing voice of the hegemonic class” (Lentriccha, 129). They might do everything according to this aspect of their human nature. It would be foolish indeed (or saintly) to hold that benevolence [was] the human essence, the force that through the green fuse [drove] our

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flower. But [was] it any less foolish to substitute the will to power? Getting beyond humanism [was] supposed to mean getting beyond such essences, not merely exchanging one for another, replacing the flattering with the cynical . . . Acquiring power over the research [would] seem a costly achievement, since what it [sacrificed was] the potential power of the research—the power to open up new areas of experience, unfamiliar ways of being in the world. (Pechter, 301–302)

In other words, often the academic hierarchy will seek to hinder the emergent and the pre-emergent from progressing. This is where political reinforcement starts, and also why the whole of the academic atmosphere struggles to be truly just and democratic. If the younger generations revealed the senior generation’s academic oversight about whether someone should survive or become promoted in the overall hierarchal systems, or if the dominant regarded the junior as a kind of threat, the above-mentioned situation would deteriorate. The emergent and the pre-emergent, in this circumstance, might not be comfortable sharing their true feelings. That is to say, the pre-emergent or the emergent might not dare to fully divulge any obvious disagreement with the dominant. Neither might they dare to obviously complain about the unfairness of the academic hierarchal system. Richard M. Reis highlights senior academic gatekeepers’ power to execute and to give birth to “tomorrow’s professor[s],” illustrates the above-mentioned possibility (Reis, 118–119). The more intimidating and daunting the power struggles related to academic survivals and promotion are, the more anonymous the author of this story would tend to be. This might also be the reason why there were few non-anonymous participants in the meeting that Liu Chung-tung arranged for junior feminist scholars to point out problems related to promotion and survival in the Taiwanese academic hierarchal system (Liu, 101–102). [T]he “inability to disagree” about the central topics and problems impinging upon scholarly production [prolonged] the perpetually deferred university-wide debate concerning the social consequences, the human impact, of knowledge. (Merod, 103)

Academic ethics were often the excuse adopted by the dominant. Once the disagreement was interpreted to be not only an interrogation of the senior’s previous viewpoints but also a sort of transgression in the whole academic hierarchy, the emergent might be accused of committing a crime against academic ethics by the dominant. Thus “the shift [of the emergent and the pre-emergent] from underdog minority

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to reigning monarch” (Fromm, 210) would be either slowed or completely prohibited. Critical research functioned like an institution, uniquely placed in the culture, more interested in reproducing its own political obedience to the ethic of professional . . . sense (obedient to a market that [did] not want cultural and political differences . . . loose) than in charging itself and its students with the passion to act intelligently, morally, on the evidence of exclusion, intolerance, pacification, and injustice. (Merod, 193)

Luce Irigaray’s publication of her doctoral dissertation, The Speculum of Women, is perhaps the best example of this. Her argument pointed out the oversight of the whole Lacanian school. Although she was awarded a PhD, Irigaray was still punished because she was expelled from the university teaching faculty and from the entire group of Lacanian psychoanalysts. Luce Irigaray described, . . . soon after Speculum [italics mine] was published, I was sacked from the university where I was teaching. I was teaching a course in the Department of Psychoanalysis of Vincennes University, and J. Lacan and the Paris Freudian School expelled me. (Irigaray, 91)13

When Irigaray published her dissertation, Lacan was the dominant. Irigaray was still the pre-emergent or the emergent. Her disagreement with some of Lacan’s academic opinions and professional judgment was deemed not merely the younger generation’s threat to the senior’s credibility and validity but a disregard for the whole academic hierarchy. In brief, Irigaray was deemed the junior that transgressed the academic ethics. Using the ruling definition and excuse of academic ethics, the Lacanian school of psychoanalysis and the university teaching faculty expelled Irigaray. Scholarly decorum [forbade] laughing at such quaint diction, a hegemonic relic from another time, another place, yet scholarly decorum, they [were] saying, [was] part of another self-serving power structure, so once you endorse a free-for-all against hegemony, why stop at any particular sacred cow? When “everything is political . . . nothing is sacred” (Jameson, 36)

Another example in the field of literary theory was Derrida’s conference paper. In 1966, Jacques Derrida presented a paper entitled “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” at a conference, which was organized by Lacan. At that time, Lacan

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was already considered a master in the academic field. He belonged to the dominant. However, Derrida was still young and not very well known. He belonged to the pre-emergent or the emergent. At this conference, Derrida dared not reveal his argument completely. He limited the focus of his conference paper to Levi Strauss’s theory alone.14 He dared not express any of his opinions on Lacan’s research in front of Lacan. Perhaps examples in Western academia can help illustrate what happened in Taiwan. After gaining higher status within the academic hierarchy, to keep the prestige, as was already explained, is part of human nature. The more the dominant desire to keep it, the more the whole academic atmosphere is corrupted, and the more academic ethics might be applied to “disapprove” the survival of the pre-emergent or “delay” the promotion of the emergent, both of whom might be accused of transgressing the so-called hierarchal borderlines by the senior. The “hegemony [would be] a condition of life itself” (Fromm, 164). I would like to point out some possible psychological subtleties, which resulted from various hierarchal power struggles between those who requested to be promoted and the dominant who decided to anonymously say yes or no to the emergent in Taiwanese academia of the 1990s. First, the availability of a higher position for faculty members was extremely limited. Scholars more or less had to compete with one another indirectly. Second, the anonymity, though on the one hand protecting reviewers, on the other hand could provide the dominant with the ability to hurt the emergent’s academic careers, especially when it would be entirely impossible to guarantee that every anonymous reviewer was honest. Such a sense of competition was in fact closely related to a sort of “defense mechanism” (Freud and Sandler, 108).15 It seemed to be the “neurotic conflict [which took] place between the ego and the id, the ego seeking to bar the expression of certain instinctual impulses by using defense mechanisms” (Hentschel, 3). [T]he function of the defense was thought of as a counter force against the push of the devices for discharge . . . served as an anticathexis . . . [D]efense [would be] now conceptualized as an ego function . . . to protect the ego against instinctual demands. (Cramer, 5)

Due to the psychological defense mechanism, reviewers might “unconsciously safeguard [their] . . . own autonomy and priority by reading [application materials] ‘defensively,’ in such a way as to distort

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it beyond [their] own conscious recognition” (Abrams, 4). Reviewers who suffered for a long time in the past might not be psychologically ready to see junior scholars promoted and accepted without suffering as much as they did at a younger age. TWL7’s friend suspected that one of the reasons why her first application for promotion failed might be the fact that she was still young. TWL10’s colleague asked her department head why only one of her three reviewers attacked her severely while the other two reviewers’ attitudes were neutral and even positive. Her departmental head gave his own psychological analysis of this hostile reviewer: this hostile reviewer suffered greatly for more than a decade and was finally promoted only several months ago; thus this reviewer might not hope to see TWL10’s colleague ascend to the same status in merely a few years. Because of this anonymity of reviewers, it would be impossible to survey all the details of these critiques or to formulate a concrete statistical study of to what extent defense mechanisms and anxiety influenced Taiwanese academia of the 1990s. On the other hand, I have to clarify that it is not true that every reviewer was psychologically defensive in Taiwanese academia of the 1990s. But the archetypal case between Lacanian school and Irigaray seems to duplicate itself in Taiwanese academia in different ways. In addition to feminist scholars’ hierarchal differences, the fear of the feminist label was likely also a ticking bomb leading to an internal rupture among Taiwanese feminist scholars. TWL6 disclosed her friend’s anger with hypocritical feminist scholars in Taiwan. TWL6’s friend, who devoted herself to feminist activism, assisted a university in establishing its own center of women’s studies. Regardless of TWL6’s friend’s activist support, managers of this center alleged in their press conference to announce the establishment of the center that they were pure scholars without anything to do with feminists and feminist activism. Their excuse was that they would not be able to survive in a male-centered university if they were labeled as feminists. Perhaps they were afraid that Taiwanese journalists would write a negative report on their center if they conceded the feminist label. However, when TWL6’s friend, managers of this center, and other sponsors had dinner with feminist visitors from an American university in the following year, managers of this center suddenly withdrew their previous remark and claimed themselves to be Taiwanese feminists in the American feminist guests’ presence. TWL6’s friend immediately accused managers of this center of being hypocrites. In the late 1990s, similar things happened. These Taiwanese feminist scholars claimed that women’s studies should be neutral and thus

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could not have anything to do with women’s social movements in another meeting with media reporters. TWL6’s friend reproved them in front of the reporters again. The larger academic fight among Taiwanese feminist scholars in the 1990s was probably related to Josephine C. Ho’s exile from the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association (TFSA). Josephine C. Ho gained a reputation as a Taiwanese feminist with her well-known book, Haoshuang nüran (The Unruly Woman),16 as well as her feminist activist slogan about sexual emancipation: “zhiyao xing gaochao buyao xing saorao” (in need of orgasm only—not sexual harassment).17 TW7, TW10, TW13, and TWL7 all considered the incident of public prostitutes18 in Taipei City was what led to troubles. Around 1997, Chen Shui-bian, who was the mayor of Taipei City, announced a prohibition on public prostitutes. Josephine C. Ho arranged parades to emphasize sex workers’ right to keep their jobs and received much attention from media outlets, perhaps the most of all the Taiwanese feminist scholars at that time. Her feminist activism attracted a huge number of young supporters, who were still students or who had graduated within a few years. However, other feminists, who either taught as professors or worked as lawyers, did not entirely agree with Josephine C. Ho. They worried that Ho’s radical activism was not always appropriate for everybody, especially child prostitutes in Taiwan. Different feminists even quarreled in front of journalists. In addition, Josephine C. Ho’s frequent exposure to media19 more or less seemed to outshine other feminists on TV news, in magazines, and in newspapers. Gradually, Taiwanese feminists split into two groups: Josephine C. Ho’s group that was against the Taipei mayor’s policy, and the rest of the TFSA, which Ho’s young cohorts reviled to be old and hidebound. Ho left the TFSA, and then cut off all of her official ties to the TFSA. How did Taiwanese feminist scholars evaluate their difference from one another, inner power struggles, and the intramural fights? TWL6’s original belief was that women should understand and help women. However, she decided not to tolerate hypocritical feminists any more. In other words, the intramural fights she was involved in were indispensable and unavoidable in her view. She even contacted reporters in order to expose the internal fights to press and media. TWL12’s friend interpreted that the hierarchal differences among Taiwanese feminists was the true cause of internal power struggles because most of Josephine C. Ho’s followers worked merely as assistants in women’s organizations where the rest of the TFSA were leaders or significant participants.20

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Instead, the recognition of differences and mutual disagreements should emphasize the fact that Taiwanese feminist scholars were mature and democratic enough to allow variety and to appreciate their differences. Even disagreeing with one another from time to time, Taiwanese feminist scholars are still able to fully respect and protect the right to difference of opinion. Internal power struggles and intramural conflicts among Taiwanese feminist scholars served as initiators and gave birth to a more mature Taiwanese feminism, which contained diverse Taiwanese feminist branches in the 1990s. The reason why “competitions among women” (Tray, 3–77 & 132– 189) and “conflicts in feminism[s]” (Hirsch and Keller, 164–183 & 370–386) deserved Victoria Davion’s attempt “to theorize [them] outside of a war-like model” (Davion, 55–63; Looser, 108–117) might partially support my interpretation of Taiwanese feminist intramural conflicts. Like Hong Kong feminist scholars who praised their feminist diversity, TWL7 and I firmly believe that these diverse feminist educational backgrounds, viewpoints, pursuits, philosophical beliefs, inner power struggles, and intramural fights are all worthy of celebration. In addition, non-Taiwanese feminists should be aware of the fact that Taiwanese feminists were not “one” in the 1990s. Taiwanese feminism was more heterogeneous than the united and singular kind of feminism that most non-Taiwanese feminists assumed the tiny Taiwan island to have. If [Taiwanese] feminist criticism . . . continues to exert the enormous impact during the next twenty years that it . . . had in the [past], it must constantly renegotiate its relationship to [Taiwanese academia’s] own [feminist] history . . . and to the dominant intellectual discourses of the present age. (Kauffman, 3)

After Simone de Beauvoir analyzed “the second(ary) sex,” Luce Irigaray argued “this sex which is not one,” and Devoney Looser asserted “this feminism which is not one,” I hope that it would be Taiwanese feminist scholars’ turn to shout “this Taiwanese feminism which is not one” to the world in the 1990s.

T F . W F  F   PRC My interviewees gave me various answers to what Taiwan’s reception of feminism was like and what Taiwanese academic feminism was in

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the 1990s. I warmed interviewees up with questions, such as what they thought Taiwanese feminism was when compared with feminisms across the Taiwan Strait and all over the world. Some of them, such as TW13, thought that Taiwanese feminism was the post-1987 Taiwanese feminism. Some of them thought the mini-activism of feminists in the Japanese colonial era should be also counted. Some of them noted differences between branches of Taiwanese feminism and various kinds of PRC feminism in answers to my questions. Some of them did not think that they were familiar with feminists and feminism in the PRC or Hong Kong and therefore did not have much to say. Some of them, such as TW4 and TW8, claimed that they had stepped into gender studies for answers. Many of them, such as TW1 and TW2, regarded my questions as questions about institutionalization of feminism in Taiwan. Maybe they were influenced by Chen Pei-ying’s interviews and book about institutionalization of Taiwanese gender studies. They recalled how they established and managed their centers of women’s studies or graduate institutes of gender studies. In the following paragraphs, I will integrate their valuable, unpublished experiences related to what Taiwanese feminism was and what kinds of academic feminism Taiwanese academia exhibited. The name of feminist programs might be the most obvious evidence of what sorts of feminism Taiwanese academia accepted. Different from how universities in the West named their feminist programs or departments, Taiwanese academia of the 1990s allowed feminist scholars to name their graduate institutes only Master’s Programs of “Gender Studies,” not “Women’s Studies.” Take the United Kingdom and the United States, for instance. Most feminist academic programs were called “Women’s Studies Programs.” There were truly exceptions, such as “Center of Gender Studies” at the University of Hull; “Department of Gender Studies” at Indiana University at Bloomington, 21 the University of Notre Dame, 22 and Eastern Oregon University; “Gender and Women’s Studies Program” at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; 23 and “Women’s and Gender Studies Program” at Dartmouth College.24 But the number was small. One of the reasons why many Western feminist scholars insisted on the wording “women” or “feminism” was the undeniable fact that women—not men—struggled for and initiated this academic field. On the contrary, Taiwanese research institutes seldom named their feminist graduate institutes in the same way. During the 1990s, there were few graduate programs of women’s studies in Taiwan.

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If the founders of these feminist institutions insisted upon having the word “women” or “feminist” it would be impossible to obtain any approval from men with administrative power to decide their promotion. TWL8 told me of a true experience. TWL8’s peer suggested the establishment of a nüxing wenxue yanjiushi (research center of women’s literature). A male supervisor asked TWL8’s peer to change the name of this research center to be xingbie yanjiushi (center of gender studies). He insisted on securing men’s position in Taiwanese academic feminism. He complained, “Otherwise, what do you want men to do?” Under this circumstance, the men’s boycott destroyed the possibility for Taiwanese academia to have any graduate institutes of “women’s studies” because almost all the Taiwanese feminist scholars in the 1990s were still not senior enough to confront senior male gatekeepers in their local academic environments. As a matter of fact, while more and more programs added “gender” to their titles for what conservative, senior, male administrators regarded as radical feminist political reasons, the problems of sexual inequality turned out to be not merely female faculty members’ problem but also male faculty’s problem. Different kinds of men in Taiwanese academia took different attitudes toward feminism. TWL8’s senior male gatekeeper added men to Taiwanese academic feminism by changing “graduate institute of women’s studies” to “graduate institute of gender studies.” Other male scholars actively participated in the establishment of gender studies and fought for the institutionalization of feminism with female gender scholars in the 1990s. For instance, Hsieh Wo-lung, who claimed to be Lee Yuanchen’s student at Tamkang University, 25 is the founding “father” of the first graduate institute of gender studies in Taiwan. For details, consult the second chapter in this book. In the 1990s, men had diverse positions in and various attitudes toward academic feminism and radical women’s social movements in Taiwan. TW1 and TW2 confidentially shared their feelings with me about the institutionalization of academic feminism. TW4, TW7, and TW8’s experiences in gender studies were also closely related to the institutionalization of feminism in Taiwanese academia of the 1990s. However, Routledge Press decided to publish Chen Pei-ying’s book manuscript, Acting “Otherwise”: The Institutionalization of Women’s/ Gender Studies in Taiwan’s Universities, before I publicized my interviews. Glad to know Chen Pei-ying’s publication perfectly proved that my choice in research topic was welcome, I will not repeat the same details that Chen Pei-ying explored.

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Instead of how Taiwanese academia institutionalized feminism, I will investigate the limitation of the Taiwanese institutionalization of feminism. TW7 affirmed that it was really a problem that Taiwan established only master’s programs in gender studies—neither any complete curriculum for undergraduate majors in gender studies nor doctoral programs in gender studies. The lack of undergraduate majors and minors might mean the dearth of a pure academic relationship or heredity in Taiwanese gender studies. Even though centers of women’s studies offered scattered undergraduate classes about gender concerns, they awarded neither undergraduate major/minor degrees nor professional certificates in gender studies. TW7 confessed that she herself had never thought of the “absence” of undergraduate feminist curriculum and the “isolation” of master’s degrees in gender studies within Taiwanese academia. Hence, TW7 was delighted to hear me mention this problem. She speculated that there might be at least two reasons for Taiwanese feminist scholars’ establishment of master’s programs in gender studies earlier than both undergraduate and doctoral programs in gender studies. First, master’s programs were much smaller and less problematic than large departments serving both undergraduate students and graduate students. Master’s degrees took a much shorter time for students to complete. Therefore, proposals to found master’s programs appeared easier and less troubling for gatekeepers and the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. Taiwanese feminist scholars would obtain approvals from their supervisors and bosses more easily if they suggested only the establishment of master’s programs. Second, to chair graduate institutes sounded more prestigious than to chair undergraduate-oriented departments. Under these two circumstances, TW7 thought of no reason for Taiwanese scholars to reject the administrative honor as founding mothers/fathers, managers, of even heads of institutes of gender studies. TW10 frankly pointed out that even the borderlines between required courses and selective credits were nebulous—not to mention majors, minors, and certificates. Most of the earliest Taiwanese feminist scholars received their PhDs in foreign/Western/comparative literature or sociology in either the late 1980s or the early 1990s. Most of them were not promoted to be full professors until recent years; thus the overall view of Taiwanese feminist curriculums is still uncertain. TW6 pondered deeply the interdisciplinary nature of feminist research. In the Taiwanese academic system, each dean of the college supervised several department chairs. Yet undergraduate

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interdisciplinary programs such as tongshi jiaoyü (general education program), were exceptions. They did not exclusively belong to any discipline or department and had no departmental chairs. Therefore, they were directly under the deans’ control. If at some point there is a Department of Gender Studies serving undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students in Taiwanese academia, TW10 wondered which college it should belong to, which dean should supervise it, and how to persuade colleagues that its undergraduate interdisciplinary program should be separated from tongshi jiaoyü. TW11 stressed that the first and biggest obstacle to the establishment of a Department of Gender Studies would be the lack of sufficient faculty members with PhD major or minor degrees in women’s/gender studies. Once there is a Department of Gender Studies, hundreds or even thousands of undergraduate students26 would need dozens or hundreds of professors with doctorates in feminism. Since Taiwan still had no feminist PhD program of its own, Taiwanese academia would be completely dependent upon overseas scholars with doctoral minor or major degrees in women’s/gender studies. Without first removing this obstacle, TW11 did not think it would be possible to successfully and smoothly establish Departments of Gender Studies in Taiwanese academia. TW12 shared a similar opinion about the cross-disciplinary nature of feminist studies with TW6. She believed that disciplinary borders among different departments were rigid and strict at the undergraduate level in Taiwanese academia. Unlike American students, Taiwanese high school students decided their majors right after the joint entrance examination. It was already difficult for most teenagers to understand which discipline or department to choose. They did not have enough knowledge to understand what interdisciplinary research would be like. Therefore, advanced interdisciplinary research was available only at the graduate level in Taiwan. Taiwanese undergraduate students would not be able to major in interdisciplinary gender studies. Unless the overall academic system could be substantially changed, this limitation might not be avoidable within Taiwan’s institutionalized women’s/gender studies. Besides the name of Taiwanese feminist graduate institutes and the limited institutionalization of gender studies, Taiwanese feminism was different from Western feminism because Taiwanese feminists aimed to be free from Western feminists’ oversight. Taiwanese feminist scholars who embraced, transferred, and worked on Western feminist literary theories also recognized the drawbacks of some Western feminists’ ideas. For instance, Chiu Kui-fen cited a Pakistani

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feminist’s complaint about Western feminists: “I started to feel that Western women did not deeply understand women’s issues and lacked a global view” (Chiu, 239). The West tended to imagine that its own feminism was more prestigious. The West tended to regard women of color and third-world women as poor, low-level, primitive, inferior, and usually uneducated women without the ability to be competitive. For instance, an American comparative literary scholar assumed that Taiwanese feminist scholars, like TWL12, did not know the difference between the two English words “mouths” and “mice.” TWL12 even saw her American women students’ wish to “rescue” and “enlighten” poor third-world women in their term papers as if Westerners were third-world women’s saviors. Under this circumstance, non-Western feminism was misunderstood as unimportant, marginalized, trivial, immature, and inferior feminism. For example, Western feminist scholars usually did not have to know feminism in non-Western cultures, while non-Western feminist scholars were often required to take Western feminism much more seriously. Western feminist scholars, especially Western feminists of the first wave and the second wave, seemed to treat non-Western feminism as something not worth as much recognition, respect, canonization, anthologization, and emphasis as Western feminism. Although most Western feminists of the third wave gradually became willing to recognize how different women of color were from white women, most Western feminists failed to notice that Taiwanese women were not fully willing to identify themselves with the “women of color” that most white Westerners usually had in mind—in other words, black women in the West, or poor and uneducated women in uncivilized and non-Western areas. In the overall Western framework of the 1990s, there were in total three categories: the mainstream white category, the “colored” category in which black women were the core, and the “international” category for the rest of women all over the world. Even when most black feminist scholars dealt with women of color, they seldom focused on women yellow in skin. When Western scholars anthologized a large number of important white and black feminists, such as Virginia Woolf and Alice Walker, they rarely canonized feminists who were neither white nor black in either the second world or the third world. Western scholars’ anthologies included a tiny number of Asian Americans’ work, most of whom were born in the first world, hardly lived in the second or third world, and even did not identify themselves as Asians or people yellow in skin. Taiwanese feminist scholars found few role models in any famous anthologies of women’s studies in the West. When I interviewed TW2, she said to

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me, “You studied in the West. You know how the white [of course, not every white person] treated us in the West.” Take most American feminist scholars as an example. One of the most egregious oversights by American feminists lay in their frequent replacement of Asian women with Asian American women. They were usually blind about the difference between Asian studies and Asian American studies, Asian women’s studies and Asian American women’s studies, and Asian feminists and Asian American feminists. TWL12’s peer, who was born and brought up in Taiwan, presented a paper on PRC feminism at an American feminist conference. This conference categorized such a paper as a sort of international feminism and hence arranged for this paper to be in the same panel with two American feminists’ papers on women’s problems they noticed when they lived as aliens in South America and Europe. Everybody in this panel seemed to be interested in these two Americans’ reports about white women’s problems in South America and Europe. However, from the beginning to the end, the audience neither asked TWL12’s peer any questions nor offered any comment, as if she were invisible—except for two acquaintances of hers. TWL12’s peer suspected that her paper on women in the PRC was regarded as only a tool to pretend that Western feminists had “diversity” because it was obvious that American participants on this panel did not care about various sorts of Asian feminism at all. If Edward Said’s term “orientalism,” referred to Westerners’ misconceptions and misunderstanding about the orient, then I wondered whether this was a kind of “feminist orientalism” in America. Finally, TWL12’s peer could not stand it any more. She raised her hand and asked the audience why nobody else cared about Chinese women’s problems under Communist systems. The reply she received was silence. Before the panel was over, only two more people responded to TWL12’s peer. One was a feminist scholar with a dark complexion. She said that she herself was biracial with not only black heredity but also some ancestors yellow in skin. The other one was a young white American woman, asking TWL12’s peer to advise her female Korean American friend on how she should learn Korean language and culture. The biracial feminist scholar with the dark complexion seemed to identify with TWL12’s peer that women yellow in skin were included in the “colored” category. Unfortunately, the young American woman’s request for TWL12’s peer’s advice clearly showed her ignorance of how Chinese/Taiwanese women were different from Korean American women. She might be able to see the

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difference between Americans and Asian Americans, but not Asians and Asian Americans. Asian studies might be a good field for Taiwanese feminist scholars to work in the West because Asianists understood that Asian Americans could neither represent nor replace Asians and that Asianists usually respected Asians better than Western feminist scholars. However, Taiwanese feminism, Taiwanese feminist activism, Taiwanese feminist literary theories, and Taiwanese queer (LGBT) studies—these were marginalized as minorities in Asian studies. They were all deemed fashionable Taiwanese theoretical products of the modern era. Regrettably, Taiwanese matters were simply a small portion of modern China for most Asianists in the West. In the early 1990s, modern China was still seen as nothing more than a small section of Chinese studies. For instance, in 1993 Rey Chow published her experiences in how modern Chinese literature was less valued than classical Chinese literature as perhaps the best evidence. In Writing Diaspora, Rey Chow feels that most Asianists in the West preferred traditional, ancient, and pure China/Taiwan and therefore disliked modern and Westernized China/Taiwan allied to progressive Western theoretical fashions.27 Starting in the mid-1990s, many award-winning Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong films about modern Chinese societies attracted international attention and started the “fever of [modern] China.” The PRC gained more and more international enterprises’ investments.28 More and more people wanted to learn about modern China in order to make more money. The PRC’s strong willingness to host more and more significant international conferences in the 1990s, such as the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress, also helped improve the West’s impression of how liberal the Chinese Communist Party had become. Modern China gradually became more popular than traditional China. Feminism in modern China, as a part of modern China, also seemed more accepted. Yet due to the political situations, this popular feminism in modern China tended to be feminism in Mainland China only, not including feminism in Taiwan or Hong Kong. On the average, older Asianists in the West accepted Taiwan better than their younger peers because of the PRC’s closed-door policy before the post-Maoist era. These senior Asianists were usually unable to study Chinese language or do any field studies in the PRC at that time. So Taiwan and Hong Kong provided the first-hand sources of their research subjects. A large number of senior Asianists traveled from the West to Taiwan and learned traditional Chinese

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characters and Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan. However, after the PRC opened the door to the West, younger Asianists tended to focus on the PRC more than Taiwan. Young Asianists frequently seemed to use the PRC to represent all of the Chinese cultural realm— regardless of the fact that Mainland China should replace neither Taiwan nor Hong Kong. For instance, TWL12’s Taiwanese friend in the United States complained, “Chinese Communist feminism should not stand for all the Chinese feminism because Hong Kong feminism and Taiwanese feminism were different from Chinese Communist feminism.” To confront or negotiate with people of political power in order to solve gender problems was another aspect in which Taiwanese feminism differed from PRC feminism. Although almost every political party formed by Chinese people claimed that they stood for liberation and (gender) egalitarianism, to be outspoken in nongovernmental social movements would still require a lot of courage. For instance, the PRC had very limited nongovernmental radical feminist activism because feminists could still not afford to confront the Chinese Communist Party. TWL8 doubted whether women’s awakening in the PRC was not a true self-awakening but an obedient reaction to their governmental leaders. However, while Chinese Communist feminists or PRC feminists lacked enough power to fight against the government for women, Taiwanese feminist scholars were proud to announce that they dared to do so and that it has been a part of their normal activism. TW11, TWL2, TWL4, TWL6, TWL8, and TWL9 all stressed this difference between Taiwanese feminism and PRC feminism when I interviewed them. TWL6, TWL7, TWL9, and TW13 each mentioned how this convention of Taiwanese feminists was initiated according to her experiences. TWL6’s peer worked with a well-known Taiwanese political figure before the lifting of martial law.29 At that time, the dominant political party strictly controlled Taiwanese society. That era was named the era of “white terror” in Taiwanese history. The political figure that TWL6’s peer collaborated with was put in jail for years because of her outspoken nature. TWL6 honestly admitted that her peer, as one of the earliest Taiwanese feminist activists, “fought against the ruling political party every day.” TW7’s friend, though being a milder feminist activist, also told me her fear for the “white terror” in the 1960s and 1970s. TW7’s friend planned to give a speech about how nurses suffered under the male-dominated medical system in Taiwan. However, on the night before her speech, one of her supervisors suddenly telephoned her and

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wanted to see her. Under the “white terror,” many outspoken promoters of social movements were mysteriously jailed or even killed. TW7’s friend was afraid that she might not return safely from this meeting. Her feminist peers dared not to accompany her to this meeting, but suggested she shorten the meeting time as much as possible. She warned this supervisor that her feminist peers would immediately report everything to the media if she did not return by midnight. This supervisor commanded a driver to take her from her house to this person’s place. On the way to this person’s place, the driver took roads that TW7’s friend was not familiar with. She confessed to me that she “was frightened to death at that time.” She wondered “whether [the supervisor] wanted the driver to take me from home to somewhere I don’t know and then kill me.” She immediately requested the driver to take only roads that she knew. When she arrived at the house of the supervisor, she was nervous. The person with high authority wanted her to revise the draft of her speech. She was forbidden to mention anything about nurses’ suffering in her speech. Otherwise, she would be fired. Although the political forces were much humane to citizens in the 1990s than those in the era of the “white terror,” my interviewees still kept these experiences in mind when I talked to them. Almost all the feminists in Taiwan continued the convention of requesting that the dominant political party and other officials reform governmental policies on behalf of women.30 TW4 pointed out that it was useless to underline women’s suffering when communicating with people having high authority. She distinguished sympathy from support, and she stated, “They would provide victims only sympathy, not support at all. What Taiwanese feminism needed was support, not sympathy.” In order to push people with high authority to help achieve greater gender egalitarianism, TW4 figured the most efficient strategy was to convince them that their approval or support for feminist reforms would benefit them. TWL9’s belief was that Taiwanese feminists should take advantage of the governmental positions that people with high authority allowed feminist scholars to have and then enlarge this governmental space to allow further feminism to occupy it. TW2 emphasized that the most significant goal was to “get things [namely, what feminists pursued] done” regardless of whether it was to fight against or to cooperate with people with high authority. I sincerely thank all my Taiwanese feminist interviewees for anonymously sharing these valuable stories with me. I record them because they were my interviewees’ true experiences in or before the 1990s. With academic publications of women’s oral history so popular in

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recent years, I am delighted that I could personally write my interviewees’ stories down as a sort of oral history about Taiwanese academia’s acceptance of feminist scholars and feminism in the 1990s.

R Abrams, M. H. “Influence and the Anxiety of Influence.” A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993. Bernstein, Gail Lee. Haruko’s World: A Japanese Farm Woman and Her Community. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983. Blackwood, Evelyn. Web of Power: Women, Kin, and Community in a Sumatran Village. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Chang, Hsiao-hung. “Nüran douzhen kuailexing” (“A Happy Journey in Which Women Are United”). Lishi yuekan (Historical Monthly) (Sept 2003): 84–88. Chang, Pang-mei Natasa. Bound Feet and Western Dress (Xiaojiao yu xifu). New York: Doubleday, 1996; Taipei: Zhiku wenhua, 1997. Chang, Sung-sheng Yvonne. “Taiwanese New Literature and the Colonial Context: Historical Survey.” Taiwan: A New History. Murray A. Rubinstein edt. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999. Chiang, Wen-Yu. Xiaoshi zhong de taiwan a ma (Taiwanese Grandmothers Who Are Disappearing). Taipei: Yushan, 1995. ———. Ama de gushi (Grandmothers’ Stories). Taipei: Zuoan, 1995. Chiu, Kui-fen. “Hou zhimin nüxing zhiyi: xingbie, jieji, zuqun yu guojia” (“PostColonial Feminism: Genders, Classes, Races, and Nations”). Nüxing zhuyi lilun yu liupai (Feminist Theories and Branches). Taipei: Nüshu (Fem Books), 1996. Chow, Rey. Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Cramer, Phebe. The Development of Defense Mechanisms: Theory, Research, and Assessment. New York: Springer-Verlage, 1991. Davion, Victoria. “Do Good Feminists Compete?” Hypatia 2(2) (1987): 55–63. Freud, Anna and Joseph Sandler. The Analysis of Defense: The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense Revisited. New York: International University Press, 1985. Fromm, Harold. Academic Capitalism and Literary Value. London: University of Georgia Press, 1991. Hentschel, Uwe. Defense Mechanisms: Theoretical, Research and Clinical Perspectives. Amsterdam: Boston: Elsevier, 2004. Hirsch, Marianne, and Evelyn Fox Keller. Conflicts in Feminism. New York: Routledge, 1990. Honig, Emily and Gail Hershatter. Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988. Hu, Yu-hui. Zhixing yenjiu: lilun, fangfa ji bentu nüxing yenjiu shili (Qualitative Studies: Theories, Methodologies, and Case Studies of Local Women). Taipei: Juliu, 1996. Irigaray, Luce. “Woman’s Exile.” The Feminist Critique of Language. Deborah Cameron edt. London: Routledge, 1990. Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981.

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Kauffman, Linda. “Introduction.” Gender and Theory: Dialogues on Feminist Criticism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Lee, Yuan-chen. “Nüxuehui shinian, fuyün wanshui qianshan” (“Ten Years for Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association, an Arduous Journey for Feminist Activism”). Lishi yuekan (Historical Monthly) (Sept 2003): 80–83. Lentriccha, Frank. Criticism and Social Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Liu, Chung-tung. “Luxian zhi zheng yu xingdong zhuanzhe” (The Fights for the Way to Take and The Turning-Points of Movements). Lishi yuekan (Historical Monthly) (Sept 2003): 99–102. Looser, Devoney. “This Feminism Which Is Not One.” The Minnesota Review: A Journal of Committed Writing 41–42 (1995): 108–117. Merod, Jim. The Political Responsibility of the Critic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987. Pechter, Edward. “The New Historicism and Its Discontents: Politicizing Renaissance Drama.” PMLA 102 (1987): 292–303. Reis, Richard M. Tomorrow’s Professor. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 1997. Rofel, Lisa. “Liberation Nostalgia and a Yearning for Modernity.” Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State. Gail Hershatter, Lisa Rofel, and Tyrene White edt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Sang, Deborah Tze-lan. The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Tray, Laura. The Secret between Us: Competition among Women. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991. Yu, Chien-ming. Qingting tamen de shengyin (Listening to Their Voices). Taipei: Zuoan, 2001. Wang, Ya-ko. Taiwan funü yundong jiefang shi (Movements of Taiwanese Women’s Liberation: A History). Taipei: Juliu, 1999. Wang, Zheng. Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Williams, Raymond. “Dominant, Emergent, and Residual.” Marxism and Literature. Raymond Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, pp. 121–128.

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CH A P T ER

4

The Academy’s Reception of Feminist Scholars and Academic Feminism in the PRC: Interviews about the 1990s

The 1990s were the decade immediately following the Tiananmen Square Incident (1989), a radical movement that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards as illegal activism initiated by college students. But the 1990s were also the decade in which the PRC hosted the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress in Beijing. Between feminist theories and feminist social movements, how PRC feminist scholars balanced themselves in this decade is interesting. This chapter aims to investigate how feminist scholars planned their academic survival and made their brand of feminism acceptable in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) of the 1990s. From 2002 to 2004, I anonymously interviewed twenty-five feminist scholars in the PRC (see Table 4.1). Most of my interviewees are female, but a few interviewees are male. In order to protect my interviewees, I use “she” to refer to every one so that readers cannot recognize which interviewees are male. I asked interviewees how PRC feminist scholars strategized in order to be accepted or promoted in various research fields by the academy of the 1990s. I asked them how they compared feminist developments and feminist scholars’ survival strategies in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong of the 1990s. I also asked them about the academic alliance or rivalry among feminist scholars in the PRC during that decade. However, the interviewees were not limited to my questions. I encouraged them to tell me whatever they could think of, and I guaranteed that I would keep them anonymous. In the summer of 2002, Yang Lixin, associate professor in the department of foreign languages and literatures at Nanjing Normal

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Table 4.1 Designations for Interviewees in the PRC (Designations given in order of surnames in Hundreds of Family Names) Mainland Chinese Interviewees in Mainland Chinese Interviewees in Literary Non-Literary Research Fields Research Fields CN1 CN2 CN3 CN4 CN5 CN6 CN7 CN8 CN9 CN10 CN11

CNL1 CNL2 CNL3 CNL4 CNL5 CNL6 CNL7 CNL8 CNL9 CNL10 CNL11 CNL12 CNL13 CNL14 CNL15 Dai Jinhua (Dai’s interviews were published. Therefore, she is not an anonymous interviewee in this research project.)

University, served as one of the executive organizers of the Tri-annual convention of the Chinese Comparative Literature Association and helped me contact a number of interviewees. The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) stopped my interviews in 2003. Yet in 2004 I restarted the interviews with assistance from the following scholars: Wang Yichuan, Chinese Literature, Beijing Normal University; Shi Chuan, Visual Arts, Shanghai University; Dang Shengyuan, Wang Fei, Zhou Yongqin and Wu Zilin, Chinese Literature, the Chinese Academy of Social Science; Tong Xin, Sociology, Beijing University; Yang Fenggang, Sociology, Purdue University; Lydia H. Liu, East Asian Languages and Literatures, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Wang Zheng, Women’s Studies, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; and Robin Visser, East Asian Languages and Literatures, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Li Yinhe, Dai Jinhua, Liu Bohong, Bu Wei, and Tan Shen are feminist scholars whom I tried hard to interview. Unfortunately, Li broke her leg in the summer of 2004, and Bu, Liu, and Tan were too busy at that time. Dai’s student Zhou Yaqin at the Chinese Academy of Social

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Science referred me to the book Youzai jingzhong (Still Remaining in the Mirror), which includes feminist interviews with Dai. Zhou Yaqin told me that she was one of the people who interviewed Dai Jinhua in Youzai jingzhong and that interviewers asked Dai Jinhua questions similar to my questions. Therefore, in this chapter Dai is the twenty-sixth feminist scholar and the only non-anonymous feminist interviewee.

D C T  “F”: N ÜQUAN ZHU Y I . N ÜX ING ZHU Y I Lydia H. Liu asks an interesting question: “What happens when a word . . . ‘travel[s]’ from one language to another” (Liu, 20)? Her question is relevant to Chinese feminists’ concern with the word “feminism” in the West and different Chinese translations of it in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the PRC. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, the term “feminism” is usually translated as nüxing zhuyi (principles of the female sex/gender). However, in the PRC, there are two Chinese translations of the same term: nüquan zhuyi (principles of women’s right) and nüxing zhuyi (Wang, Zheng, 21). Nüquan means women’s right, while nüxing refers to the female sex. In the socio-cultural context of the PRC, nüquan stands for women’s request for more rights and benefits. It implies men’s loss of their original male privilege. Therefore, the phrase nüquan and the term nüquan zhuyi sound threatening and scary to most men and were thus regarded as negative labels in the PRC. In the 1990s, even women or feminists did not tend to label themselves as nüquan zhuyi zhe (people who support principles of women’s rights). For instance, CN1 preferred to speak only in English whenever talking about “feminism” in order to avoid the notorious Chinese phrase nüquan. CN1 also disclosed that nüquan is an unacceptable Western term for the CCP. CN4 and CN10 both thought that the label of nüquan defiled feminism. CN9 believed that before the 1970s men in the PRC took advantage of the phrase nüquan to masculinize or assimilate women. CNL1 mentioned that the earliest feminist criticism that Zhu Hong and Dai Jinhua began in 1981 was considered nüquan zhuyi. But in the 1990s that kind of feminism was named nüxing zhuyi. CNL8 told me that before 1985 nüquan zhuyi was deemed an extremely bad women’s social movement. CNL14 said that some feminist scholars1 or women writers who were labeled as nüquan zhuyi zhe were severely denigrated and verbally attacked in the early 1990s, but the situation became better afterward.

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In a documentary film entitled Through Chinese Women’s Eyes, Mayfair Mei-hui Yang interviewed Dai Jinhua. Dai confessed that she dared not clearly relate herself with feminism when she was single. Otherwise, people might think that feminism was the reason why she was not married at that time. In Youzai jingzhong, Dai Jinhua confessed that she became a feminist because she grew taller than every male classmate when she was in the third grade at the elementary school (Dai, 184). Since then, people considered her ugly and she felt bad about herself. She was labeled as meirenyao de (the girl whom nobody wants).

P   F S/G  W’ L Different from nüquan, nüxing refers to the female sex. Nüxing and nüxing zhuyi are much more accepted and more popular than nüquan and nüquan zhuyi. CN8 compared nüxing zhuyi and nüquan zhuyi, contending that Taiwan’s translation of “feminism”2 is better than the two translations, nüquan and nüquan zhuyi, in the PRC. CN1 commented that what most nonacademic folks preferred was actually nüxing and that publications in the PRC of the 1990s sold well as long as they were related to nüxing or xing (sex/sexuality), not exactly nüxing zhuyi. CNL3, CNL4, CNL5, CNL11, CNL12, and CNL13 all shared the same perspective. They also enlisted a great number of women writers and women’s literary pieces to support this viewpoint. CN1 told me that people in the PRC even felt that nüxing and nüxing zhuyi are sexier. CN1, CNL3, and CNL14 all noticed that almost anything related to nüxing became popular in the PRC after the middle of the 1990s. CNL4, CNL5, CNL11, and CNL13 shared the same opinion about the popularity of nüxing. They specified the prosperity of women’s literature and literary trends related to nüxing in the PRC of the 1990s. In Youzai jingzhong, Dai Jinhua points out four kinds of women’s literature: first, literature written by women; second, literature about women; third, literature with sympathy and praise for women; fourth, literature from a feminist standpoint. Actually few literary forms could be entirely free from women. Dai Jinhua takes film as an example and explains that it would be difficult to find Chinese films that include no women (Dai, 161). CNL4 divided women’s literature from the early and mid-1980s to the 1990s into three stages: first, the stage of nüquan; second,

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the stage of nüxing; third, the stage of nüren (women). In the early and mid-1980s, women writers, such as Zhang Jie,3 had obvious feminist thoughts, attempting to actively subvert patriarchy and to rethink women’s predicament. CNL4 took Fangzhou for instance. She argued that in this literary work Zhang Jie establishes a women’s paradise free from male-centeredness and looks for equal space for both men’s rights and women’s rights. After this initial stage, women writers turned inward to their feelings and psyches in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although CNL2 and CNL3 both pointed out that some women fictionists, such as Chi Li and Wang Anyi, did not admit that they were feminist writers, CNL4 believed that women writers in this stage, like Wang Anyi, questioned the patriarchal traditions and women’s tolerance of sexual inequality. As for women writers in the third stage, such as Chen Ran, CNL4 felt that they transcended Wang Anyi because they had more obvious écriture féminine (feminine writing) and wrote more directly about women’s bodies and desires. At the same time, these women writers in the third stage did not exclude traditional women in their works. CNL4 concluded that women’s literature in this stage was therefore complex and diverse. Like CNL4, CNL5 noticed the diversity of women’s literature in the 1990s and even the early 2000s. She also pointed out how popular Mu Zimei’s online literature was among nonacademic people in the late 1990s and early 2000s, though Mu’s online love stories about sexuality may be considered lowbrow by some literary critics and researchers. CNL3 thought that some women writers, such as Can Xue, Lin Bai, and Chen Ran, realized their readers’ curiosity about and voyeurism of women who dared to explore their bodies, express their sexual desires, try various kinds of new possibilities, and redefine themselves. According to CNL3, this is the reason why these women writers selected their topics and marketed their literary works in the PRC of the 1990s.

N P’ A  F Almost all of my interviewees agreed that nüxing zhuyi was more acceptable than nüquan zhuyi and that nüxing was more acceptable than nüquan. However, how did they compare the acceptance of nüxing and that of nüxing zhuyi? Generally speaking, nüxing was much more acceptable for most people in the PRC than nüxing zhuyi in the 1990s. CNL1, CNL2, and CN8, for instance, told me that

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most nonacademic people did not truly accept nüxing zhuyi as much as scholars in the PRC. Both CNL9 and CN8 told me the same example of how ignorant of feminism nonacademic people were in the PRC of the 1990s: a government department refused to hire a woman only because this woman’s breasts were not well balanced. Not until it was criticized in publications by feminist scholars did this governmental department change its mind and hire this woman. CNL11 contended that uneducated women in the countryside actually internalized patriarchal discrimination against themselves and unquestioningly accepted gender inequality. She told me an example that impressed her the most. One day she knocked at the front door of a house where a couple lived. At that time, the husband was out of town and the wife was the only person at home. However, the wife opened the door and said to her, “Mei ren” (“Nobody at home”). According to CNL11’s interpretation, the whole patriarchal system has been still telling uneducated and traditional women in the countryside that only their husbands or household heads should be counted as ren (men/people/human beings). This is why this wife even forgot that she herself should have been deemed a ren.4 Instead of nüquan, what most nonacademic people were more inclined to accept in Chinese culture is actually muquan (mothers’ rights). Numerous dynasties in feudalist China share the same historical fact that emperors’ mothers, not their wives, sat behind pearl curtains in back of the royal throne to listen to governmental officers’ reports and influence or even decide national policy. This clearly proves the priority that muquan has over nüquan. Even in contemporary China, most mothers still have strong power over their sons and daughters-in-law. Chi Li, a novelist, also shares this argument of mine; she cites the muquan and power of Mrs. Jia and Mrs. Wang in Hongloumeng (The Dream of the Red Chamber) to exemplify the superiority of muquan in Chinese culture.5 In addition to Chi Li, my interviewees also agree with me. For example, CNL1 highlighted that Chinese patriarchy neglected women’s rights but highly esteemed mothers’ rights. She also confessed that the most significant reason for the CCP to support feminism was actually the CCP’s need for women’s support, not actually women’s rights or benefits. This confession also proves that in chapter 2 it is logical for me to question why feminists in the PRC never directly pointed out problems between Chinese feminism and Chinese Marxism6 after Western feminists diagnosed and declared the “unhappy marriage” of

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Marxism and feminism worsened (Hartman, 7–8). CN1, CN6, and CNL14 all indicated that feminists in the PRC were under the CCP’s control and that in the 1990s it was entirely impossible for feminists in the PRC to point out hidden conflicts between Communism and feminism. Although most of my interviewees felt that the CCP’s organization of the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress helped decrease nonacademic people’s negative attitudes toward feminism, CNL1 added her friend’s example to what she would like my interview to include. CNL1’s friend quit research projects related to women’s/gender studies because she was frustrated by nonacademic people’s lack of acceptance of feminism in the PRC of the 1990s.

A A  F Even within academia, not every scholar truly accepted feminism, women’s studies, or gender studies in the 1980s and the 1990s. CN1, CN7, and CNL11 clearly felt that some male scholars or male elites considered those who were devoted to feminism and gender studies as inferior researchers. CN7 thought that some male scholars regarded feminist scholars as people who had no ability to do research in other research fields. CNL6 remarked that some male professors took a sarcastic attitude toward female graduate students whose master theses or doctoral dissertations focused on gender studies. When CN9 was a graduate student in the late 1980s and early 1990s, her male advisors warned her against writing a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation related to women’s studies. CN5 felt that she was lucky because in the late 1970s and early 1980s her male advisor did not stop her from writing a feminist dissertation even though he lacked sufficient background in women’s studies and thus did not really teach her much about how to deal with gender issues. She contended that men who were hostile to feminism misunderstood what feminists fought against. She clarified that what feminists really fought against was the whole patriarchal system, instead of individual men. Zhao asked a male president of a women’s college why he seemed to wholeheartedly support women’s studies. The answer was that girl students’ legs looked too fat. CN1 told me that this male president believed women’s studies classes could alert girl students to this fact, solve the problem of girl students’ fat legs, and thus help his girl students become more attractive to men and get married more easily in the future. I agreed with CN1 on her interpretation that this male president’s opinions about girl students’ fat legs in the 1990s, as a

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matter of fact, were as male-centered as the requirement for women’s foot-binding in ancient China. CNL1 took her friend’s university for example. She disclosed that her friend’s university had its vice president serve as the head of the women’s studies center neither because the university sincerely supported the women’s studies center nor because its vice president is a famous and influential feminist scholar. It was because nobody else was willing to have the negative feminist label of doing that job. CN1 and CN6 criticized their universities for looking down upon feminist research and for not providing financial support or academic resources for women’s studies. However, after American organizations sponsored their colleagues’ feminist research projects, everyone with authorities at these universities changed their attitudes and praised feminist research projects. Even their university presidents came to their offices and shook hands with them. CN6 and CNL7 both complained that some universities did not allow true feminist scholars to lead their women’s studies centers. Instead, these universities let the CCP’s dangshuji (“secretaries”) direct their women’s studies centers and indirectly turned their women’s studies centers into avenues for the CCP’s political control of academic resources in research fields related to women’s and gender concerns. CNL7 argued that this was a win-win policy for men only. On one hand, these men pretended to be open-minded and supportive of feminism in order to be praised as good leaders and good scholars. They wanted all manner of feminist developments to look like products of their own work. On the other hand, all the feminism in the women’s studies centers, which they dominated, was merely feminism approved by and subordinate to men. CN4 agreed with CNL7 and believed that these male leaders allowed only limited space for true gender scholars to do their women’s and gender studies. According to CN1, most feminist scholars in the PRC of the 1990s did not get enough financial sponsorship from their male supervisors or bosses to complete their feminist research projects. Some male leaders did not count the teaching hours of feminist classes as formal teaching hours. CN1 said that some of these male leaders even avoided paying a salary to scholars who offered feminist courses. CNL9’s attitude was similar to CNL7’s. She did not feel that these male leaders really understood what feminism was. CN8’s male supervisors had private discussions with members of faculty search committees and disclosed that officials with higher authorities in the academic institution preferred not to hire junior women scholars. She confessed that she and her friend have

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been the only two female researchers in her institution for many decades. CN3 did not disagree with the problems that concerned my other interviewees. However, she contended that there were still good male scholars in research fields related to women’s and gender problems. She took her male friend’s classes of women’s and gender studies for example. The enrollment numbers for courses taught by men were comparable to courses taught by women. I agree with CN3. Liu Dalin and Pan Suiming, for instance, both published monographs related to gender studies and tried to establish a museum of sexuality in Shanghai. CN8 sympathized with Pan Suiming upon hearing about all the difficulties with the museum. The Shanghai city government disapproved the establishment of this museum by using application procedures as an excuse. After being moved for several times, the museum of sexuality was located inside of a girls’ school in Suzhou in 2003. CN8 insisted that women’s/gender problems in the PRC of the 1990s were different from those in the West. What women faced were not only women’s problems but also men’s problems, cultural problems, and problems of the whole social system. Therefore, contrary to Western feminism’s lack of significant male participants, it was not unusual at all for male scholars or male elites in the PRC to participate in local feminist activism and women’s/gender studies. Dai Jinhua also pointed this out when Zhou Yaqin and a Korean feminist scholar interviewed her.8 In fact, men requested and assisted women to demand liberation and equal rights and then they helped initiate feminism in the PRC. This is completely opposite to how Western feminism got started. Of course, CN8 recognized that male elites’ leadership of feminism was a deficiency of local feminism in the PRC. However, she stressed that a large number of male elites and even male Communist leaders did sympathize with women and understand women’s predicament though they might still be wary of sacrificing their male privilege. CN11 and CNL7 revealed their concerns about male gender scholars. They appreciated Taiwanese male gender scholars, such as Fu Ta-wei, Ning Ying-pin, Ka Weibo, Su Tsu-chung (Martin Su), and Hsieh Wo-lung.9

L F   PRC After comparing and contrasting nüxing, nüquan, muquan, nüxing zhuyi, and nüquan zhuyi, what feminism was in the PRC of the 1990s

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is a compelling question. My interviewees’ answers to this question included local feminism in the PRC and Western feminism acculturated by the PRC. Let me start with what the interviewees said about local feminism in the PRC. Although CN8 mentioned that Chinese Communist legislators gave women equal rights in 1949,10 CNL5 doubted whether the CCP was really the initiator of local Chinese feminist activism (see chapter 2). CNL5 and I both believed that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, rather than the CCP, began the first local governmental policy of monogamous system in China long before the Nationalist Party’s monogamy law. CN10 did not think that Chinese women’s awakening was later than Euro-American women’s. She took Hua Mulan, Qiu Jin, and the leading role in a book entitled Qingchun zhi ge (The Song of Youth) as an example and pointed out that these Chinese women had their awakening earlier than many feminist pioneers in the West. According to CN10, local feminist activism in the PRC spread from the central government to the margins of the PRC. CN10 contended, The Chinese Communist Party made many mistakes but had at least two applaudable accomplishments: first, the emphasis on women’s importance; second, the popularization of elementary and secondary education. In the 1950s, the CCP encouraged women to do what men could do, to share men’s financial responsibility in family life, and to get equal status at home. My mother, for instance, became one of the first-wave career women on the job market at that time.

Including CN10, twelve of my twenty-five interviewees regarded Communist feminism as a significant part of local feminism in the PRC.11 Most of them focused on details of local gender problems, such as Communist masculinization of women, women’s occupations, and the male/female population ratio. CN10, for instance, did not deny that the CCP’s misleading emphasis on gender equality distorted the issue to some extent. Sometimes girls or women forced themselves to do what men could do only to prove that they had more capability than men. During the Cultural Revolution, educated youth were sent from urban areas to rural regions as labors, such as porters to carry bricks. CN10 took the case of two people’s collaboration to carry bricks during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) for example. Usually two people cooperated to carry two bricks. Yet some girls who were “sent down” to the frontier insisted on collaboration to carry three bricks at the same

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time. This, as a matter of fact, masculinized women, removed the differences between men and women, and destroyed women’s femininity. CN9 shared the same interpretation of how the local Chinese Communist gender policy de-femininized women. CN9 did not regard male Communist leaders’ masculinization of local Chinese women as appropriate feminist activism in the PRC, either. CNL4 shared the same opinion with CN10 and criticized that the gender egalitarianism was not true egalitarianism in the era between the 1950s and late 1970s. CNL3, for instance, criticized that women’s predicaments were not really major concerns during the Cultural Revolution even though the CCP promoted a large number of women, such as Jiang Qing, as governmental officials at that time. According to CN10, the CCP’s masculinization or de-feminization of women was probably the reason why some women wanted to rediscover their femininity and to return from the over-masculinized job market to the role of housewife in the 1980s. CNL1 provided a different interpretation of women’s withdrawal from the job market. She thought that women had been the primary group victimized by the increasing rate of unemployment. Although CN10 and CNL1 interpreted why women left the job market in different ways, they both indicated that women’s departure from the job market was a problem of local feminism in the PRC. The PRC government’s one-child policy, needless to say, is a significant gender problem. CN5 did not disagree that over 70 percent of abandoned babies or orphans in the PRC were female after the late 1970s and early 1980s and that the one-child policy has been killing and hurting innocent baby girls since the 1970s. She even agreed that the CCP did not realize that it ran the risk of turning women into nothing but birth machines and babysitters when it announced Fulian’s mission was to be in charge of women and childraising. However, CN5 was certain that the PRC would still insist on the necessity of the one-child policy regardless of baby girls’ rights. CN9 told me that CN6 interviewed women in villages and witnessed wanrenkeng (“a hole dug for ten thousands of people”: a big hole dug to bury aborted female fetuses or killed or abandoned baby girls). CN8 suspected that girls born under the one-child policy would be increasingly pickier when choosing a husband and show an obvious preference for rich men because there will be so many more men than women. Closely related to the one-child policy is the problem of abortion. In many of the world’s countries, abortion is illegal and controversial. However, CN9 certified that abortion has been legal and strongly

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encouraged. In the 1990s, most PRC pharmacies did not sell any morning-after pills, but the law set no limit on how late in the pregnancy an abortion could be performed. CN9 confirmed that in hospitals and clinics a surgery to abort an embryo cost only hundreds of yuan (RMB) in the 1990s. Almost everybody could afford to pay for an abortion. In the PRC, some provinces even punished gynecologists who did not help patients abort their second or third children. Some hospitals or clinics even sold placentas or aborted embryos as Chinese medicine. Both CN2 and CN8 added that new gender problems resulted from changes in socio-economic conditions in the PRC of the 1990s. In the 1970s and 1980s, men who were honest, reliable, hardworking, and poor—laborers, farmers, or soldiers—were usually the most popular and ideal candidates for husbands. However, in the 1990s the PRC became much wealthier and had more connections with capitalist countries and enormous international enterprises. Rich men replaced proletarians, peasants, and soldiers. They became the “hottest” candidates for husbands in most young girls’ minds. Whether the selected rich men were truly sincere, trustworthy, diligent, or frank did not seem to be the most important criterion. In Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Fujian, and many other areas of the PRC, more and more young girls chose to be lovers, secret concubines, or illegal wives of wealthy Taiwanese businessmen who betrayed their Taiwanese wives. My interviewees could not ignore the topic of the World Women’s Congress that Beijing hosted for the United Nations in 1995. CNL2 and CN2 commented that this congress was the climax of feminism in the PRC. In Youzai jingzhong, Dai Jinhua also made similar comments on this congress.12 CNL11 recalled that it was totally impossible for women in the PRC to have private meetings or dinner parties in order to talk about women’s concerns free from political pressure twenty years go. She emphasized that the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress did stimulate both the government and society to accept feminism. CNL3 argued that the official aspects of feminist activism in the PRC did not truly begin until this congress. CNL9 told me that publishers did not accept her friend’s book manuscript about feminist literary concerns until this congress. In CNL9’s opinion, this congress influenced not only the government, political parties, society, and ordinary people, but also scholars, presses, and publishers. CN1 interpreted the PRC’s intention to host such a congress as the CCP’s attempt to claim that it enabled Mainland Chinese

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women to enjoy more feminist liberation than women in the rest of the world. In other words, CN1 felt that the PRC took advantage of this congress to propagate its own political position. Therefore, the political propaganda was actually more important than pure feminism in this congress from the CCP’s standpoint. In fact, Jiang Zemin’s keynote speech in the congress, according to CN1, was drafted by Fulian, not Jiang himself at all. In the draft, Fulian deliberately wrote that gender egalitarianism should be a basic national policy. Fulian’s strategy was to let Jiang, as the leader of the nation, read this draft and announce in front of newspaper, radio, and television journalists that gender egalitarianism should be a basic national policy. On the women’s day of 1996, Fulian asked journalists to interview the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Interior and to question governmental officials about what kinds of policies would be put into practice in order to benefit women after the leader of the nation announced that gender egalitarianism should be a basic national policy. Feeling pressure in the face of the media, governmental officials were forced to make some promises of changes that would absolutely benefit women. According to CN1, this is how Fulian and feminists strategized to benefit women by taking advantage of the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress in Beijing in 1995. Feminist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were also what most of my interviewees mentioned when I asked them about the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress in Beijing in 1995. CN1 and CN5 both revealed the truth that in 1994 and 1995 Chinese feminists suddenly discovered that there was not any influential feminist NGO in the PRC while the West, Taiwan, and Hong Kong had already a large number of feminist NGOs. Since the congress, feminists in the PRC initiated some small-sized NGOs with specific functions. Some of them focused on the media’s power to broadcast, propagate, and promote feminist ideology. Some of them offered legal advice to divorced women. Some of them provided counseling services or medical suggestions. For instance, CN1 and CNL2 both mentioned that Li Yinhe hosted a women’s hotline in Beijing. However, there were still socio-political limitations for these feminist NGOs. Feminist NGOs were allowed only to take mild actions, not to begin radical social movements or lead parades through the streets. In addition, most feminist NGOs lacked financial sponsorship. CN5 divulged a frustrating fact that many feminist NGOs did not last long after the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress because of financial reasons.

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CN1 revealed the difficulty in discussing and dealing with domestic violence in the PRC. According to her, it was unacceptable and dangerous to publicly talk about domestic violence until the year of the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress. Before the congress, people with authority and power thought that there should be no domestic violence and no discussion about it in the PRC because the CCP clearly announced their liberation of women early in 1949. The PRC became more and more open-minded after this congress, and local feminists began more and more discussions about domestic violence. In 1996 and 1997, Fulian started to talk more about domestic violence. In 2002, problems related to domestic violence became topics of nationwide popular soap operas. With regard to the reason why feminists in the PRC did not have any radical feminist movements, more than half of my interviewees acknowledged that in the 1990s the CCP was not open-minded enough to allow radical feminist activism. Five of my interviewees defended feminists in the PRC by telling me that it was not necessary for Chinese women to have any radical feminist movements because Fulian and lawmakers would solve problems for them. Two of my interviewees guessed that someone brave would try to organize more radical social movements if one day the government has more liberal views. Three of my interviewees confessed that they slightly envied feminists’ freedom to organize radical feminist social movements in democratic countries. None of my interviewees thought it was politically safe to organize any radical feminist activism in the PRC of the 1990s.

A F   PRC All of the above-mentioned details of local feminism concerned PRC feminist scholars. But how did feminist scholars think about academic feminism in the PRC of the 1990s? Most of my interviewees felt proud about the connections among themselves, their local gender issues, nonacademic feminist activism in the neighborhood, academic concerns, and research subjects. CN8, for instance, told me her sociologist friend’s research subject in the 1990s was the weiqün zhangfu (“husbands in aprons”: husbands from Shanghai are famous for being willing to help their wives do housework in the whole nation according to feminist scholars in Shanghai). CNL3 compared feminist scholars in Shanghai and those in Beijing. She thought that feminist scholars in Shanghai enjoyed more freedom and space to develop their own feminist research and had

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better feminist sisterhood and closer relationships because Shanghai is distant from the capital of the nation, Beijing. As for CNL2 and CNL10, they drew my attention to Li Xiaojiang’s close relationship with Fulian and her unusual accessibility to some of Fulian’s activist resources to handle local gender problems. CNL10 stressed that the resources that Li Xiaojiang obtained were not what scholars, who stayed in research rooms, libraries, classrooms, and offices only, had access to. Another characteristic of academic feminism in the PRC of the 1990s is probably feminist scholars’ opportunities to go abroad and their foreign language abilities. Generally speaking, PRC feminist scholars did not have as many opportunities to travel to foreign countries as most Euro-American, Taiwanese, or Hong Kong feminist scholars in the 1990s. Due to the Cultural Revolution, their English in the 1990s, on the average, was not as good as most feminist scholars’ in Euro-America, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Many of my interviewees learned some English but were not comfortable when they were required to read the English version of the form by which they consented to be interviewed. I had to explain the form in Mandarin Chinese. Over 70 percent of them used no English terms and spoke no English when answering my questions. Three of them honestly confessed that they could not read any feminist publications written in English and that they heavily depended upon Chinese translation of Western feminist publications. Two of my interviewees divulged their difficulties in getting their English writing accepted and published in non-Chinese-speaking areas. One of my interviewees took Li Xiaojiang for example and pointed out that Li had used translators in order to publish her research in English-speaking areas. However, the lack of foreign language ability and fewer opportunities to travel abroad did not impede scholars’ transfer of Western feminist theories into the PRC of the 1990s. Most of my interviewees firmly believed that Western feminist theories were very much needed in the PRC because of the following reasons. First, women in the PRC did not develop their own feminist theories. Second, Fulian’s feminism lacked theoretical and scholarly backgrounds. Third, interactions with the West since the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress highlighted Communist feminism’s drawbacks, such as the lack of feminist NGOs in the PRC and the Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues being banned in Shanghai and Guangdong. Both CNL4 and CN6 enlisted some of the earliest feminist scholars who introduced Western feminist theories to the PRC. CNL4 thought that Zhu Hong was the first scholar to introduce

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Anglo-American feminist literary criticism to the PRC in the 1980s. According to CN6, Li Xiaojiang finished her doctoral degree in 1982 and began her academic fame as a feminist literary scholar in 1985. CN6 recalled that prestigious academic journals initiated translations about Marxism and gender issues early in 1983. She remembered that Li Xiaojiang started to translate some Western feminist terms into Chinese in 1985 and 1986. In Youzai jingzhong, Dai Jinhua also mentions Li Xiaojing’s accomplishment in the 1980s (Dai, 136). Zhang Jingyuan, Kang Zhengguo, Bao Xiaolan, and Wang Zheng also edited feminist anthologies and introduced Western feminist thought to readers in the PRC of the 1990s. CN10, CNL7, and CNL13 all stressed that it would be impossible to move every feminist theory from the West to the PRC even after political reforms. Therefore, choices over which kinds of Western feminism to be transplanted to the PRC were significant. CN10 pointed out that PRC scholars, after so many power struggles since the Communist era, had good instincts about how to protect themselves from a possible political witch hunt. Mainland Chinese gender scholars were no exception in the 1990s. She insisted that it only took gender scholars’ self-protective instincts to avoid the radical and activist aspects of American feminism. Implying strong agreement, CNL7 said that nobody would try to transfer American feminists’ radical social movements, such as street parades, to the PRC in the 1990s. CN4 also agreed that the choice of French feminist theories could evade political problems and prevent troubles related to practical feminist social movements.

F   PRC . F  T Some of my interviewees compared feminism in the PRC of the 1990s with feminism in Taiwan of the 1990s. Most of those who thought of Taiwanese feminism felt that feminism in Taiwan was more advanced, mature, systematic, theoretical, Westernized, and radical than that in the PRC. According to CN4, in the 1990s Taiwan’s feminist research, feminist social movements, feminist organizations, and feminist networks developed much earlier and were more advanced than those in the PRC. CNL6 mentioned that most Taiwanese feminist scholars completed their doctoral degrees in the United States, England, Germany, or other Western countries and that most Taiwanese feminist scholars began their introduction, translation, or transfer of Western feminist theories early in the 1980s. CN4 compared how Taiwanese feminist

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scholars might mention their own academic backgrounds with how her colleagues would talk about their academic data. Most Taiwanese feminist scholars usually introduced themselves as people with doctoral degrees from universities in the United States, England, or another country, but most feminist scholars in the PRC usually introduced themselves as researchers concerned with domestic violence, marital laws, or other feminist issues. CN4 implied that in the 1990s most Taiwanese feminist scholars had doctoral degrees in the West. She also envied feminists in Taiwan of the 1990s because they had more opportunities to travel abroad than feminists in the PRC of the 1990s. CN1 implied that feminists in the PRC of the 1990s were not given as much space to develop radical activism as feminists in Taiwan of the 1990s. I agreed with CN1, CN4, and CN5. Early in the late 1970s, National Taiwan University already had a small number of history classes related to women’s studies, such as those designed and initiated by Pao Chia-lin (Chia-lin Pao Tao). Beijing University did not have its first feminist literary class until 1989. While Taiwanese feminist scholars organized a street parade in the 1990s, feminists in the PRC still did not feel politically safe to organize anything of their own without the government’s approval. With reference to feminist research subjects, CNL1 pointed out that the earliest Taiwanese feminist scholars touched upon Western feminist theories and Western women’s studies but that early scholars devoted to feminist studies in Beijing University focused on women’s problems in ancient China. CN2 thought that maybe most PRC feminists’ lack of Western language ability in the 1990s was one of the reasons. She took several of her middle-aged colleagues for instance. Seldom could they read any publications in English or Western languages, not to mention difficult feminist theories. CN6 and CN11 briefly compared male gender scholars in the PRC with those in Taiwan. They suspected that a number of male gender scholars in Taiwan were gay or bisexual.13 However, CN6 and CN11 both praised these male gender scholars’ academic research and insights about women’s/gender studies in Taiwan. The institutionalization of gender studies was also something Mainland Chinese interviewees felt that they could not accomplish in the 1990s. Taiwanese feminist scholars successfully institutionalized gender studies and established several graduate institutes of gender studies in the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Taiwanese academia started to hire young feminist scholars with PhDs or PhD minors in women’s/

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gender studies in the West. However, CN8 confessed that women’s/ gender studies was not a formal research field in the PRC of the 1990s at all. She did not know any scholar who earned his or her PhD or PhD minor in women’s/gender studies in the West and then returned to the PRC in the 1990s. According to CN8, even if such a kind of scholar returned to the PRC, people would not know which department or institute this scholar should belong to. After thinking for a long time, CN8 guessed, “Maybe . . . maybe Department of Sociology. Otherwise, where should they go if they have no degrees in traditional research fields, such as literature or history?”

A   PRC    One of the most important factors to determine how feminism was accepted by the PRC academy in the 1990s is to investigate women scholars’ or feminist researchers’ survival, survival strategies, and promotion in various academic fields. Before I delineate my interviewees’ experience, I will briefly touch upon the general situation of the academy in the PRC of the 1990s. In the PRC of the 1990s, there were no assistant professors. College teachers in the PRC “are composed of four ranks: professor, associate professor, lecturer, and teaching assistant. Teaching assistants are full-time faculty, not graduate students” (Li, Yaling, 99). According to CN9, junior scholars who finished doctoral degrees in the 1990s could apply for teaching positions of either lecturer or associate professor. Lecturers who had teaching experience in the same school for two years were qualified to apply for their promotion. If the reviewing committee approved the lecturer’s application for promotion, then the lecturer would become an associate professor. Faculty members in the PRC generally receive poor salaries.15 Among faculty members with low income, “[women] comprise a minority . . . Women constitute a minority of . . . professionals” (Mak, 52–53). Grace C. L. Mak points out that women’s compulsory retirement at the age of fifty-five decreases the number of female professionals, especially those with senior professional titles, such as full professors, directors, or chairpersons, because women usually do not enjoy more freedom and time to develop their career until their children grow up.16 In the PRC in 1991, there were approximately 15,700 full professors and 87,000 associate professors, “accounting respectively for 4% and 21% of the entire teaching staff, that is, the upper two ranks

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account for about 25% of all appointments” (CSEC, 29; Li, 99). Roughly “39%” of all the academic staff in the PRC” were lecturers during the 1990s (CSEC, 29; Li, 99). In the PRC of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the student/faculty ratio in higher education was approximately 141:1. Nationwide, 9.5 percent of all full-time faculty members in colleges and universities were full professors, 30.3 percent of them were associate professors, and 35.2 percent of them were lecturers. Beijing probably had the most full professors and associate professors. In Beijing of the late 1990s and early 2000s, 17.9 percent of all the full-time faculty members were full professors, and 35.1 percent were associate professors.17 In the 1990s, most professors in the PRC did not have doctoral degrees. On the average, only 6.5 percent of all full-time faculty members had doctoral degrees, and only 22.8 percent had master’s degrees. Beijing probably had the highest rate of faculty members with PhDs and master’s degrees. In Beijing of the late 1990s and early 2000s, 17.85 percent of full-time faculty members had doctoral degrees, and 33.48 percent had master’s degrees.18 Almost every one of my PRC interviewees taught classes related to women’s/gender studies in the 1990s, but none of them had any degrees or certificates in women’s/gender studies. All of them already had master’s degrees either before the 1990s or in the 1990s. However, less than half of them had doctoral degrees when I interviewed them. Among the interviewees with doctoral degrees, one of them had received her PhD in America; one of them pursued her PhD in Europe. The rest completed their doctoral degrees in the PRC. Ninety-five percent of my PRC interviewees taught as associate professors and full professors in the 1990s. All of the associate professors were lecturers before they were promoted. All of the full professors were lecturers and associate professors before they were promoted. But none of these associate professors and full professors were assistant professors—except for an interviewee who taught as an assistant professor and then became promoted in the United States in the 1990s. Six of my PRC interviewees had been visiting scholars in the United States in the 1990s and the early 2000s. One of them had been a visiting scholar in Taiwan. One of them had been a visiting scholar in Canada. Four of them told me that they had participated in academic conferences hosted by universities or organizations in Taiwan. Five of them had actively interacted with gender scholars in Taiwan by inviting Taiwanese professors as guest speakers in the PRC, visiting

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feminist research programs or women’s organizations in Taiwan, or publishing academic works in Taiwan.19

A S S  P In American academia, most junior scholars are concerned with getting tenure-track teaching positions and how to get tenure. However, what their counterpart in the PRC of the 1990s was concerned about was not exactly the same. Because there were no assistant professors in the PRC of the 1990s, Mainland Chinese lecturers and associate professors were concerned with their promotion, rather than tenure. Female or feminist scholars’ academic survival strategies and promotion were determined by the academic reception of feminism. CNL1, for instance, disclosed that scholars devoted to women’s/ gender studies usually had difficulties in being promoted. Three of my other PRC interviewees briefly took Dai Jinhua’s case as an example in order to illustrate how difficult it was for well-known feminist scholars to be smoothly promoted. Yet none of my interviewees felt free to disclose more details of Dai’s difficulties at that time. However, almost every one of the interviewees who talked to me about Dai thought that the feminist label attached to Dai had slowed down the pace of Dai’s promotion in the academy of the PRC in the 1990s.20 CNL3 confessed that very few PRC scholars actively claimed to be feminists, especially radical feminists, fearing lack of support of public opinion and how the academy would likely confine them within feminist limits. I think that CNL3 was indirectly indicating an academic survival strategy that a large number of feminist scholars adopted in the PRC of the 1990s: avoidance of radical feminist labels before being successfully promoted. CN10 specified people’s misunderstanding and misinterpretation of feminist labels in the academy of the PRC. She asserted that many conservative scholars still thought that scholars became feminists because they had difficulty finding a husband, they had marital problems, they had troubles in sexual identity or sexual orientation, they had too strong a personality, or they had too dominant or too masculine a style. Dai Jinhua, in Youzai jingzhong, also makes a brief list of similar misconceptions about feminists: “unwanted,” “debauched,” “lesbianism,” “superwoman,” or “talented woman” (Dai, 184). CN2 pointed out that some feminist scholars’ strong personalities or their husbands’ academic reputation might also indirectly be some kind of self-protection or self-defense. According to CN2, PRC women became extremely tough when there were power struggles;

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feminist scholars were no exception if they were involved in internal academic strife. Their academic foes could often foresee how tough feminist scholars would be before taking any hostile action. CN2 made a list of names of several famous feminist scholars and their husbands, such as Li Yinhe and Wang Xiaobo, and strongly indicated that scholars who were hostile would take feminist scholars’ spouses into consideration prior to engaging in academic power struggles. What CNL7 hated was that male gatekeepers presupposed that the quality of feminist research must be inferior to that of men’s research. CNL7 felt that they looked down upon the quality of all the feminist academic journals. According to what CNL7 knew, they usually claimed that they disapproved junior feminist scholars’ applications for promotion because the quality of feminist research was not high enough and because the academic journals that included feminist research were not good enough. CNL7 doubted feminist scholars would be promoted once they gave up feminist research subjects and did research on the same subjects as male gatekeepers. If the avoidance of feminist research subjects is a means to avoid the radical feminist label, then CNL7’s suspicion, coincidentally, was similar to the academic survival strategy that CNL3 implied. In other words, the academic survival strategy that both CNL3 and CNL7 felt to be adoptable was to temporarily get rid of radical feminist labels and to temporarily stay away from feminist research projects before promotion. CN9 told me of a friend’s experience in promotion. Her friend finished a PhD in the 1990s and was immediately hired as a lecturer. After serving as a lecturer for two years, her friend applied to be promoted to associate professor. The number of associate professors was already fixed in every department. Therefore, her friend had to compete with other colleagues who were also trying to be promoted to associate professors. According to her friend’s understanding, the on-campus reviewing committee was the most important. All the reviewing committee members were anonymous. Even if the university would like to have some off-campus reviewing committee members, her friend could make a list of possible off-campus reviewers and, more or less, avoid inappropriate or hostile off-campus reviewers. Then the university would choose one or two candidates from her list of off-campus reviewers and keep the selected off-campus reviewers anonymous. In order to protect herself, CN9’s friend did not reveal many of her own feminist thoughts when she was a lecturer. She was directly promoted to associate professor because there were no assistant professors in the PRC of the 1990s. So it took only two years for a lecturer to become

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promoted to associate professor in her friend’s case. In other words, CN9’s friend became an associate professor only two years after she completed her doctoral degree. Right after becoming an associate professor, CN9’s friend began conducting feminist research projects and became a recognizable feminist scholar. I asked CNL10 about what people did if they were not successfully promoted. CNL10 told me that there was nothing people could do in PRC academy during the 1990s. I asked CNL10 whether people thought about complaints or pleadings. CNL10 replied that it would be entirely useless. In addition to lecturers’ and associate professors’ concerns about their promotion, full professors had their own concerns with the possibility of having better administrative positions or higher status. According to CNL5’s understanding, even though some women scholars were truly given positions of high authority, they were actually still “decorative” among men with administrative power or in important positions. In the PRC of the 1990s, the higher the status in academia, the smaller the number of women scholars was, and the more significant the masculine quality seemed to be. For instance, Liu Jinan, the female president of the Communication University of China (Beijing Broadcast Institute), mentioned the importance of being persistent and diligent when journalists interviewed her. People commented, “Nothing will be unsuccessful as long as [Liu] approves it to be done.” Chen Naifang, the female president of Beijing Foreign Languages University, emphasized the significance of courage to make difficult decisions and to be frank and straightforward. 21

F A R Most of my interviewees mentioned how academic rivalry influenced gender scholars’ promotions in the PRC. Before I began interviews in the PRC, a large number of my feminist friends in the United States, Taiwan, and the PRC reminded me of the academic rivalry between Li Xiaojiang and Wang Zheng. CN9’s colleague described how Wang and Li disagreed with each other in an academic conference hosted by Zhong Shan University in 2002. CN2’s friend kindly advised me not to mention Li Xiaojiang in front of Wang Zheng and not to talk about Wang Zheng in the presence of Li Xiaojiang. CNL5, for instance, told me that her friend strongly disagreed with feminist scholars in Zhong Shan University. She firmly believed

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that her friend would destroy all the opportunities for feminist scholars in that university to be promoted if her friend becomes a reviewer of their materials. CN8’s colleague, a classmate of Emily Honig when she drafted her doctoral dissertation on women laborers in Shanghai factories, is Wang Zheng’s academic opponent. She criticized Wang as seeming too proud because of her marriage to an American man and her better English language ability. Even though Wang Zheng told CN8 that there were cultural conflicts between her and her American husband, CN8’s colleague still disliked Wang Zheng. However, she did not specify how much Wang Zheng would be influenced by this academic rivalry. CN7’s friend disliked Li Yinhe because Li seemed to support sexuality regardless of socio-cultural restrictions. She also disliked Xü Kun. But CN7 told me that her friend, as a good feminist scholar, would tolerate the difference among feminists. She said that her friend would not do anything to hurt Li Yinhe or Xü Kun. CN2 told me that Li Yinhe was already a famous and senior feminist scholar in the 1990s. Even if Li Yinhe’s opinions about sexuality were shocking to conservative people, CN2 did not think that she would be fired. However, people with higher authority would probably ask other scholars to talk about conservative perspectives when Li Yinhe made progressive arguments in any international academic conference because the PRC would not like foreigners to mistake feminism in the PRC as being about sexuality only. CN5, CNL7, and CNL11 mentioned the rivalry between Huang Lin and Wang Hongqi. Huang Lin is good in academic research about women’s literature. Wang Hongqi is an editor with abundant university resources. The past collaboration about feminism between Huang Lin and Wang Hongqi, such as the various volumes of Zhongguo nüxing wenhua (Chinese Women’s Culture), resulted in the current rivalry. CNL14 disclosed her friend’s academic hostility toward Dorothy Ko. Her friend thought that it was totally wrong for Dorothy Ko not to point out the Confucian gender discrimination against “teachers of the inner chambers.” In CNL14’s friend’s opinion, those “career women in the inner chambers” could not disprove the unquestionable sexual discrimination in the seventeenth century. To me, this seems to be a difference of scholarly opinion, not truly academic hostility, because CNL14’s friend in the PRC could not do anything to academically hurt Dorothy Ko, who has been teaching in the United States for many years.22

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Although there were well-known pairs of academic foes in the academy of the 1990s, most of my interviewees told me that they would still be supportive of other feminists regardless of conflicts. CN4, CN5, CN6, CN7, and CNL12 thought that most feminist scholars in the PRC of the 1990s, generally speaking, were mild and polite to one another. At least, according to my interviewees, they never publicly exposed hostility or rivalry on television or in newspapers.

R Chen, Ya-chen. “Toward a More Complete Understanding of Chinese Academic Feminism: Interviews with P.R.C. and Taiwanese Feminist Faculty Members.” Higher Education in East Asia: Neoliberalism and the Professoriate. Gregory S. Poole and Ya-chen Chen edt. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2009, pp. 125–140. Dai, Jinhua. Youzai jingzhong (Still Remaining in the Mirror). Beijing: Zhishi, 1996. Hartman, Heidi. “The Unhappy Marriage of Feminism and Marxism.” Schools of Thought in Politics: Feminism. Susan Moller Okin and Jane Mansbridge edt. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1994. Hayhoe, Ruth. China’s Universities 1895–1995: A Century of Cultural Conflict. New York: Garland, 1996. Li, Yaling. “Women Instructors in Higher Education in China.” New York: Teachers College, Columbia University (Doctoral Dissertation), 1997. Li, Zhengrong. “Chi, Li: Zhongguo meiyou nüquan zhuyi zhi you muquan” (“China Has Only Mothers’ Rights, Not Women’s Rights”). Beijing wanbao (Beijing Evening News). Beijing: April 5, 2007. Liu, Lydia H. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. Mak, Grace C. L. “Higher Education in the People’s Republic of China.” The Gender Gap in Higher Education. Suzanne Stiver Lie, Lynda Malik, and Duncan Harris edt. London: Kogan Page, 1994. State Education Commission of China (CSEC). The Development and Reform of Education in China 1991–1992. Geneva: International Conference on Education, Forty-third Session, 1992. Wang, Fei. “Nüxing piping: cong nali lai, dao nail qü” (“Feminist Criticism: Where It Came From, Where It Will Go”). Weyi yenjiu (Literary and Artistic Research) 6 (2003): 20–28.

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CH A P T ER

5

French Feminist Theories in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s

In the 1990s, Taiwanese feminist literary scholars appropriated certain Western feminist theories to transfer into Taiwan. For instance, during this time Zhongwai wenxue (Chinese and Foreign Literature/ Chung Wai Literary Monthly), one of the most prestigious literary journals in Taiwanese academia, included a large number of articles that introduced, summarized, and discussed three French feminist theorists: Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, and Julia Kristeva. In this chapter, I will explore how Taiwan’s colonial and post-colonial socio-cultural trends, Taiwanese elites’ cross-lingual capabilities, and feminist scholars’ cross-cultural strategization might have influenced the localized or Taiwanized version of French feminist theories.

S-H G  W L T  T The introduction of Western literature to Taiwan did not happen in a vacuum. It is also not purely a Taiwanese literary trend in sociocultural history. The transfer of French feminist theories into Taiwan in the 1990s is no exception. In this section, I would like to trace some of the socio-historical foreground and background behind notable appropriation of Western literary thought and French feminist theories in Taiwan. In Taiwanese history, the best-known period related to the appropriation of Western literary thought is probably the Taiwanese modernist literary era in the 1960s. At that time, modernism was a sort of literary movement, whose goal, according to Chi Hsien,1 was to adopt pure Western/Westernized skills for creative writing in Taiwan.

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According to most researchers who work on this part of Taiwanese literary history, there is a real socio-historical foreground and background that resulted in appropriation of Western literary thought into Taiwan. After the Chinese Communist Party defeated the Nationalist Party in the great civil war in the year 1949, the Nationalist Party retreated from Mainland China to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek, the head of the Nationalist Party, tried to regain his political control over all of Mainland China. In Taiwan at that time, Communists were called gongfei (communist robbers). The Nationalist Party, under the circumstances, began its policy of anti-Communist literature in the 1950s by establishing some literary awards. Waisheng (Mainlandbackground-ed) poets and fictionists, such as Si-ma Chung-yuan, Chu Hsi-ning, Su Hsüeh-lin, Lin Hai-yin, and Kuan Kuan, wrote with homesick nostalgia about Mainland China or took a military stance against Communism. The military anti-Communism transformed into Chiang Kai-shek’s political self-defensive complex and hegemonic baise kongbu (“the white terror”: a special term to refer to the island-wide political witch hunt before the lifting of martial law). Whatever might threaten Chiang’s dominion, such as Communism, socialism, leftism, and Taiwanese independence, was oppressed. Therefore, leftist literary trends, May Fourth literary traditions, and Communism-related writers’ works in the PRC were banned. In this sense, the only theme absolutely safe in creative writing of the 1950s became anti-Communism and Mainlanders’ nostalgia. Gradually, the anti-Communist and Mainland Chinese homesick literature faced a dead end. The narrower and more limited the literary space for diverse themes was, the stronger the potential of literary diversity would grow. This might have indirectly resulted in waisheng writers’ reception of Western literary thought since the 1960s. At that time, the remedy for this dead end was to find a new literary inclination. In the 1960s, writers educated in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, started a new Taiwanese literary style. This style became the modernist literary style in Taiwan of the 1960s. Modernist writers thought highly of academic training in Western literary criticism. They applied Western literary notions, criticism, and skills to creative writing, such as poetry and fiction. In this period of time, the West that modernists had in mind was mainly Anglo-American. Even if discussing non-Anglo-American literary figures, such as Kafka, Dostoevsky, Goethe, and Homer, Taiwanese elites depended upon either English or Chinese translations of these non-Anglo-American literary figures. They did not yet include global theories, such as post-colonialism.

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They did not include any well-developed feminist literary theories, either, at that time. The fact that modernists in the 1960s had not yet transferred Western feminist theories might partially explain the socio-historical reasons for why Anglo-American or French feminist theories were not introduced to Taiwan until later on. After the 1960s, this modernist literary camp faced opposition as the indigenous literary camp, which grassroots Taiwanese writers formed, rose. There were battles on paper between the modernist literary camp and the indigenous literary camp. Localists criticized that the modernist literary camp was chongyang shudian wangzu (rootless xenophiles, who forgot and betrayed their own ancestral origin/ history). But modernists condemned the grassroots writers as taidu fenzi (members of Taiwanese independence). Maybe because of these encounters, some modernists gradually diverted their high respect for Western literature and acceptance of Western literary critical theories from creative writing to the academic “ivory tower.” In other words, most of the pioneers who introduced Western literary criticism to Taiwan in the 1960s were poets, fictionists, or literary critics. Some of them, such as Wang Wen-hsing (1939–) and Yip Wai-lim (1937–), are also professors in Taiwanese or American academia (Chang, Sungsheng, 411). But after the confrontations, a number of writers with Mainland backgrounds suspended transplanting Western literary thought and applying it to creative writing. Most frontline appropriators of Western literary theories became scholars who are not famed for creative writing. This is probably part of the socio-historical reason why Taiwanese appropriators of Western feminist literary theories in the 1990s are chiefly researchers, not indigenous women writers. However, the transfer of Western literary criticism into Taiwanese fiction, essays, and poetry in the 1960s is actually not the earliest introduction of Western literary thought in modern Taiwanese history. Lin Heng-tai (1924–), so far as Taiwanese literary historians have known, may be the first Taiwanese man of letters to transfer Western literary concepts into Taiwan. His earliest appropriation of Western literary elements is his modern poems, which are written in Japanese because of Japan’s colonization of Taiwan and were published in the 1940s. At that time, Lin may have been inspired by modern Japanese and Euro-American poetry. Chaoliu (Tides)2 is possibly the first Taiwanese literary journal to exhibit Lin Heng-tai’s earliest applications of Western literary notions to indigenous Taiwanese literature. Lin published his poems in almost every issue of this literary journal. Xiandai shi (Modernist Poetry) may be the second Taiwanese literary journal to disclose Lin Heng-tai’s preference for Western literary

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concepts because Lin assisted Chi Hsien to establish this noteworthy journal, whose goal was to Westernize creative writing and to thus bring modernism to Taiwanese literature. This fact about Lin Hengtai supports my argument that Taiwanese academia’s preference for French feminist literary theories in the 1990s had complicated sociohistorical backgrounds early in the era of Japanese colonization. In the 1990s, while Taiwanese theoretical appropriators were resolving which sorts of Western literary theories to welcome and which to refuse, the socio-historical backdrops were extremely influential in these decisions. The socio-historical backdrops introduced Taiwanese appropriators’ power in terms of gate-keeping and filtering French feminist literary theories in Taiwan during the 1990s. Some critics might question whether Taiwan’s acceptance of Western literary thought implies literary appropriators’ betrayal of Taiwan’s indigenous population. I do not believe that Taiwan’s reception of Western literary criticism and theories is not equivalent to literary appropriators’ betrayal of Taiwanese indigenous people. Nor does Taiwan’s reception of Western literary theories imply any willingness to be culturally, literarily, or academically colonized by the West. Lin Heng-tai offers evidence to support this. For instance, Lin Heng-tai is likely the first poet to incorporate Western literary and philosophical thought into Taiwanese creative writing. At the same time, he is also the first editor-in-chief of Li (The Wide-Brimmed Rain Hat), one of the most localist literary journals in Taiwan. In fact, Lin Heng-tai is the one who decided on the title of this indigenous literary journal. Throughout Taiwanese local agricultural history, almost all the peasants wore wide-brimmed rain hats when they worked on their farms. For this reason, wide-brimmed rain hats are an undeniable symbol of Taiwanese indigenousness. To name this journal Li and to serve as the first editor-in-chief of Li verifies that Lin Heng-tai is not disloyal to Taiwanese ancestors. Neither is he colonized by the West. This is a part of the persuasive socio-historical aspect that supports my previous argument that Taiwanese digests of Western literature and French feminist literary theories equate neither to Westerners’/French feminists’ conquest of Taiwan nor to Taiwan’s submission to the West/France.

Z HONGWAI W ENXUE : A P A  L J  T Before analyzing these theoretical articles of French feminism in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s, I would like to point out the importance of Zhongwai wenxue from two perspectives: first, Zhongwai

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wenxue as a literary journal; second, Zhongwai wenxue as an academic journal. Literary journals3 have played a significant role in Taiwanese literary history.4 They usually serve as markers for the ups and downs of literary branches in Taiwan. They have also footnoted turning points in the whole Taiwanese literary history.5 For example, in the 1920s, Taiwanese literary journals reprinted “works by Chinese New Literature writers, such as Lu [Xun], Hu Shi” (Chang, Sung-sheng, 265–266). In 1964, Wenxue Taiwan (Literature Taiwan), established by Wu Cho-liu (1900–1976),6 clearly reflects Taiwan’s grassroots literary localism. Taiwan wenxue (Taiwan Literature), established by Yeh Shih-tao (1925-2008), shares similar indigenous literary thoughts.7 However, Wenxue zazhi (Literary Magazine)8 and Xiandai wenxue (Modern Literature) are different from Wenyi Taiwan and Wenxue Taiwan. Diverging from Wu Cho-liu’s and Yeh Shih-tao’s focus on Taiwan’s indigene, Wenxue zazhi and Xiandai wenxue add Western writing styles to modernist writers’ creative writing and apply Western literary critical thought onto textual analyses in academia.9 Zhongwai wenxue was initiated partially because of the end of Wenxue zazhi. It had been a literary journal to inherit Hsia Chi-an’s spiritual legacy in Wenxue zazhi. Between February and March in 1973, Chu Li-min, the dean of liberal arts, invited several colleagues from Dept of Foreign Languages and Literature [National Taiwan University] to have dinner together in his house . . . Everybody recalled the great impacts of literary journals upon Chinese literature since the May Fourth Movement. All of [them] were impressed by the contributions of Wenxue zazhi . . . But [Wenxue zazhi] was stopped after the death of [its founder] . . . [Participants of this dinner party] ate and discussed [this matter] at the same time. (Hu, “Zhongwai biandu ershi nian,” 12)

Finally, the faculty members who participated in this discussion decided to start their own literary journal. Yen Yuan-shu entitled it Zhongwai wenxue (Hu, “Zhongwai biandu ershi nian,” 12–13). Following in the footsteps of Wenxue zazhi, Zhongwai wenxue tried to secure a space for new Taiwanese creative writing and literary thought.10 Zhongwai wenxue is one of the most scholarly literary journals in Taiwan, due to its translations and appropriations of new Western literary critical theories. As the first editor-in-chief of Zhongwai wenxue, Hu Yao-heng frankly remarks that introducing to Taiwan the latest

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theories from Europe and America is obviously a part of the editors’ mission (Hu, “Fakanci,” 5; “Zhongwai biandu ershi nian,” 14). Compared with other academic journals in Taiwan, Zhongwai wenxue is academically more trustworthy and prestigious. It is different from academic journals hosted by other research institutions. First, its host institution is National Taiwan University,11 which is the first comprehensive university in modern Taiwanese history. For this reason, among all the integrative universities in Taiwan, it is the oldest one. The establishment of this university was a milestone in the history of Taiwanese university education. The prominence of National Taiwan University, more or less, does symbolize the dignity of Taiwanese academic research.12 Second, Zhongwai wenxue is aware of the need to diversify authors of journal articles.13 It gives much more space for authors outside of its own host institution than many other research organizations’ academic journals, though the percentage of authors who taught in or graduated from National Taiwan University is not low. Articles in Zhongwai wenxue came from a greater number of sources than those in other academic journals hosted by other Taiwanese schools. In fact, Zhongwai wenxue included authors from all over the island of Taiwan. Of course, it is not possible for Zhongwai wenxue to be flawless or to replace other literary and academic journals. However, Zhongwai wenxue deserves a great deal of credit in the Taiwanese academic literary field. As an academic journal, its values are firmly rooted in Taiwanese academia. To most Taiwanese scholars who work in Western literature and comparative literature, Zhongwai wenxue in Taiwan, at least currently, is most similar to PMLA (Publication of Modern Language Association) in the United States. Based upon my above-listed probe into Zhongwai wenxue and its unquestionably good reputation, I firmly believe my choice to investigate in Zhongwai wenxue is justified.

T F’ L H  P J  M The earliest publications of Taiwanese feminist thought are different from those of American feminism. In the United States, early feminists had great difficulties in getting their feminist ideas appreciated by prestigious journals, anthologies, academic institutions, or even governmental organizations. For instance, PMLA, the most prestigious comparative/American literary journal, initially did not include feminist articles. The undeniably patriarchal American system

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did not view feminism as something worth publishing and spreading. However, in the era of Japanese colonization, early Taiwanese feminist concepts were well received and promoted by two kinds of political forces: first, socio-cultural activism of Japanization; second, Taiwanese anti-colonial social movements. This does not mean that the overall patriarchal system did not function in Taiwan just as in America. This phenomenon resulted from the fact that both antiJapanese and Japanizational social movements needed women supporters. On one hand, Japanizationalists established women’s magazines, such as Furen yu jiating (Women and Families) and Taiwan furen jie (Taiwanese Women’s Field). They also organized Japanese-styled Aiguo furen hui (Ladies’ Patriotic Association). The nation they wanted these Taiwanese patriot women to love at that time was of course their great, modernized Japanese empire. On the other hand, major Taiwanese anti-imperialist newspapers and magazines, such as Taiwan xinminbao (News of New Taiwanese Folks) and Taiwan qingnian (Taiwan Youth), published early Taiwanese feminist notions in order to have women’s participation in anti-Japanese social movements and Taiwan’s modernization (Tsui, 100–130; 165–167; 226–252; 298–315; 449–454; 521–525; 586–589). East Asian feminism’s rise occurred under the supervision of male social activists and political-cultural reformers—though these male elites’ support for feminism was only limited support that rendered East Asian feminism merely a by-product of their own political pursuits. Because almost all early East Asian feminism was originally an influential tool for male facilitators of socio-political modernization and changes, to publish, issue, and spread feminism was what East Asian male elites welcomed. The case of Taiwanese feminism’s publications was just an example of this East Asian tendency.14 The above-mentioned activist tendency in the earliest stages of East Asian feminist publications, more or less, foresaw the first priority for feminist practicality in Taiwan. Therefore, during the era of Japanese colonization most of these earliest publications of Taiwanese feminist thought were extremely practical feminist issues: marital systems, hair-cutting, prostitution, concubinage, women’s education, and so on. In the era of Japanese colonization, the earliest transfers of Western feminism into Taiwan were transfers of practical Western feminist notions, such as equal payment for men and women, and so on. The earliest Taiwanese introduction of Western feminist concepts probably began with a journal article related to American women’s voting

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rights in Taiwan minbao (News of Taiwanese Folks) in March 1921. But there were seldom transfers of Western feminist literary theories at that time. In literary fields, during the era of Japanese colonization practical concerns about Taiwanese women’s marital lives were mainly voiced in literary texts written in Japanese. So far, Yang Chien-he, who might be the first Taiwanese female journalist, has been perhaps the first better-known Taiwanese female writer in the Japanese colonial era. After Japan returned Taiwan to China in 1945, Mandarin Chinese replaced Japanese as the official language in Taiwan. Most indigenous writers, who learned Japanese and spoke Taiwanese/Southern Min dialect or Hakka, began to learn Mandarin Chinese. Therefore, women writers with a Mainland background who moved to Taiwan with the Nationalist Party in 1949 thus played the leading role in Taiwanese women’s literature from that time through when the controversies over indigenous literature began. (See my brief outline of Taiwanese literary history in the later part of this chapter). Later on, indigenous Taiwanese writers also contributed significant works about Taiwanese women. From the 1960s to the 1970s, both waisheng and indigenous women writers in Taiwan applied Western literary criticism, such as symbolism, to their creative writing and literary textual analyses. There were few complicated Western literary theories and almost no Western feminist literary theories at that time. This phenomenon likely foreshadowed the large percentage of women’s literary texts and literary textual analysis in Taiwanese feminist literary publications. Even before the mid-1980s, when Taiwanese literary scholars applied Western literary theories to textual analyses, the proportion of pure Western literary theoretical discourses was still smaller than that of textual analyses. In other words, the percentage of pure Western feminist literary theoretical publications in Taiwan was not large at that time. Even in feminist literary academic publications, textual analyses were still the majority (Mei, 377–420). The fact that Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s included more articles on feminist textual analyses than articles on pure feminist theory illustrates the large percentage of feminist textual analyses and the smaller percentage of pure Western feminist literary theories (see the section about the proportion in this chapter). However, the small percentage of pure Western feminist literary theories did not mean that transfers of pure Western feminist literary theories were unimportant. As a matter of fact, this small percentage of pure Western feminist literary theories might be the

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most significant and indispensable part. Why? First, modern East Asia developed no academic feminist theories of its own at that time. Almost every academic feminist theory that modern East Asia had was imported from the West as a result of national modernization. This East Asian lack of academic feminist theories proved how vital Western academic feminist theories were for East Asia in the 1990s. Taiwan was no exception at that time. The more Taiwan lacked its own academic feminist theories, the more indispensable Western feminist theories were. Second, the large percentage of feminist literary textual analyses indicated Taiwan’s strong need for transfers of pure Western feminist literary theories. Usually, applications of complicated theories onto texts do not allow enough space for complete clarification of the whole theory. Scholars often picked out only the match-able part of theories to do their textual analyses because the main focus in textual analyses was not theories themselves but how to interpret texts by using appropriate sections of theories. Transfers of pure Western feminist literary theories into Taiwan were a solid foundation and complete preparation for feminist literary textual analyses at that time. To some extent, they “gave birth” to feminist literary textual analyses and secured knowledge of how to understand pure Western feminist theories and what parts of Western feminist literary theories were to be picked up for literary textual analyses. Third, Taiwan’s past colonial experiences decreased Taiwan’s selfconfidence and created a tendency for Taiwanese elites to run after the latest and the most fashionable theories in the West. Anglo-American feminist literary theories and French feminist literary theories were definitely a part of what was to be chased (see my brief outline of how Taiwanese literature included Western literary thoughts in the later part of this chapter). Therefore, the importance of Western feminist literary theories demonstrates that it is certainly legitimate to do research on transfers of pure Western feminist literary theories. Anglo-American feminist literary theories are perhaps the first kind of Western feminist literary theory to be introduced to Taiwan, followed by French feminist literary theories, which became the most fashionable and popular in the 1990s. The appearance of Anglo-American feminist literary theories and French feminist literary theories in Zhongwai wenxue, one of the most prestigious literary journals in Taiwanese academia, is understandable because Taiwanese feminism has a long history of being published in significant journals.15

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P  R  E J A  B A Zhongwai wenxue is famed for its academic articles.16 In the 1990s, there were approximately 920 academic essays, including criticism, interviews, and translated essays. Among them, there were about 130 pieces of feminist textual analyses. Most of these pieces of feminist criticism were critical essays on literary texts, films, magazines, or feminist activism.17 When I was counting the number of pieces, I included translation of non-Chinese-speaking scholars’ criticism and interviews with women writers and women scholars. Around 103 articles are purely theoretical. For example, some of them focus on postcolonialism or post-structuralism; some of them discuss Marxism or new historicism. Among these 103 articles, around 14 of them are related to feminist theories (see appendix 5–1). Among the fourteen articles with strong focus upon feminist theories in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s, ten articles aim to introduce three French feminist theorists: Luce Irigaray, Hélèn Cixous, and Julia Kristeva. That is to say, ten out of fourteen—over 70 percent—of the articles that strongly focus upon feminist theories are dedicated to introducing French feminist theories. Such a large proportion definitely endorses the significance of my investigation. It also implies that these journal articles, to some extent, can represent how fashionable French feminist theories seemed to be in Taiwanese academia in the 1990s. Let me briefly mention these journal articles in the order of their publication. In “Dianlü huo dapao?—nüxing zhui zhi pingxi” (“Canon or Cannon? Analytic Criticism on Feminism”), Hsiao Yen-yen summarizes her understanding of Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray. She then compares Anglo-American feminists’ strategy to form women’s canons within French feminists’ theory to evaluate women’s literary canons. Hsiao puts forward that French feminist theories are stronger than Anglo-American feminist theories in terms of canonization of women’s literature. She very precisely applies the metaphor of the mirror and the vamp, which Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert use. French feminism is like a vamp, good at theoretical discourses and metaphysical-philosophical debates. French feminists are proud of the Satanic, vampire- and Medusa-like charm in their theoreticality (Gilbert and Gubar, 152). They look down upon men’s canons (Hsiao, “Dianlü huo dapao,” 119). French feminists “reject being limited in the historical facts of [male-centered] literary history . . . French women’s canons have connotations of a [feminine]

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utopia” (118). Hsiao mentions Sandra Gilbert’s feedback: to read French feminist texts is like entering a world of slumber and then waking up in another world—namely, one has to fall asleep in the truth of theorization and then wake up in a theoretical world of practicality (Gilbert, x). Susan Bassnet and Keith Hoskin, in Hsiao’s opinion, also appreciate the value of écriture féminine by praising its function to reintegrate the reinscribed texts and gender (Bassnet and Hoskin, 238). Mirror critics—that is, Anglo-American feminists—firmly believe in the inevitability of practical anthologization, canonization, and publication. For this reason, they establish women’s own canons in order to make up for the deficient, male-centered canons (Gilbert and Gubar, 148). Some of them—such as Elaine Showalter, Susan Gubar, and Sandra Gilbert—are worried, anxious, and critical about the deadly attraction of French vamp-like feminists (Hsiao, “Dianlü huo dapao,” 120). They criticize these French counterparts as demonstrating stripteasers’ performance skills. They believe that French feminists fail to prove the strong subjectivity of women’s literary texts by transcending men’s patriarchal canons (Gilbert and Gubar, 156). Gayatri C. Spivak states critically that almost all feminist thought in France, England, and America is merely middle-class white women’s feminist thought (Spivak, 53). Hsiao Yen-yen seems to agree when she argues that feminist theories should take into account backgrounds of different genders, races, and social classes. The inclusion of heterogeneity in current feminist theories, therefore, challenges the authority and validity of traditional, male-centered canons (Hsiao, “Dianlü huo dapao,” 121). Huang I-min, in “Faguo nüxing zhuyi de gongxian yü mangdian” (“Contributions and Oversights of French Feminism”), points out the contributions and oversights of French feminism.18 Huang I-min remarks that it is good for French feminism to shift from the traditional concern about authors’ sexes to the libido exhibited in creative writing.19 For instance, Sigmund Freud is concerned about only literal meanings of genitals, such as penis and clitoris (Huang, 10). However, Hélène Cixous is not the same as Freud. She does not stay at the physical level only. Her concern belongs to the spiritual level. What she proposes is the “libidinal femininity” involved in écriture féminine (Huang, 5). Moreover, Huang I-min associates what Cixous regards as écriture féminine with Irigaray’s notion of lè parler femme. Lè parler femme means “womanspeak” (Huang, 11). The malecentered dichotomy assumes that women must be passive; otherwise, women do not exist (Kourany, Sterba, and Tong, 367). Huang I-min

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believes that the very dichotomy is exactly what Cixous aims to contest (Huang, 5–6). As for the drawbacks of French feminism, Huang I-min declares that both Hélène Cixous’s and Luce Irigaray’s feminist theories are essentialist. To Huang I-min, Luce Irigaray proposes women’s jouissance (“sexual pleasure” in this context) to fight against phallocentrism. It is entirely different from the only sort of men’s sexual pleasure. Irigaray uses the multiplicity and limitless extensibility of women’s jouissance as a counter-argument in order to invalidate the tradition that regards women as “a lack [of penis],” “[clitoris as the] atrophy [of penis],” and “[creatures of] penis envy.”20 Huang believes that Hélène Cixous is aware of the necessity to be rid of essentialism by emphasizing that écriture féminine must be undefinable. However, Cixous also pins écriture féminine down to “writings about physical characteristics of women” (Huang, 11). Huang I-min concludes that both Cixous and Irigaray essentialize femininity. In addition, Huang highlights these three French feminist theorists’ ignorance of differences in race, social class, sexual orientation, 21 religion, and so on (Huang, 15). Huang I-min analyzes that Irigaray’s and Cixous’s identity of women focuses only on gender differences and thus excludes all other differences. The crisis of identity politics, delineates Huang I-min, lies in the tendency that it homogenizes different groups or individuals so that it can offer a shelter for these homogenized groups or individuals. Yet it also repels those who do not identify themselves with shared experiences or those who are dis-qualified to be homogenized, and then categorizes them to be the other. (Huang, 14)

Hsiao Yen-yen published an article, “Lun faguo nüxing zhuyi de wenhua kongjian” (“On the Cultural Space of French Feminism”). She argues that philosophy, linguists, and psychoanalysis are what Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva have in common. But Hsiao Yen-yen feels that Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva do not agree with one another in terms of standpoints and discursive strategies. According to Hsiao, Hélène Cixous advocates écriture féminine; Luce Irigaray is good at philosophy; and Julia Kristeva focuses upon the time sequence and space of women’s own history (Hsiao, “Lun faguo nüxing zhuyi,” 22). Hsiao arranges the following headings in the main body of her journal article: “Re-Examination of Herstory,” “Women—The Speaking Subjectivity of Herstory,” and “The Guanzhao (the relish of

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life22) in the Utopia.” In each aspect, Hsiao Yen-yen enlists Cixous’s, Irigaray’s, and Kristeva’s arguments. For instance, in “Re-Examination of Herstory” Hsiao Yen-yen remarks that Cixous criticizes how malecentered historians oppress the voice of women—women as the other (Hsiao, “Lun faguo nüxing zhuyi,” 24). Hsiao Yen-yen asserts that what Irigariay’s écriture féminine aims to do is to write “herstory”— namely, women’s own history. Hsiao Yen-yen also mentions Julia Kristeva’s emphasis on the need to restructure women’s time (25). At the end of this journal article, Hsiao mentions that French feminism faces a lot of predicaments—such as how to efficiently establish interactions with men (31) and whether socialist feminism ironically repeats the male-centered hegemony in its own feminist way.23 In 1993, Tsai Chen-hsing contributed an article entitled “Faguo nüxing zhuyi: Yi Li Jia Lai lun tazhe” (“French Feminism: Irigaray on the Other”) to Zhongwai wenxue. Tsai Chen-hsing’s description about how women are interpreted includes the following three levels: “women as the other,” “women as a lack,” and “women as a trope.” As for what Luce Irigaray proposes to solve the problem, Tsai Chenhsing summarizes notions of écriture féminine, the fluid, and sexual differences.24 According to Tsai Chen-hsing, Luce Irigaray disagrees with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Lacan, and Derrida upon male-centered monologism (Tsai, 50). This monologism is also called “logocentrism” or “phallocentrism.” It marginalizes women and affirms only men’s logic, male-centered history, men’s discourse, and so forth. Its strong homogeneity requires women to give up themselves and become what fits into the male-centeredness. It labels women as “the other.” Tsai Chen-hsing mentions that the Freudian equation of women with a lack of penis annoys Luce Irigaray. Irigaray criticizes this kind of psychoanalysis as too male-dominated, too ahistorical, and too naïve (Tsai, 53). The remedy, according to Irigaray, is to put the whole psychoanalytical system back into history. By doing so, psychoanalysts can recognize how problematic and male-centered “penis envy” is. In addition, Luce Irigaray distrusts the psychoanalysts who advise daughters to give up the love for and the identity with mothers in order to enter the symbolic order in the name of father. Irigaray emphasizes the necessity to maintain a genealogy of women without murdering mothers/women (Tsai, 53). Luce Irigaray is dissatisfied with Derrida’s strategy of deconstruction. Derrida deems women a kind of metaphor or trope in rheto-

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ric. For Derrida, the female sex is a tool appropriated to deconstruct Western philology. However, Luce Irigaray does not think that Derrida’s theory of deconstruction really turns women into the subjective. According to Tsai Chen-hsing’s interpretation of Luce Irigaray, this deconstructive strategy of Derrida is still supportive of the patriarchal value systems (Tsai, 54). In other words, the female sex is still simply a tool or a strategy for Derrida to use (Tsai, 55). The transcendental signifier/subject is forever male in patriarchy. Women’s position is forever uncertain because women are only a trope. For Irigaray, deconstructionists colonize potential women in order to achieve men’s becoming. It is merely a temporary strategy for deconstructionists to put on a mask that looks sympathetic for women. As a matter of fact, deconstructionists, in Luce Irigaray’s opinion, do not really stand by women’s side. Even Derrida himself has never said that deconstructionists are feminists (Tsai, 56). In brief, women are just a type of trope, metaphor, or rhetoric vocabulary without any substantial significance from the standpoint of deconstruction. To Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous, écriture féminine and women’s writing of the fluid are the feminist writing strategies to contest the male-centered rhetoric and discourse. Hélène Cixous is inspired by Clarice Lispector, a Brazilian woman writer, and thus invents the concept of écriture féminine.25 Irigaray proposes that the fluidity of women’s bodies and women’s writing style with concern to sexual differences can help women escape from the predicament of malecenteredness. Tsai Hsiu-chih wrote an article entitled “Ke Li Si Te Wa dui muzi guanxi zhong ‘yinxing’ kongjian de kanfa” (“Kristeva’s Opinion about the “Feminine” Space in Mother-son Relationships”) in 1993. She explores the pre-Oedipal mother-son relationship and postOedipal mother-son relationship. In the pre-Oedipal phase, the son closely attaches to the mother. This pre-Oedipal intimacy between son and mother is purely emotional without any verbal, ethical, or legal interference. The mother is a “chora,” an indescribable space that the son enjoys. Yet everything changes when the father steps into the pre-Oedipal mother-son relationship. Oedipus complex, fears of castration, the mirror stage, and the father’s law alienate the postOedipal son from the mother and cause the son’s abjection of the mother. However, the unconscious repression of the son’s inner desire to reunite with the mother turns out to be a powerful motivation for artists’ professional pursuits. In April 1996, Liu Yu-hsiu published a journal article entitled “Zouchu ‘wei yi,’ liuxiang ‘fei yi’: cong Fo Luo Yi De dao Yi Rui Ge

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Lai” (“Stepping Out of ‘The Only One,’ Flowing toward ‘Not The Only One’: From Freud to Irigaray) in Zhongwai wenxue. This is an article aiming to contextualize Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Irigaray. Liu Yu-hsiu introduces Freud’s theory of how babies develop to be boys and girls.26 She comments that Freud’s theory demonstrates how sexual inequality functions psychologically (Liu, 11). Liu also believes that Freud decodes patriarchy by pointing out how men feel superior and how women feel oppressed, frustrated, and inferior (Girard, 190). Liu praises Freud’s discovery that men could be feminine and women could be masculine if the processes of psychological development are not exactly the same as the above-mentioned processes. This discovery of Freud’s, according to Liu, can underscore the notion that one can be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual and hence there should not be compulsory heterosexuality (Liu, 11). The dispute about Freud, in Liu’s opinion, is the problem of whether the visibility, size, or mere existence of male genitals can decide all genital-possessors’ sense of superiority or inferiority (Liu, 11). With regard to men’s desire for women and women’s love for men, Lacan concludes that men and women never love each other according to Liu’s understanding. Women are considered to be ignorant and therefore they love men, who know more than women. Liu argues that men actually love their own souls by narcissistically27 using women as a bridge toward the supreme being of men themselves (Liu, 17). Julia Kristeva stresses the maternal function and its importance in the development of subjectivity and access to culture and language. The role that mothers play is the source of love (Liu, 22). Liu thinks that Kristeva argues that maternal regulation is the law before the paternal law. Yet in order to develop independent selfhood, children must suppress the desire for their mothers and abject the maternal bodies (Liu, 17). Sons, after growing up to be adults, regain the abjected and abandoned maternal chora by aesthetic experiences, such as poetic rhythms and colorful painting.28 Liu Yu-hsiu also introduces Julia Kristeva’s thoughts about the mother-daughter relation.29 She comments that Julia Kristeva agrees with these Freudian and Lacanian readings of women.30 Liu’s criticism of Kristeva seems to be Kristeva’s tendency to tolerate men more than women in terms of schizophrenia (Liu, 22). While Kristeva does not disagree with the Freudian and Lacanian notion that women have schizophrenia, Liu tends to argue that men, as a matter of fact, also have schizophrenia. Liu does not think Luce Irigaray agrees with Freud and Lacan. The Freudian psychoanalysis, in Irigaray’s reading, is a window to expose

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patriarchy (Liu, 23). Liu believes that Irigaray’s theory of “two lips,” for instance, is meant to challenge Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalyses, which are centered on male genitals. According to Irigarary, men depend upon mediums, such as hands, women, and language, in order to enjoy sexual pleasure. Different from men, women do not depend upon anything or anyone else at all. Women’s vaginal lips touch and caress themselves all the time. Women independently enjoy feminine jouissance all the time. Women’s sexual pleasure is an autoerotic kind of sexual pleasure.31 In brief, Liu Yu-hsiu tries to contextualize Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Irigaray in this journal article. The way Liu does this is to argue that Freud’s theory starts with men’s only sexual organ and that Irigaray proposes the plurality of women’s sexual pleasure and sexual organs. This is why the title of Liu’s article is “From ‘The Only One’ Toward ‘Not the Only One.’ ” This journal article, however, does not explain why Liu Yu-hsiu chooses Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Irigaray. Nor does it explain why others are excluded from her contextualization. For instance, Liu excludes Hélène Cixous. In addition, Liu has her introduction to Freud before her explanation about Lacan. This order is not surprising because Lacan is junior to Freud. However, this journal article does not explain why Liu includes the section about Julia Kristeva before those related to Lacan and Irigaray. In “Yi Xi Jia Hei yu tade xin wenti: lingyi zhong (linian) shuxie/ shijian” (“Irigaray and Her New Genre: The Other New (Theoretical) Writing/Practice”), Chu Chung-i emphasizes that age-old traditions of Western male-centered philosophy are what Luce Irigaray truly fights against. Therefore, she points out Luce Irigaray’s revolutionary strategies of writing and how Irigaray uses these strategies to overthrow male-dominated philosophical traditions in the West. According to Chu, Luce Irigaray proposes a new énonciation for women. Her own terminology for this proposal is called parler femme. By applying her own term, Irigaray expounds that women should speak as women. In Irigaray’s own writing, she merges the fictional with the nonfictional, the rational with the emotional, and so on. On one hand, she sounds sentimental and lyrical. On the other hand, she seems to be eloquently argumentative. Luce Irigaray deliberately plays a feminine role, mixes her own voice with male philosophers’, and highlights the gender differences in combinations of various voices. Repetitions with differences and double syntax, according to Chu Chung-i, are also Luce Irigaray’s revolutionary strategies of writing (Chu, “I Xi Jia Hei,” 50). Without

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obvious quotation marks, Irigaray’s repeated citations of Plato function as a kind of ventriloquy. They expose oversights in Plato’s cited arguments—that is, what is excluded from the Platonic discourses. And then, Luce Irigaray brings what is expelled back to the original systems. By doing so, Irigaray stops women from being debarred. In addition, she comments on the two reading strategies that Luce Irigaray hopes her non-French-speaking readers will have. First, Irigaray recommends that her readers master French and English so her non-French-speaking readers can escape from English mistranslations and misinterpretations. Second, Irigaray encourages readers to master Western philosophy. By doing so, she expects her readers not to read her as simply a psychoanalyst and a linguist32 but hopes that her readers regard her as a philosopher. In 1996, Hsiao Yen-yen published a journal article entitled “Wuo Shu Gu Wuo Zai—Lun Xi Su de Yinxing Shuxie” (“I Write and Therefore I Am—Cixous’s Écriture Féminine”) in Zhongwai wenxue. At the beginning of this journal article is Cixous’s family and cultural backgrounds. Hsiao Yen-yen believes that Hélène Cixous’s birthplace, Oran, Algeria, is a sort of “childhood paradise” for Cixous. The complicated colonial cultures in Oran, more or less, are associated with the themes of Hélène Cixous’s writing: multi-layered connotations of languages, dialogues between the self and the other, the alternative cultures of the marginalized minority, the problems resulting from exiles and diasporas, scars of wars in history, and so on. By writing, Hélène Cixous tries to regain the unforgettable childhood paradise, which is already lost. (Hsaio, “Woshu gu wozai,” 59) Unfortunately, Hsiao Yen-yen does not explain in detail which parts of Cixous’s writing are related to the colonial cultures in Oran, Algeria. Hsiao does not provide background information about the types of colonial cultures Oran has and how these colonial cultures in Oran affect Hélène Cixous. Hsiao delineates that Cixous’s writings start with women’s bodies. Hélène Cixous’s writing, in Hsiao Yen-yen’s perspective, is écriture féminine. It is based upon women’s bodies. It is the language of the body. The body is the subject, and it is the writing. Hélène Cixous’s écriture féminine is the writing to engrave women’s characteristics on. The writing process, according to Hsiao, is like the ceaseless processes to enjoy the feminine jouissance, the maternal happiness of childbirth, and so on. Hsiao quotes that Hélène Cixous writes fictions with her body and that she forges her writing by using her body. Hsiao agrees that Judith Still defines écriture féminine as the writing to penetrate the other and the self (Hsaio,

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“Woshu gu wozai,” 60–61). Hsiao regards Cixous’s writing processes as an ongoing journey. In the writing process, Cixous constructs a changeful subject to investigate the mysterious journeys of language. The journeys are also adventures back and forth between the signified and signifier. Hélène Cixous subverts and recombines different genres. At the end of this article, Hsiao believes that what Cixous’s écriture féminine moves toward is an everlasting exile without any termination or return. Cixous plays a language game of homonyms33 by advocating that women steal the forbidden book in the garden of écriture féminine in the paradise named Eden (Hsiao, “Woshu gu wozai,” 63). Cixous’s metaphor indicates that écriture féminine can make possible women’s everlasting exile from the limitations of phallocentrism. Thus it creates a new “genesis” for women and allows women to regain the paradise, which is originally lost and unreachable. It enables women to experience the fruit of joy, which is originally forbidden under male-centrism. Hsiao tends to imply that the ongoing journeys are also journeys back and forth between homogeneity and heterogeneity—namely, the self and what Julia Kristeva calls “strangers to ourselves” (Hsaio, “Woshu gu wozai,” 63). Hsiao Yen-yen footnotes that Julia Kristeva was born and educated in Bulgaria and that Luce Irigaray, whose name is Basque, was brought up in Belgium. When Hsiao Yen-yen uses Chinese language to mean “heterogeneity” and “the other,” she uses the Chinese word for “foreigner” from time to time. The Chinese word for “foreigner” partially corresponds to Hsiao’s footnotes that these famous French feminists not born and brought up in France are probably also aware of how it is to be foreigners. She notices that Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva all start with the marginalized heterogeneity to rewrite male texts of literature, philosophy, linguistics, and psychoanalysis.34 In a journal article entitled “Xingbie/shengtai/huanbao—cong Yi Xi Jia Hei de tazhe tanqi” (“Gender/Ecology/Environmental Protection—From Irigaray’s ‘The Other’ ”), Chu Chung-i begins with a critique that Luce Irigaray pays attention to objectified women only when talking about “the other.” Chu criticizes that Luce Irigaray ignores the possibility that the natural environment could be also a kind of “other.” The natural environment, which is also objectified, should be also taken into consideration into what Luce Irigaray calls “the other.” For this reason, Chu in this article advocates that the natural environment is also an important part of “the other” that deserves our special concern and attention.

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The natural environment is usually compared to a mother, a woman, a caretaker, a resource-provider, a breeder, a nurturer, and so on. To be more specific, the natural environment is usually assigned to the role of a forever patient and satisfying supplier of food, water, air, scenery, and resources by almost all human beings’ self-centered monologism. This is precisely the same as how women are assigned to be forever tolerant and gratifying housewives, babysitters, cooks, comforters, and cleaners by male-centered monologism. For this reason, when feminists propose the importance of women’s struggle against chauvinism, they realize the need to protect the natural environment from human pollution and abuse. Based upon this similarity between women and the natural environment, Chu Chung-i highlights women’s capability and responsibility to help subvert human beings’ abusive domination of the natural environment. Chu Chung-i applies Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of multivocality to demonstrate the necessity to listen to the natural environment (Chu, “Xingbie/shengtai/huanbao,” 13). If Bakhtin convinces people to pay attention to more diverse voices, then voices of the natural environment should be also heard. Another theorist that Chu Chung-i quotes is Patrick D. Murphy. Murphy believes that even non-human others, which refers to the natural environment according to Zhu’s interpretation, should be allowed to speak for themselves (Chu, “Xingbie/shengtai/huanbao,” 13–14). If feminist theories of how women should speak for themselves are acceptable, then it should not be unreasonable to hear how the natural environment speaks for itself. Chu Chung-i introduces Taiwanese and Western publications about the natural environment: for example, British Romantic poets’ works, Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark, Henry Thoreau’s Faith in a Seed, and Han Han and Ma I-kung’s Women zhihyou yige diqiu (We Have Only One Earth). By doing so, Chu indicates that the voices of the natural environment represented in these publications are worthy of our listening. In “Shuxie ‘bukeneng’: Xi Su de linglei shuxie” (Writing the ‘Impossible’: Cixous’s Alternative Writing), Chang Shu-li proposes that écriture féminine should be the written trace of how “the other” provokes writing. She suggests that “the other” Cixous has in mind is not something opposite to the subject but something “in-between” (Chang, Shu-li, 13). Because “the other” is neither the subject nor the opposite of the subject, it is always beyond verbal expressions. “The other” is forever exiled from both the subject and the opposite of the subject. By exiling “the other,” Cixous deconstructs the ideological binary

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opposites: the subject and its opposite. In this sense, “the other” would not develop to be an opposite kind of hegemonic subject. Chang Shuli thinks that this is probably why “exiles” from the homeland are so meaningful for Cixous. Chang interprets details of Cixous’s oxymoronic narrative in The Book of Promethea in order to support her reading of “the other.” Chang Shu-li has her own critical reading of Cixous’s Reading with Lispector and Manna. On one hand, she seems to demonstrate that the feminine economy of love is different from the patriarchal tradition of how to shi yu shou (give love and receive love) (Chang, Shu-li, 19–24). On the other hand, she offers her post-colonial critiques of Cixous, such as Marta Peixoto’s and Verena Conley’s interpretations about the Orient in Cixous’s drama and Gayatri C. Spivak’s defense of Cixous. With regard to Cixous’s écriture féminine, Chang tends to relate Cixous’s writing experiences with the metaphor of paradise. She cites both Catherine A. F. MacGillivaray and Conley. To MacGillivaray, Cixous is an exiled poet whose paradise was lost. But Cixous reconstructs a new paradise in her experience of being exiled. For Conley, Cixous’s writing experience itself is a new paradise (Chang, Shu-li, 25). Although Chang Shu-li’s bibliographical data at the end of her article more or less implies her dependence upon the English translation of Hélène Cixous, Chang directly translates voler, a French verb, into Chinese, and expands the meanings of this French verb. Originally, this verb is equated with the verb “to steal” in Chinese. This literal meaning is suitable for Prometheus because Prometheus stole fire in Greco-Roman mythology (Chang, Shu-li, 16–17). Beyond this literal meaning, Chang translates the same verb as “to appropriate” in Chinese. In this Chinese translation, Chang indicates the possibility of readers’ appropriation of Cixous’s theory (Chang, Shu-li, 24).

S E O  Z HONGWAI W ENXUE I would like to pick up a feminist theoretical anthology, Nüxing zhuyi lilun yu liupai (Feminist Theories and Branches), co-edited by Lin Fang-mei and Ku Yen-ling, to support my argument of what I discovered in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s. Nüxing zhuyi lilun yu liupai (Feminist Theories and Branches) is a textbook-like anthology of Western feminist theories. According to Lin and Ku’s preface, the reason they co-edited this anthology was to provide college instructors with a feminist theoretical textbook. This anthology was published and made available in 1996. Lin

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and Ku began to edit their anthology in the early 1990s. Therefore, what they included in this anthology could partially reflect what was already fully transferred into Taiwan and what was just at the early stages of theoretical transfer in the early 1990s. In this anthology, there are all kinds of Western feminist literary theories that feminist scholars find available at the beginning of the twenty-first century. There are socialist feminism, liberal feminism, radical feminism, post-colonialist feminism, psychoanalytical feminism, and so on. Among all of these nine feminist theoretical chapters, there is one chapter related to Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. So the proportion of attention to French feminism is smaller than other kinds of Western feminism. This implies that the theoretical introduction of French feminism to Taiwan had just begun. That is to say, my claim that Taiwan began to transplant French feminist literary theories in the 1990s is not without merit. In addition, the section on French feminism in this anthology is written by Liu Yu-hsiu. This coincidentally provides evidence for my supposition that Taiwanese feminist theorists made possible the transfer of French feminist literary theories. Liu Yu-hsiu is one of the authors who wrote the journal articles that I studied in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s. Hence, the French part of this feminist theoretical anthology provides proof for my discovery about Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s. Additional evidence is hidden in a special feminist issue of Dangdai (Contemporary Monthly) in September 1986. There are seven articles about Western feminism in this issue. French feminism is mentioned in extremely limited parts of two articles among these seven. The proportion of French feminism, compared with that of AngloAmerican feminism, is minuscule. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang’s “Yingmei funü wenti yu xing geming” (“Anglo-American Women’s Problems and Sexual/Gender Revolutions”) is related to Anglo-American feminism only. It does not contain any French feminism. In “Nüxing zhuyi zhexue” (“Feminist Philosophy”), Tsai Mei-li does not mention French feminism, either. However, Liao Ping-hui briefly introduces Cixous, Clément, and Kristeva in “Nüxing zhuyi yu wenxue piping” (“Feminism and Literary Criticism”), though his main focus is upon Anglo-American feminists. Chi Lung-jen’s “Nüxing zhuyi yu xiandai dianying piping he lilun” (“Feminism and Modern Film Theory and Criticism”) roughly includes something of Julia Kristeva’s writing, but the majority of his article is not about French feminist thought. As for the rest of the feminist articles, they are Cheng Ling-fang’s “Cong nüxing de guandian kan dangdai yingguo jiating” (“To Look

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at British Families from a Woman’s Perspective”), Hu Chang-chih’s “Zhuanfang B. Pinl tan xide ludang de funü zhengce” (“An Interview with B. Pinl in Order to Talk About the Green Party’s Women’s Policy in West Germany”), and Hu Mei-li’s “Yijiubawu nian yazhuo funü huiyi” (“Asian Women’s Congress in 1985”). None of these three authors discusses any French feminism. This minute proportion of French feminism in this feminist issue of Dangdai in 1986 supports my argument that the transferred or Taiwanized version of French feminism was not really popular until the 1990s. Actually, in Mei Chia-ling’s bibliographical list of textual analyses, there are many examples of how scholars apply French feminist theories to interpret texts in the 1990s, especially in the late half of the decade (Mei, 377–420). All of them offer strong verification of my argument. But it would be too broad for me to step into each of these because there are too many textual analyses. There is much support for my argument in these textual analyses.

T B A C  N  B A C Zhongwai wenxue demonstrated a notable preference for Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, and Julia Kristeva in the 1990s. This phenomenon seems to indicate that this Taiwanese academic journal was chasing well-known French feminist theories and sucking Western milk.35 However, it is entirely not true that French feminist theories dominated, colonized, 36 led, or conquered this Taiwanese journal in this decade. Nor did French feminism dictate the journal’s reception in the West. In fact, the complete opposite is the case. I argue that Taiwan, as a matter of fact, chose when to approve of certain kinds of Western feminism as well as how to appropriate and reshape them in Taiwanese academia. Taiwan had the authority to reject hackneyed theories and welcome attractive ones, which helped Taiwan solve its gender problems academically. Taiwan had the clout to decide what it liked or disliked in its publishing market of the 1990s. Taiwan had the power to reshape Western feminist theories in ways that matched Taiwan’s own tastes and socio-historical backgrounds. What was appropriated into Taiwan, in other words, was under Taiwanese academia’s control. To sum up, in this chapter my position is to highlight Taiwan’s academic autonomy and supremacy in terms of how Taiwan filtered, selected, introduced, reshaped, and acculturated French feminist theories in the 1990s.

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This Taiwanese academic journal’s predilection for French feminist theories in the 1990s is an intriguing phenomenon related to Taiwanese academia’s choice of what sorts of Western feminist theories would be introduced into Taiwan. This choice is absolutely worthy of my deeper investigation because one would think that Taiwanese academia was further from French feminism than Anglo-American feminism linguistically and socio-culturally. In terms of foreign languages, most Taiwanese scholars’ English, on the average, is much better than their French. They read more books written in English than those written in French. Most Taiwanese overseas scholars received their terminal degrees in America, not France. In terms of Taiwanese socio-cultural foreground and background, the Taiwanese government used to be in need of American political and military support in order to protect Taiwan from a Mainland Chinese attack. France was never involved in as many Taiwanese issues as America in the 1990s. For this reason, Taiwanese modern socio-cultural history, since the end of the civil war in 1949, has been more closely related to America than France. Under these circumstances, Anglo-American feminism should have been more popular in Taiwan than French feminism. The preference for French feminism in this academic journal of the 1990s seems to be so much against this rationalization that my examination of its possible cause appears truly necessary and worthwhile. The tendency to be fond of French feminist theories in this journal of this decade is not because Taiwanese academia was unfamiliar with Anglo-American feminist theories in the 1990s. Nor is it because Anglo-American feminist theories were less inspirational for Taiwanese feminists than French feminist theories at that time. Rather, AngloAmerican feminist theories were transferred into Taiwan much earlier than French feminist theories. Taiwanese academia was even more familiar with Anglo-American feminist theories. For instance, Taiwanese academia hires a large number of scholars who finished their terminal degrees in either the United States or England. Chang Shu-li, for instance, completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at Southern California University. Chu Chung-i got her doctorate from the University of Leeds. That is to say, the above-mentioned inference about why Taiwan transplanted Anglo-American feminist thought earlier than French feminist theories is not wrong at all. However, Taiwanese scholars, probably because of fears of being left behind academically, tended to catch up with the trendiest Western fashions in their professional fields. When French feminist theories appeared as a new and popular fashion in American academia and when AngloAmerican feminism gradually became less refreshing and surprising

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for Taiwan, the preference for French feminist theories turns out to be understandable in Taiwan of the 1990s. In addition, one of my Taiwanese anonymous interviewees, TWL10, showed her support for my argument (see the list of my Taiwanese feminist interviewees in the third chapter). She noted that Liu Yuhsiu offered graduate-level classes on French feminist literary theories at National Taiwan University. Liu and her doctoral students had an internal academic conference, where their presentations became the contents of one of the special issues on French feminist theories in Zhongwai wenxue. Most of Liu’s PhD students were already lecturers at other colleges and universities. In the early and mid-1990s, they became associate professors with specialties in French feminist theories right after graduation (the Taiwanese system used to directly promote lecturers to be associate professors at that time). In other words, teacher-student relationships in Taiwanese academia could intensify the preference for the latest and trendiest Western theories. Liu Yu-hsiu used to teach Tsai Chen-hsing and Tsai Hsiu-chih in a graduate seminar of French feminist literary theories at National Taiwan University. What Liu chose to teach might have indirectly influenced what Tsai Chen-hsing and Tsai Hsiu-chih preferred to explore. What Liu did not seem to emphasize in her teaching may have become what her students forgot to explore in their academic publications about French feminist theories. For example, TWL10 pointed out that Liu and her students failed to look at French feminist theorists studied outside US academia. She commented that Taiwan was still pursuing the United States in this sense. TWL4 shared my belief that Zhongwai wenxue’s preference for French feminist theories was not because French feminist literary theories were more sophisticated than any other Western feminist theories. TWL4 pointed out that different academic branches had different attitudes toward French feminist scholars and feminist theories in the same Taiwanese academia of the 1990s.37 Chinese literary fields’ insistence on classical elements and reaction against foreign chic, according to TWL4, were the reasons why Chinese literary fields accepted Western theories much less zealously than foreign/Western/comparative literary fields. For example, Zhongwai wenxue was managed by the department of foreign languages and literature at National Taiwan University. Hence it was not surprising at all that it accepted more Western or French feminist theories than most journals managed by departments of Chinese literature in Taiwanese universities. My Taiwanese interviewees TWL7 and TWL8 believe that Taiwanese scholars in Chinese literary fields usually had less ability

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to decode publications in Western languages than those in foreign/ Western/comparative literary fields. Even though they could depend on Chinese translations of Western publications, the quality and quantity of Chinese translation would be a problem that Chinese literary scholars could not deal with. Considering this, scholars in Chinese literary fields, of course, would be reluctant to expose or emphasize their weakness. One of the best ways to evade their lack of Western language ability was to avoid or to decrease their absorption of Western theoretical elements, including Irigaray’s, Cixous’s, and Kristeva’s feminist theories. Compared with Taiwanese scholars in Chinese literary fields, Taiwanese scholars in foreign/Western/comparative literary fields, such as scholars whose articles were accepted by Zhongwai wenxue, would of course make use of their cross-lingual expertise and include more Western or French feminist theories in their academic publications. As for how French feminist theories were acculturated in the 1990s, I contend that Taiwan possessed the strongest force and capability to make successful and suitable decisions about this matter. To some extent, Taiwan perhaps academically counter-colonized the West in terms of how to Taiwanize Western feminist theories. In the 1990s, Taiwanese theoretical appropriators strategized their acculturation of French feminist theories based upon local socio-historical foregrounds, cross-lingual abilities, and cross-cultural backgrounds of theories.

T S- C H  C-L A Taiwanese elites have been forced to have cross-lingual abilities by colonial and post-colonial socio-cultural trends. I would like to emphasize that the Taiwanese replicated experiences of being politically, economically, and culturally colonized and impregnated the cross-lingual transfers of Western literary thought, including the introduction of French feminist literary theories in the 1990s. For instance, Lin Heng-tai was born and educated when Japanese colonizers had Japanese as the official language in Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Therefore, Lin Heng-tai originally wrote modern Taiwanese poems in Japanese. The Nationalist Party replaced Japanese with Mandarin Chinese after Japanese colonizers gave Taiwan back to China. All the Taiwanese elites who were educated in the era of Japanese colonization were forced by this socio-cultural change to learn Mandarin Chinese. Otherwise, they

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would not be able to find good jobs and survive in this Nationalist era. Not until nearly the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s did Lin Heng-tai begin to write in Mandarin Chinese. The Mandarin Chinese that most Taiwanese elites learned in the 1940s and 1950s was vernacular Chinese. For instance, the first Taiwanese vernacular literary journal, 38 Renren (Everyone), is an important record of how Taiwanese writers learned to write in vernacular Mandarin Chinese. Lin Hen-tai’s cross-lingual mastery of Japanese and Mandarin Chinese facilitated his applications of Euro-American literary critical notions to Taiwanese literature. This is one of the best illustrations of how Taiwanese cross-lingual appropriators associated Taiwanese literature with Western literary criticism. Nearly all of the Taiwanese writers, literary historians, and literary critics who were born and educated in similar sociocultural backgrounds were native speakers of Japanese and then learners and users of Mandarin Chinese (Lu, 83). Chang Wenhuan (1909–1978), 39 Wu Yung-fu (1913-2008),40 Lung Ying-tsung (1911-1999),41 Huang Te-shih (1909–1999), and Chung Chaocheng (1922–)were all cross-lingual Taiwanese men of letters during the Japanese colonial era. Needless to say, people like Lin Heng-tai are certainly not the only cross-lingual generation in Taiwan. Since the end of World War II, America has been possibly the strongest and richest country in the world. Especially when Taiwan needed the United States’ political, military, and economic help, Taiwan has been culturally intimate with America. Americanization, thus, also became a type of cultural colonization in Taiwan. Under this circumstance, Taiwanese elites usually learned Mandarin Chinese and American English and hence became new generations of cross-lingual elites after Japanese colonization was terminated. For example, some modernist fictionists, poets, and literary critics famous in the 1960s, such as Wang Wen-hsing, taught Anglo-American literature at National Taiwan University. The Sino-English language abilities of these Taiwanese men of letters undoubtedly enhanced and smoothed Taiwan’s reception of Western literary thought. Liu Yu-hsiu,42 Chu Chung-i,43 Tsai Hsiu-chi,44 Hsiao Yen-yen,45 Huang I-min,46 Chang Shu-li,47 Tsai Chen-hsing,48 and most theoretical introducers of French feminist literary theories are teaching Western literature on university campuses in Taiwan. In a word, the cross-lingual socio-historical backdrop, to some extent, resulted in the possibility of the transfer of Western literary criticism in the 1960s and French feminist literary theories in the 1990s.

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T C-L C Taiwanese theoretical appropriators know how to cross-lingually acculturate Western theories in Taiwan better than theorists in the West. The Taiwanese cross-lingual prestige resulted in Taiwan’s incomparability and later on it counter-colonized the West. For instance, when Toril Moi was invited to give a speech about her own feminist research at National Taiwan University in April 1998, she originally wanted to speak French to introduce her own feminist digest to her Taiwanese audience. She was of course discouraged from doing so because most of her Taiwanese audience’s French-language ability was not good enough to understand her. I mention this incident as an example not to expose Taiwanese people’s lack of sufficient French-language ability. What I mean is to show that Toril Moi, in this incident, lacked enough cross-lingual understanding about her Taiwanese audience. Moi might be more famous than almost all the Taiwanese theoretical appropriators in either France or America. However, she was less proficient than all the Taiwanese theoretical appropriators on that occasion in terms of her knowledge and strategy of transferring Western feminist theories into Taiwan. Compared with Toril Moi, Taiwanese scholars are more successful cross-lingual appropriators of French feminist literary theories in Taiwan. Therefore, I argue that Taiwanese theoretical introducers could achieve the successful marketing of French feminist literary thoughts in Taiwan of the 1990s better than all the non-Taiwanese scholars. I would like to take Huang I-min and Chang Shu-li for example. Huang I-min pays cross-lingual attention to translations of French feminist theoretical terms. It is especially applaudable for Huang I-min to differentiate various English translations of the same French feminist term. For instance, Cixous dislikes écriture féminine to be translated as “feminine writing.” It should have been translated as “a writing said to be feminine” (Huang, 5). Carolyn Burke has even discussed some problems of English translations. For instance, she notices that écriture féminine was much more translated into English than lè parler femme (Burke, 249–262). Lè parler femme is translated as “to speak as women” by Luce Irigaray’s American translators. However, it was translated to be “womanspeak” in Huang’s journal article. Ranita Chatterjee understood that Sarah Kofman was less often translated from French to English than Irigaray and Cixous (Chatterjee, 60–65). As a matter of fact, such a kind of cross-lingual attention enabled Huang to be aware that it was treacherous to rely

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on English translations from French texts as well as Chinese secondary translations derived from English translations. Chang Shu-li’s article in Zhongwai wenxue also illustrated Taiwanese feminist theorists’ cross-lingual awareness of Chinese translational problems. What matches my supposition is Chang’s cross-lingual attention paid to the limitation of Chinese translation and English translation of Cixous. At the beginning of her article, Chang Shuli criticized two Chinese translations of Cixous’s écriture féminine: nüxing shuxie (writing of the female gender) and yinxing shuxie (writing of the feminine gender). Both of them, according to Chang, inevitably restricted écriture féminine to the heterosexual mode of binary opposition. They even took Cixous for a mouthpiece of écriture féminine. They resulted in researchers’ ignorance of a fact that Cixous’s writing about sex/gender was merely one of the strategies for Cixous to rewrite Western dichotomy. (Chang, Shu-li, 10)

Chang’s notice of the Chinese translational drawbacks was a significant part of the cross-lingual capabilities that Western feminists did not have. Therefore, it was the cross-lingual competence that Chinese feminist theoretical appropriators owned (Chang, Shu-li, 24). This sort of professional prestige offers a significant amount of support for my argument that French feminists were unable to academically conquer or control their Taiwanese theoretical admirers.

C- C S  T A In addition to cross-lingual abilities, I underscore Taiwanese appropriators’ cross-cultural strategizations of theoretical acculturation. The Taiwanese colonial or post-colonial socio-historical trends that forced Taiwanese elites to have cross-lingual skills were actually effects of Taiwanese appropriators’ cross-cultural strategizations of theoretical localization. Socio-historically speaking, Taiwan has been colonized by foreign cultures politically, economically, and culturally. Taiwan was politically colonized by Japan for half a century. The fifty years of being colonized indirectly resulted in a psychological lack of Taiwanese self-confidence. Taiwanese people began to appreciate, admire, and even idolize Japanese cultural trends in order to alleviate their fears of being left behind in the era of Japanese colonization. The Westernization in modern Japanese culture, therefore, was also trans-

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ferred to Taiwan at that time. For instance, Lin Heng-tai’s reception of Euro-American literary thought was motivated and stimulated by his readings of modern Japanese works. Yeh Shih-tao reads Western literature through Japanese translations. These examples could probably be clear illustrations. After Japanese colonization was over, the way to appease fears of being left behind remains the same in Taiwan. In the post-world-war era, American culture is added to the list of the “advanced” cultures that Taiwanese academia has been making efforts to catch up with. Whatever American academia feels to be the most fashionable at any given time turns out to also be what Taiwanese academia hurries to grasp. Owing to Taiwanese theoretical appropriators’ cross-cultural understanding about this, the French feminist theories, which American academia regards to be a kind of the trendiest research subjects, were introduced to Taiwan as the hottest among all the Western feminist theories in the 1990s. The colonial and post-colonial socio-cultural traumas influence the colonized individual’s self-identity and self-confidence. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o analyzes and theorizes both colonial education and post-colonial education; he asserts that education affects people’s confidence in their ability and their capacity to overcome obstacles.49 If this theory is suitable and applicable for the Taiwanese transfer of French feminist literary theories in the 1990s, continually running to catch up with the latest and trendiest Western theories might reflect the colonized people’s unconscious lack of self-confidence, while Taiwanese theoretical appropriators’ awareness of their own non-Western cultural roots is probably an indispensable part of the decolonization process. The balance between colonial thrills to the new and fashionable foreign theories from the so-called “advanced” countries and the indigenous selfhood probably results in the paradoxical mixture of obsession and resistance in terms of Taiwanese elites’ attitude toward the transfer of French feminist literary theories in the 1990s. Taiwanese theoretical appropriators’ cross-cultural concerns might have resulted in the articles in Zhongwai wenxue, especially those in 1992 and 1993, to inevitably include the elementary level of theoretical introduction. First, Western philosophical discourses are difficult for Taiwanese readers. Early Western philosophers, such as Hegel, Lacan, and Plato, are themselves difficult—not to mention French feminist theorists’ debates with these harsh philosophers. Based on this cross-cultural concern, almost every theoretical appropriator whom I analyze in this chapter paraphrases French feminists’ main ideas. For instance, Liu Yu-hsiu even summarizes Freud and Lacan

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before she begins to introduce Luce Irigaray. Tsai Hsiu-chih also summarizes basic psychologial theories about the Oedipus complex in order to familiarize her Taiwanese readers with Freud and Kristeva. Second, Taiwanese theoretical introducers cross-culturally took into consideration that these transfers of French feminist literary theories to Taiwan were probably one of the earliest in Taiwan at that time. In the early 1990s, most Taiwanese readers had not heard of Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva. They likely had no idea about French feminist theories. Perhaps because of this, Huang I-min and Tsai Chen-hsing rush to make an overall and conclusive introduction to the whole of French feminism. Maybe based on the same or similar cross-cultural concern, Hsiao Yen-yen’s strategy to familiarize readers with French feminism is to compare Anglo-American feminism with French feminism. As for Chu Chung-i, she tends to convince readers that Anglo-American reception of French feminism is unavoidably different from Taiwanese acceptance of French feminism.

A L  T   : L I’ JOUISS ANCE  H C’ “N B/V W How did Taiwanese theoretical appropriators put French feminist theories into practice in the 1990s? According to Su Tzi-chung’s interpretation, Josephine Chun-rui Ho’s Chinese publication Haoshuang nüren (The Unruly Woman) and her feminist activist slogan against on-campus sexual harassment in the 1990s are good examples. Graduating from Indiana University, Josephine C. Ho is currently a professor in the Department of Anglo-American Literature at National Central University. In 1994, she published the book Haoshuang nüren (The Unruly Woman), which sold so well that it was reprinted twelve times shortly after the first edition was released. The original literal meaning of the phrase haoshuang is only to be frank and straightforward. Haoshuang nüren originally refers to “the woman who is frank and straightforward in terms of human interactions.” However, Josephine C. Ho plays language games with homophones and homonyms. The word “hao” shares a similar pronunciation with another word, “hao,” which means “good or very well.” The word “shuang” not only means to be straightforward in human interaction, but it also refers to joy, ecstasy, and therefore, Irigaray’s jouissance or Medusa’s smile/laughter as well. That is to say, Josephine C. Ho’s book title indicates not merely “the woman who

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is frank and straightforward” but also “the woman who enjoys jouissance very well” (Su, 21–23).50 Medusa who smiles/laughs” is not just a female sexual organ with a smile/laughter. It is also a “haoshuang nüren” who autonomously enjoys jouissance. Medusa’s smile/laughter is the smile/laughter of “Bacchus’s women disciples,” the smile/laughter of “the three goddesses named the Furies,” the smile/laughter of Irigaray’s “the other woman,” the smile/laughter of Cixous’s “newly born/voiced women,” and also the smile/laughter of Josephine C. Ho’s “haoshuang nüren” . . . Medusa, who smiles/laughs, dares to speak out her own “shuang.” (Su, 31–32)

Haoshuang nüren was published the same year Josephine C. Ho organized an island-wide feminist parade against on-campus sexual harassment in front of the Presidential Palace. At that time, Josephine C. Ho’s feminist slogan was “zhi yao xing gaochao bu yao xing saorao” (in need of orgasm only—not sexual harassment). During the 1990s, this was perhaps the most famous Taiwanese call for women’s willingness to enjoy Irigaray’s jouissance and to fight against sexual harassment. For all the feminist participants in the parade, to have the courage to advocate women’s need for jouissance and to resist sexual harassment in public is to be a “newly born/voiced woman” in Taiwan. This radical feminist social movement, organized by Ho, received massive media attention across Taiwan in 1994 (Farris, 365). Since Ho’s activist Taiwanization of Irigaray’s jouissance and Cixous’s “newly born/voiced women” became widespread and inspiring for educated Taiwanese people, especially women undergraduate students of that time, it is not illogical to regard her Haoshuang nüren as a sort of successful local acculturation of French feminist jouissance as well as skillful Taiwanization of Cixous’s “newly born/voiced women.”

C In brief, Taiwanese scholars gate-kept, filtered, selected, and strategized to transfer Luce Irigaray’s, Hélène Cixous’s, and Julia Kristeva’s French feminist theories into Taiwan by exerting their cross-lingual and cross-cultural academic power in the 1990s. They also reshaped, localized, acculturated, marketed, and Taiwanized the French feminist theories, which Taiwanese academics needed, and which corresponded to local socio-historical backgrounds and cultural trends.

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Thiong’o, Ngugi Wa. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Portsmith, NH: Heinemann, 1981. Tsai, Chen-hsing. “Faguo nüxing zhuyi: Yi Li Jia Lai lun tazhe” (“French Feminism: Irigaray on the Other”). Zhongwai wenxue (Chinese and Foreign Literature/Chung Wai Literary Monthly). 21(9) (Feb 1993): 47–65. Whitford, Margaret. Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine. London: Routledge, 1991. Yang, Tsui. Riju shiqi Taiwan funü jiefang yundong (Movements of Taiwanese Women’s Liberation in the Era of Japanese Colonization). Taipei: Shibao, 1993. Yen, Yuan-shu. “Yiqie cong fanxifang kaishi” (“Everything Starts with Being Against the West”). Zhongwai wenxue (Chinese and Foreign Literature/Chung Wai Literary Monthly) 21(1) (July 1992): 7–11. ———. “Zhongwai biandu ershi nian” (Twenty Years of Chinese and Foreign Editing and Reading). Zhongwai wenxue (Chinese and Foreign Literature/Chung Wai Literary Monthly) 21(1) (July 1992): 12–13. ———. “Fakanci” (“The Opening Statement of the New Journal”). Zhongwai wenxue (Chinese and Foreign Literature/Chung Wai Literary Monthly) 1(1) (July 1972): 5.

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CH A P T ER

6

French Feminist Theories in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s

In the People’s Republic of China (PRC),1 one of the vanguards to embrace Western feminist theories2 consisted of a subset of the scholars who were trained in foreign languages and literature and interested in gender studies.3 The translation of feminist thought into Mandarin Chinese by these Chinese scholars and their analyses and revisions of Western feminist theories were important vehicles that brought feminist thought from the West into the PRC.4 This vanguard determined the way in which Western feminist theories were transferred to the PRC. After women in the PRC had the opportunity to hear about and know of feminist theories, the reception of Western feminism in the PRC5 begged further investigation. In order to accurately analyze the details of feminist literary research in the PRC, I surveyed all the articles related to purely Western feminist literary theories in Wenyi lilun (Literary and Artistic Theories) during the 1990s.6 I chose this journal because of its academic prestige, which is underscored by the fact that almost every prestigious American university’s Asian library owns this journal. When I interviewed feminist scholars and talked with literary researchers in the PRC in the summer of 2004, over 90 percent of them agreed that one of the most prestigious Chinese academic journals in the literary research field is Wenyi lilun, though some of them also mentioned Waiguo wenxue (Foreign Literature), which is not as easily accessible as Wenyi lilun in university libraries in the United States. Furthermore, the academic prestige of this journal perhaps stems from its early establishment. It was established in 1973—approximately three years before the end of the Cultural Revolution. The other reason to select this journal7 was because it is published in Beijing, which is not only the capital of the PRC but also the representative of the whole nation. Most importantly, Wenyi lilun

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accepted articles addressing Western literary and artistic thought that were submitted by authors from all regions of the PRC in the 1990s.8

T O  PRC’ D   W In the 1990s, Chinese research on Western feminist literary theories possessed at least three characteristics: first, the PRC’s open-door policy toward the West; second, a socio-political avoidance of radical feminist social movements; and third, a French theoretical orientation, because most of Anglo-American feminist thought had already been introduced to China. In the PRC, theorists’ access to Western feminist theories might be a reflection of the government’s open-door policy toward the West. In the mid to late 1980s, Chinese literary scholars transferred feminist theories from the West, at first mainly Anglo-American feminist notions. One of the initial systematic transfers of Western feminism into the Chinese studies began in the late 1980s, especially in 1988 and 1989. For example, Zhu Hong started to summarize, outline, and apply feminist thought that she found in Western feminist scholars’ publications, such as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Most Chinese scholars, like Zhu Hong, focused solely on primary literary texts rather than on ontological or epistemological discourses. Beijing University started to offer the first class about Western feminist literary criticism around that period of time. Later, in the early 1990s, a Chinese publisher, Henan renmin, issued one of the most accepted Chinese digests of feminist discourses, Meng Yue and Dai Jinhua’s Fuchu lishi de dibiao: zhongguo xiandai nüxing wenxue yanjiu (Voices Emerging into the Foreground of History: A Study of Contemporary Chinese Women’s Literature). Politically speaking, this appropriation of Western feminist thought more or less coincidentally matched the government’s strong motivation to reestablish the PRC’s positive relationship with the West. Although the Tiananmen Square Incident in June of 19899 indirectly cooled the Western world’s friendship with the PRC, the Chinese Communist authorities insisted on an open-door policy in terms of diplomatic relations.10 For the PRC government, the West referred mainly to Euro-American “advanced” countries, in particular the United States. In brief, the PRC opened herself to greet the West. Hence the adaptation of Western feminist theories to the PRC indirectly corresponded to the open-door policy toward the West. Judging from the fact that those who began investigating Western feminism were

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politically safe and sound, the transplantation of Western feminism to Chinese soil was one of the first academic projects without any disapproval of the Chinese Communist government. Had the government disapproved, Western feminist theories could probably not have been transplanted into the PRC.

A P  E P F A  R F S M  C G A Among the articles dealing exclusively with Western feminist literary theories in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s, almost all of the authors adopted terminology such as écriture féminine, deconstruction, and phallocentrism. These authors furthermore emphasized in particular the theories of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, all feminist interpreters of psychoanalytical, post-structuralist, and deconstructionist theories. The adoption of critical terms and their emphasis strongly indicated a preference for feminism as a theory over feminism as practice. According to my survey of Wenyi lilun in the 1990s, there were at least thirteen articles that focused purely on Western feminist thought.11 Let me briefly mention12 these papers in the following paragraphs. In “Xin shiqi nüxing zhuyi wenxue piping shuping” (“Feminist Literary Criticism on a New Age”), Lin Shuming outlines the main characteristics of feminism: a critique of phallocentrism, a quest for women’s self-awakening, a reevaluation of literary history, and an encouragement of écriture féminine. Lin takes feminist notions, such as phallocentrism and women’s writing, into consideration. But Lin fails to include feminist social movements, one of the most important parts of American feminism. In addition, Lin comments on androgyny as well as on the interrelationships among feminism, poststructuralism, Marxism, and realism. In the discussion of liangxing gongti (androgyny), Lin13 points out that some of the characteristics of écriture féminine could defeat or deconstruct masculinity. What Lin tends to underline is in fact an ideological and epistemological repetition of chauvinism. Thus, Lin’s14 definition of feminism has a greater influence on literary criteria than all the other philosophical theories, such as structuralism and deconstruction. Furthermore, Lin highlights that since the 1970s, Western feminism, on one hand,

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has adopted post-structuralist critiques, whereas on the other hand it has severely criticized them. This phenomenon, to Lin, is the reason why various kinds of feminist theories have never declined while poststructuralism has faded away gradually. Zhang Jingyuan15 compares the origins of different Western feminist branches, specifically the French and American branches. According to Zhang, French feminism, among the Western feminist schools, plays one of the most important roles in contemporary feminist thought and is inspired by Derridian post-structuralism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Similar to Zhang’s interest in French feminism, Ma Xinguo16 pays special attention to French Freudianism and Derridianism. Zhang Yanbing17 further investigates Hélène Cixous’s écriture féminine, Luce Irigaray’s parler femme, and Julia Kristeva’s semiotics. In conclusion, Zhang Yanbing remarks that all of these theorists were at least partially affected by Lacan and Derrida. Zhou Leshi, Liu Siqian, Wang Ning, Rao Pengzi, and Chen Lihong inserted local Chinese concerns into some French feminist concepts, such as écriture féminine. For instance, Zhou Leshi18 affirms that the PRC’s transfer of Western feminism helped reexamine, modify, and redevelop these theoretical approaches. After summarizing both French feminism and American feminism, Zhou then distinguishes the differences among human beings, female/women, and individuals. Similarly, Liu Siqian19 rethinks the problems of modernity in Chinese women’s literature, while Wang Ning20 lists the similarities of both Chinese and Western écriture féminine. Moreover, Wang also affirms that the narratology in female language was necessary for the development of écriture féminine. Rao Pengzi and Chen Lihong analyze Chinese women writers living abroad.21 The cultural diversity, the dynamic diaspora, and the marginality of these overseas writers, for both Rao and Chen, are what could radically subvert the patriarchal self-centeredness. Wen Jiehua and Li Jikai explored different gender factors that are related to literary originality and evaluation. Li Jikai 22 clarifies the interrelationships among sexology, literature, and art. Sexology, to Li, applies not just to literary themes but also to the motivation and the originality of literary writings. Wen Jiehua 23 argues that Western feminist aesthetics pursue “negative aesthetics,” which is in contrast to the phallocentric binary logic. A quest for authentic femininity is the key to post-patriarchal art, which should be close to daily life, culture, and nature with no fixed outer forms. The so-called genius and sublimity that these Western traditions affirm are never highly honored. Besides, feminist art is not necessarily women’s art.

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Compared with the topics of the above-mentioned Chinese journal articles, Western feminist theorists’ scope was interdisciplinary, including fields such as sociology, anthropology, history, ethnology, politics, legislation, and law. In this Chinese journal of the 1990s, only French feminist theories of Luce Irigaray’s, Julia Kristeva’s, and Hélène Cixous’s seem to be especially highlighted. In Wenyi lilun of the 1990s, this Chinese cross-lingual and cross-cultural preference for the three dominant French feminist theorists indicates not merely the theoretical content of the French feminist writings as an object of academic worship.24 It also implies the explicitly non-activist career backgrounds of these French feminists—namely, career backgrounds in literature, linguistics, philosophy, or psychology. In other words, these French feminist theorists were farther removed from practical social movements, as apparent in such activities as political petitions, radical parades, reforms of legislation, fights against governmental patriarchy, and so on. Conversely, in addition to a larger scope that covers various fields, different kinds of feminism, particularly in the United States, have an additional facet, namely activism. Typical of the US feminist perspective, Susan Ehrlich, for instance, uses critical linguistic methodology to investigate a case of sexual harassment on the campus of York University (Ehrlich, 60–71). Not only are her feminist concepts written in an easily accessible style, but they were also practically applied to courtroom litigation. Similarly, Mary Koss, a researcher studying rape and sexual harassment on university campuses, conducted a practical investigation of college-age women students’ reactions to issues such as rape and sexual violation at Kent University (Koss, 8–10). In Wenyi lilun of the 1990s, Chinese scholars’ love for French theories, therefore, lies not just in the theoretical content of their writings but also in their nonpractical career backgrounds in literature, linguistics, philosophy, or psychology. This love for nonpracticality implies the Chinese Communist government’s oppression of social movements or activism organized by citizens themselves. In contrast, many contemporary American feminist theorists, though not all American feminists, have diverse career backgrounds that enable them to practically deal with instances that inspire feminist theories. For example, the feminist theorist Catharine MacKinnon was a lawyer before she taught in a law school as both a law professor and a feminist. Not only does her previous career background enable her to address sexual problems in daily life with an attorney’s professional ability and knowledge, but her academic work shows her awareness of the importance of practicality (MacKinnon, 1–23).

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In addition, the interdisciplinarity strongly emphasized by Western women’s and gender studies indicates the diversity of gender researchers’ backgrounds. For instance, a feminist scholar in the United States, though probably not having any other job outside of academia, might at the same time be an anthropologist, a sociologist, an activist, a member of NWSA (the National Women’s Studies Association) or NOW (the National Organization of Women), and so on. Few of the Chinese theorists whose articles I surveyed apply feminism to activist practice or women’s radical social movements. Compared with the above examples of American feminist researchers, Chinese scholars seldom participate in any parades or social movements about Chinese women’s issues, such as spousal abuse, rape, and sexual harassmentthough “[c]ases of sexual harassment of women [were] common in China” (Janknowiak, 368).

A F I Generally speaking, the PRC’s appropriation of Western feminist concepts in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s tends to draw on French feminists rather than their American counterparts. This Sino-West feminism’s selective filtering occurred during the cultural transfers of feminist theory. Chinese theoretical appropriators took what they found most useful for their own work and omitted what they found more difficult to acculturate in their local environments. Let me roughly sketch some well-known American feminist thought that Chinese scholars failed to emphasize equally in their transfer of Western feminism into this Chinese journal in the 1990s. In this context, some American psychodynamics of marriage and family structures serve as good examples. For instance, Gayle Rubin points out that in patriarchal societies women are exchanged among men as if they were commodities, through marriages (Rubin, 27–62). Similarly, Nancy Chodorow reinterprets women’s desire to reconstruct the psychological triangular relationships among mother, father, and children in family life (Chodorow, 181–197). There are of course many other Anglo-American feminist researchers’ explorations. Some Chinese scholars, such as Zhang Jingyuan, mention roughly similar notions in their articles. However, politically speaking, the CCP’s early governmental policy tended to diffuse younger generations’ original Confucian relationship with their biological fathers and to accept Communist leaders, such as Mao Zedong, as their “truer father.” Various kinds of nationwide political reforms and power struggles from the beginning of the PRC’s history to the end

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of the Cultural Revolution damaged Chinese people’s original parentchild relations (Liang, 4). Even though the post-Maoist era was much less painful, the past political destruction done to intimate parentchild relations is still influential. Margery Wolf, for instance, asked an official of the Beijing Women’s Federation about Chinese parentchild relations and received tragic proof that the pain was still there: “young people learned bad habits from the Gang of Four and were neglecting or even mistreating the elderly members of their families” (Wolf, 187). These above-mentioned well-anthologized and model feminist explorations in the United States were not much emphasized in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s—not to mention research by less famous or younger American feminist scholars, such as Gwen Bergner, whose theoretical application of the Oedipus complex onto literary textual analyses was published in 1998 (Bergner, 241–260). Other American feminist theorists, such as Arlyn Diamond, Lee R. Edwards, Shulamith Firestone, and Michele Barrett, are also seldom introduced in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s. In The Anthology of Experience, Arlyn Diamond and Lee R. Edwards collect essays that might enrich the sense of women’s experience. Based on female sex as a class, Shulamith Firestone and Michele Barrett develop a new perspective to reexamine womanly economic and cultural identity in class struggles. Dale Spender discusses the Foucaultian paradox that the so-called truth relies on what constructed and managed discourse. She points out that men’s domination of discourse traps women through fictitious “truths” that men produce and control. Sheila Rowbotham notices the double oppression that working-class women tolerate. According to Adrienne Rich, women might share a rich history and culture of the “woman-identified-woman” tradition through a “lesbian continuum.” In brief, in terms of sexual orientation, social class struggles, racial and ethnic self-identity, and so on, feminist concerns in the United States are much more diversified than the gender issues Chinese scholars reflected in the above-mentioned journal papers in the 1990s. But how and why does the French school of feminism differ from the American one? In The Mirror and the Vamp, Sandra Gilbert compares American feminism to a mirror, which reflects and represents traditional literary canons and history from a feminist perspective. French feminism was a vamp, whose discursive strategies against patriarchy enchanted human beings. Similarly, Toril Moi, who defines gynesis as a textualization of women, compares French feminist theory with American feminist criticism. French feminism, to Moi, is deeply influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis about the

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sexes. In contrast, American feminism, according to Moi, is interested in what a woman really is. She sees American feminism as less psychoanalytical and theoretical than French feminism. Moi regards French feminism as theoretically conscious and elaborate, American feminism as more concerned with praxis, less alert to theory . . . American Criticism, as exemplified chiefly in Elaine Showalter’s chapter on Woolf from A Literature of Their Own, is inadequate in comparison with a French reading of Woolf, dependent on the work of Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva. It is French feminism . . . that can make sense of the deconstructive potential of Woolf’s work . . . American feminism, still tied to the values of traditional humanism, can only censure. (Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, 7–11)

One of the other most apparent distinctions between French feminism and American feminism is that American feminism includes a concern with practical and radical feminist social movements. Take the discussion about motherhood and maternity for instance; French feminists and American feminists work from extremely different directions even when they share the same focus on the mother figure. French feminists are theoretically and philosophically eloquent. Yet, lacking any governmental influence or pressure, American feminists are able to transform abstract thoughts and ideology into concrete practice. This application of feminist thought represents the practical and radical aspect of US feminist activism, and it is also what most Chinese feminist scholars lacked in the 1990s.25 French feminists, such as Julia Kristeva, are interested in psychological subtleties, such as relationships between mothers and sons. In contrast, US feminists actively organize various mothers’ organizations, such as Human Milk Banking Association in North America, Mothers’ Association for Korean Americans, Mothers against Violence in America (MAVIA), Lesbian Mothers Association, 26 and so on. Only rarely did similar kinds of mothers’ organizations or associations exist in the PRC of the 1990s. In other words, a zeal for all kinds of feminist social movements characterizes American feminism. Feminist institutions providing a 24-hour free service for women victims, such as Battered Women’s Shelters or Anti-Rape Crisis Centers or Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Affairs, exemplify the goals of American feminist activists who attempt to practically assist victims of rape, sexual abuse, or marital and domestic violence. Andrea Benton Rushing’s article entitled “Surviving Rape” serves as a case in point. As an

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American feminist researcher, Rushing not only delivers academic talks and papers related to feminist thought in the United States but is also a rape victim herself, who received help from professional feminist counselors. Rushing explains, “I have called the police, pressed charges, been hospital-examined, begun twice-a-week rape crisis counseling, even seen the pastoral counselor at Morehouse Medical School to talk about the politics of being raped” (Rushing, 134). This obvious tendency toward practical and radical activism is what both French and Chinese feminist scholars lack. Efforts by other American feminist organizations to better contribute to women’s welfare may be illustrated in the following example: in the US, the combination of feminist theories and social activism yielded the establishment of organizations such as the National Organization of Women (NOW) founded by Betty Friedan in 1966. Another important American feminist organization is the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL) that aims to achieve equal treatment for women in regard to laws, taxes, education, and employment. The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to improving the lives of African American women. The National Coalition against Sexual Assault (NCASA) supports sexually mistreated women. In addition, third-wave feminists manage movements that try to “unite women across ethnic, racial, and whenever possible, class divisions . . . [A]ctivists have organized workshops” to practically promote a greater transnational and cross-cultural sisterhood among women from various races, classes, religions, socio-political backgrounds, sexual orientations, and so on (Bartky, 177). Conversely, French feminist theorists do not emphasize this practical application of theories. Chinese scholars, like French feminists in this sense, rarely address feminist social movements either. American feminist scholarship, which has been very much connected with practical activism, emerged and matured in the context of its very strong grassroots political movement. It has been buoyed, confirmed, and reinforced by its connection to the experiences and ideas of the multitude of women who have participated in the feminist movement in one way or another. In many ways, American feminism speaks of, and to, various American women: white women, black women, Native American women, middle-class women, proletarian women, immigrant women, and so forth. The multi-faceted nature of this movement explains in part why American feminist scholarship is less well received in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s. Mainstream Chinese feminism of the 1990s, in many ways different from American

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feminism, does not include any concerns about foreign women, immigrant women, emigrant women (Schein, 387), 27 women of color, and so on. French feminism of the 1990s is largely theoretical in its genesis and in its constitution. It flourishes in the abstract disciplines—primarily philosophy and psychoanalysis. Accordingly, it does not rely on empirical research; it does not generally address concrete social issues and problems—for example, workplace discrimination or sexual harassment. Moreover, it does not concern itself with a concrete political program. Consequently, French feminism does not have, and in many ways does not need the support of, a social group or a popular constituency. It is academic in the traditional sense: representing or appealing to the perspective of academic elites, dealing with problems that were largely “academic” and thus removed from everyday, practical problems. In contrast, American feminism is shaped by its connections to a “mass” women’s constituency.

A F   C  R A Social Movements, Feminist Organizations, and Censorship in the Velvet Prison Although the Chinese journal articles I have surveyed include not only feminist literary theories but also other feminist theories, such as feminist psychoanalysis, the topics or aspects that these papers cover are limited when compared to the concerns of American feminists. For instance, feminist scholars seldom mention racial or multicultural issues of feminist studies in these Chinese articles. That is to say, the feminist theories transferred through these articles into the PRC do not address everything covered by the original Western theorists. Chinese feminist theoretical appropriators filtered, selected, and processed the original Western feminist theories as Chinese gatekeepers.28 Thus Chinese readers of transferred Western feminist literary theories have a smaller and narrower scope than readers of the original feminist theories in the West. Chinese researchers’ preference for nonpracticality, I argue, reveals their inability to practice radical feminist ideas due to the Communist government’s control. Although not all Western feminists could perfectly apply their theories in practice, Chinese feminists’ lack of practicality has indeed been one of their weaknesses. Not many Chinese feminist researchers at Chinese universities could take radical and

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activist stances for women victims and practically help women tackle gender problems. After the discovery of the “French flavor” that is more theoretical and less activist than American feminism, it is worth considering why Chinese scholars have chosen French feminism, especially when France is just one country in the West and does not represent the whole Western world. If the Chinese governmental policy was to greet the West, or to open China’s door to the West, then why have Chinese feminist researchers embraced France more closely and opened their door to French theorists more enthusiastically than to others, at least according to the articles in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s? Why have they been afraid of or inclined to dislike American feminism? The Chinese preference for nonpracticality is obvious in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s, and it puzzles me that the aspect of practicality seems so deliberately omitted. If the ability to deal with the practical aspects of radical feminist social movements, such as organizing a national women’s association or planning demonstrations in support of reproductive rights, were helpful to Chinese women, then why do these Chinese feminist appropriators not engage in developing practical organizations and feminist social movements? Furthermore, why do Chinese scholars avoid connection with social movements? Why is the consequence of a feminist social movement so intimidating to the PRC? In order to offer answers to these questions, a brief probe into the Chinese socio-political world is necessary. Therefore, the following discussion will explore the social backgrounds and political consequences of social movements and feminist organizations in the PRC that influenced women’s and gender studies in China of the 1990s. From 1965 to 1976, the Cultural Revolution restricted contacts between the PRC’s citizens and foreign academics. Well-educated elites in Chinese academies suffered during numerous Communist political power struggles. Some of them were xiafang laogai (sending down/reformed through labor), forced to leave their academic institutions, and then demoted to the countryside. Those who could not tolerate the physical and spiritual torture died miserable deaths. Welleducated elites with knowledge of either international or Western—to be more specific, advanced researchers connected with the West, the non-Communist world, or democratic nations—most often faced the highest threat of falling victim to the politically motivated purges. Probably one of the best examples to explain Chinese people’s fear of the results of social movements is the Tiananmen Square Incident. Many “of the most active and prominent participants in the movement, and certainly such prominent leaders as Wang Dan,

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Wu’er Kaixi, and Shen Tong, worked closely with reform currents within and outside the [CCP] . . . Their primary goal throughout the Spring of 1989 was the creation of a legitimate space for dialogue with authority in debating and shaping the reform agenda” (Selden, 126)—and not to overthrow or eliminate the Communist government. However, what was threatening to the Communist regime was the “ability of the students to control Tiananmen during the Soviet leader’s29 visit [that] underlined their power to influence and directly challenge state policy at a time of maximum international visibility” (Selden, 123). Subsequently, the Chinese Communist authorities demonstrated that participation in non-approved social movements causes disastrous results: participants in the Tiananmen Square protests died miserably, were incarcerated, were expatriated, or had to seek asylum in foreign countries. Even though freedom of speech and academic freedom were taken for granted in the contemporaneous Western world, intellectuals’ thoughts in China were still controlled and censored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The slaughterers, the soldiers of the 27th Army, used tanks, assault weapons, and bayonets . . . on people who . . . yelled only a lone slogan . . . They used automatic guns to mow them down so that the chests of all of the dead were soaked in blood . . . Their hands, chests, and legs were covered with blood. (Han, 362)

Some commentators argue that the situation in Tiananmen Square was even worse than the Cultural Revolution. An eyewitness, after having experienced the bloody scenes, expressed the concern that “China [is] sinking . . . into the . . . warlordism, fascism” (Salisbury, 175). If the above-mentioned terror was the tragic result of a social movement that steered Chinese society toward more democracy and indirectly challenged government authority, then Chinese feminists’ deliberate omission of and noncommitment to radical social movements not sanctioned by the Communist government becomes understandable. Even at the United Nations’ Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, feminist ideas and theories uttered by Chinese speakers were approved by the Communist government. For example, at the conference Jiang Zemin, the chairman of the CCP, ironically spoke as if he were the most qualified “teacher,” “guide,” “leader,” or “director” of all the Chinese feminists30 —regardless of the fact that Jiang himself is a male lacking any experience with any Chinese women’s predicaments, and furthermore having never proven to be a real feminist activist or theorist to China. Jiang Zemin’s speech

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attests to the degree in which Chinese feminist activism was under the CCP’s political control and “guidance” in the 1990s. Anything the CCP politically disapproved of was hardly feasible for feminists in the PRC as well as feminists from other areas at this conference. For instance, the CCP disallowed Taiwanese feminists to attend this conference as national representatives for Taiwanese women. Cheng Chih-hui participated in this conference as simply an individual rather than a Republic of China (ROC) spokesperson at large. Hence such a conference did not practically promote radical feminist activism31 in the PRC, though it did not hurt the progress of Chinese feminism either (Helly, 171–178).32 Even in the post-Maoist era, which is considered a more liberal time, “women are dependent on society, on the party, and on the state . . . women are doomed by their passive role” (Li, 271). If social movements in the PRC were too dangerous for Chinese researchers in the field of gender studies, then was it safe for Chinese feminist appropriators to manage their own feminist organizations? If larger demonstrations of social movements were too dangerous, then could women’s parades for less controversial issues be any safer? Except for deaths of Falungong adherents, there were no major incidents in which people were killed by the CCP because of their political or religious beliefs in the last decade of the twentieth century. Still, governmental permission continued to play an extremely influential role in sanctioning intellectuals’ academic projects and dominating scholars’ research topics. A good example of the government’s censorship of feminist activism is the Tibetan Women’s Association,33 probably one of the few Chinese women’s organizations that were not controlled by Communist governmental authorities (Hsiung, Jaschok, Milwertz, and Chan, 193–226).34 Yet, the association does not exist within the PRC’s territory; nor is their website accessible from within the PRC. Instead, the headquarters of the association were in India, and its website is administered from Canada. This suggests that the freedom to manage a large women’s organization in China has clearly defined limits. According to the association’s website, many Tibetan activists became political prisoners. For example, fourteen nuns were jailed for taking part in peaceful demonstrations in Tibet between 1989 and 1992.35 All of their demonstrations were nonviolent, involving less than half a dozen people and lasting less than five minutes. They became known collectively as the Drapchi 14. It is unlikely that Tibetan women’s organizations are approved of and welcomed by the Chinese Communist government. And the cases in other areas of China are probably similar to or not

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much better than the Tibetan women’s situation (Hsiung, Jaschok, Milwertz, and Chan, 10).36 Even Fulian, which was founded with the support of the central administrative system, seems to be obedient to the Communist government (Barlow, 146; Jiang, 5). Chinese feminist scholars might have seen Fulian’s governmental-influenced practice in action, such as the one-child policy, and hence might not want to go in that direction at all. Fulian does not seem to strive for women on issues outside of the Communist government’s concerns about women. For instance, in the 1990s most Chinese women victims, whether they experienced rape, spousal abuse, or sexual violation, still had very few places to go (Milwertz, 35),37 though some feminist NGOs appeared after the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress and probably were more willing to help women victims in urban areas, such as Beijing. Unlike American female victims, who are assisted by organizations such as rape crisis centers, contemporary Chinese women could seldom expect legal representation by specialists or psychological counseling services from their own women’s institutions. Consequently, the Chinese feminist appropriators whose journal articles I have surveyed most likely did not feel comfortable and safe enough in their sociopolitical surroundings to establish their own formal, systematic, and large feminist organizations and social movements in the PRC of the 1990s. Even though the United Nations’ World Women’s Congress indirectly initiated some feminist NGOs, a number of these feminist NGOs did not survive successfully after the impacts of the congress gradually faded away. Although the less dogmatic post-Maoist government has allowed feminist scholars, such as Li Xiaojiang, to complain in academic publications about Chinese women’s double burden, there has still never been any Chinese radical feminist activism fighting against either the Communist patriarchy or the government’s male-centeredness of the 1990s. The degree of subtlety necessary to voice criticism of the party line in the 1980s and the 1990s becomes most obvious when considering how and where feminist scholars published their complaints about the CCP’s insincerity. Some feminist Asianists, such as Emily Honig, criticize that women’s liberation was never a main central concern for the CCP (Honig and Hershatter, 329–336). Other scholars, such as Phyllis Anders, Kay Ann Johnson, Li Xiaojiang, and Judith Stacey, strongly deny that Chinese women were really liberated by the Communists (Li, 380). Almost all of these feminist protests against the CCP are written in or translated into English and then published outside of the territory that the CCP dominates. These scholars’

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avoidance of writing about their grievance in Mandarin Chinese and of publishing their dissatisfactions in the PRC clearly illustrates how much they are afraid of the Chinese Communist leaders’ political power. Even in the 1990s, the Communist authorities in China still repressed individuals’ freedom of thought and speech, and censorship was more vigorous than under the previous authoritarian regime during the Cultural Revolution. Geremie Barmé, in an article entitled “The Greying of Chinese Culture,” uses the color gray to describe the PRC’s morose socio-political aura (Barmé, “The Greying of Chinese Culture,” 13.2–13.52).38 Echoing the terminology of “Hungarian dissident poet Miklos Haraszti, Barmé [called] the . . . situation in the People’s Republic of China, in which the earlier forms of brutal military violence [were] increasingly replaced by a repressive, invisible violence partaken of by intellectuals themselves, a ‘velvet prison’ ” (Chow, 50).39 By uttering the “something of a commonplace that the Chinese intelligentsia . . . had a more compliant attitude . . . than intelligentsia in Eastern Europe,” Barmé’s assertion sounds both audacious and provocative, but he is not the only person remarking on the behavior of Chinese intellectuals (Barmé, 61). More or less echoing Barmé, Judy Polumbaum writes, Control [of thought and speech was] exercised through various means, both obvious and subtle, including the power to authorize and close down media outlets and other overt regulatory measures . . . personnel management, particularly the selection and removal of top editors; and various types of censorship, including creation of a climate conducive to self-censorship. (Polumbaum, 301)

People’s Daily has repeatedly been explored by a number of researchers as one of the best showcases of the CCP’s censorship. “One student from the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute called for the removal of press censorship and pointed out that it was the strongest demand of the students that the press should ‘tell the truth’ . . . Mu Yuan [the spokesman of the State Council], however, responded by saying that . . . the press . . . [had] to be constrained by the Constitution and law . . . and cannot report on whatever happens” (Mu and Thompson, 127–128). Faced with the problem of their survival, journalists working for People’s Daily were forced to avoid writing about issues they disagreed with. It “[was] in effect not the [CCP’s] ‘house organ,’ but [had] the even narrower function of representing those who happen

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to be in power” (Mu and Thompson, 126). Owing to the specific socio-political conditions, both the high-tech mass media and the press in China, right after the June Fourth student social movement culminated in the showdown in Tiananmen Square, “fully resumed its . . . function as the propaganda machine used by the CCP to rewrite history40 —and manipulate the future” (Mu and Thompson, 137). The censorship and (self-)repression in the “velvet prison” serves as one of the possible explanations why Chinese feminist appropriators were so keenly shunning American feminist activism in the 1990s. If they were to appropriate American feminist activism into China, they would probably have run too much risk and paid too high a price due to the socio-political environment of the “velvet prison.” Under the above-mentioned circumstances and censorship, it may be too demanding to expect Chinese feminist scholars to establish their own feminist organizations or to plan their own feminist social movements. Anonymous Interviewees’ Interpretations Most of my interviewees supported my interpretation that the Tiananmen Square Incident influenced gender scholars’ choice between American feminist social movements and French feminist theories in the PRC of the 1990s. At least none of them were astonished when I related this incident to the preference for French feminist theories that I discovered in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s. CNL2 frankly commented that this incident did more or less undermine social movements, including activist feminism in the PRC. The only exception was probably mild and academic feminism. Sounding milder than CNL2 and CN5, CNL3 vaguely implied that feminist social movement could hardly escape the CCP’s political control. CNL11 and CN5 argued that the PRC government firmly insisted that the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square were illegal and wrong, regardless of various disputes. CNL14 thought that the students’ democratic movement was chiefly a political social movement and that its influence on feminism was indirect only. Gender issues, after all, did not really concern organizers or participants of the demonstrations. However, CN9 stressed that the fear of social movements, including feminist activism, was out of proportion. A number of her friends in academia left the PRC for foreign countries in the 1990s because of the Tiananmen Square Incident. Those who stayed in the PRC, according to CN9, were all frightened by social movements.

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CN10 told me that she was not in Beijing in 1989. However, she watched television, read newspapers, and listened to radio programs every day in order to keep track of the latest conditions in Beijing at that time. In the 1980s there were already many complaints. Elites in the academy had more opportunities to publish complaints than ordinary people. Therefore, they also felt more responsible for pushing the CCP toward reforms. CN10 believed that what all these college students and scholars in academy had was actually best wishes for the PRC’s political advancement. My Beijing friend confidentially told me that some university professors supported college students and even paid for their students’ lunch at the beginning of this political movement in Tiananmen Square. However, this incident proved that it was too difficult for college students and scholars to change governmental officials’ minds. Just as CN9 said, CN10 verified that many elites gave up, discontinued their academic careers, or moved out of the PRC after this incident. In addition to the political self-protection that CN10 pointed out, CNL7 added three possible reasons why there was such a preference for French feminist theories in the prestigious journal that both CNL7 and I surveyed. First, CNL7 felt that Anglo-American theoretical texts written in English gradually became stale to the PRC of the 1990s because almost every young scholar knew some English. Under this circumstance, the French feminist theories that charmed American academia in the late 1980s and the 1990s seemed to be something fresher and more surprising for theoretical appropriators in the PRC. CN6 said, Everyone knows that some arguments could be made only orally. Nobody would write them down on paper. Even if some arguments are written, people know that it is better not to publish them. Even if some written arguments are published, people know that they can be neither written in Chinese nor published in the PRC. In order to survive in an environment that is under terrible control, everybody knows well about how to protect himself or herself.

Second, the relationship between the PRC and France was not bad. Both France and the PRC had their own Communist parties. Therefore, to transfer feminist theories from France should not be politically too dangerous. Third, in the Chinese elites’ view, the US academy looked like an academic wholesale trader or an academic distributor of difficult and age-old European philosophy or theories, while France seemed to be the true factory that produced theories

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first-hand. This was somewhat similar to fashions of women’s dresses in New York and Paris. CNL7 noticed that scholars in the PRC also unconsciously tended to pursue France’s latest academic trends. CN3 agreed that scholars in the PRC might be truly interested in French feminism. However, this interest was limited to the English translation of French feminism only because it was already difficult for scholars in the PRC to read English translation—not to mention original texts written in French. In addition to some scholars’ disappointment and departure from the PRC, the Tiananmen Square Incident resulted in other kinds of influence on academics with backgrounds in the PRC. Dru Findley regards the cessation of the Fulbright scholarship program between the PRC and the United States in 1989 and 1990 as evidence of the negative influence of the Tiananmen Square Incident (Findley, 23–26). France terminated most of the cultural or educational exchange activities between France and the PRC after the Tiananmen Square Incident (Findley, 9–12). Although Canada did not decrease educational and cultural exchange programs with the PRC, Ruth Hayhoe points out the fact that the “Canadian government . . . cancel[ed] a certain number of CIDA projects . . . and delay[ed] the renewal of favorable financing arrangements for economic projects” (Hayhoe, 141). She reveals Chinese scholars’ attitude toward France’s and Canada’s reactions to the Tiananmen Square Incident. [Chinese scholars, whom she talked with,] sensed the symbolic importance of the strong stand taken by French authorities in their condemnation of the Chinese leadership and their suspension of most educational exchange activity. They were glad that one high-profile Western country had chosen this particular response to the situation. (Hayhoe, 142)

According to CN5, the more Western feminist theories were transferred to the PRC, the more drawbacks and problems of Western feminism Chinese feminist scholars began to realize, and the better acculturation appropriators would strategize. She took US President Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, for example. Hillary Clinton claimed to be a feminist; however, CN5 felt that Hillary Clinton preferred being the first lady to being a pure feminist. In addition, CN5 categorized Hillary Clinton as an upper-class woman and doubted any true sisterhood between upper-class women and lower-class women in US society.

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In CN8’s case, the Western feminist theories applicable to her research were not radical. Even when she applied American feminism, she skipped the radical and activist part of American feminism. CN7 told me how a friend of hers felt that trips to America enhanced her understanding of American feminism. The question of how to acculturate and reshape the Western feminism that appropriators brought to the PRC really depended on the local socio-political conditions. Most of my interviewees shared this belief with me and agreed that theoretical appropriators’ crosscultural capacity was more significant than well-known feminists or famous feminism in the West. For example, CNL6, CN8, and CNL5 took the political banning of the Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues in the early 2000s for example. Fudan University and East China Normal University both had no difficulty in playing and showing their Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues. However, the Guangdong government stopped Zhongshan University’s Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues by finding fault with their application procedure. Ai Xiaoming and Song Sufeng overcame difficulties and finally directed, videotaped, and published the Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues in Zhongshan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong (Canton) in 2004.41 The Shanghai government also banned a professional opera troupe’s Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues in February 2004, though the Beijing government approved it.

T S-P S  C F In Wenyi lilun of the 1990s, Chinese theorists’ enthusiasm for French feminist theories reveals a perhaps unconscious avoidance of feminist activism and radical social movements. In other words, the PRC’s censorship of social movements impeded Chinese feminist appropriators from establishing and participating in social movements. Since social activism is one of the indispensable parts of American feminism, Chinese theorists’ transfer of Western feminism tends to neglect American feminist activism. Chinese political restrictions seem to conflict with the liberal attitude of the PRC’s open-door policy. But regardless of the extent to which China opened herself, the Communist regime still imposed strict limitations on the PRC’s citizens in the 1990s and severely hampered attempts to build social movements independent of the

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government’s control. Based on my exploration of Chinese social movements since the 1950s, I cannot deny that all of the successful social movements in the PRC were politically designed or planned to serve specific governmental slogans or targets. Namely, the CCP censored, patronized, and controlled the beginning, the development, and the termination of all of these social movements. Even in the 1990s, it was still politically prohibited for Chinese citizens to organize any independent social movements simply based on the people’s own choices. To be more specific, despite the open-door policy, the PRC of the 1990s was still not completely open and liberal. Hence the unconscious, yet dominant, intention to avoid feminist social movements that were not designed to serve or support any of the Chinese Communists’ ideals was not irrational. This was a possible reason why Chinese feminist theorists either unconsciously or consciously disliked any deeper devotion to feminist social movements. Chinese feminist theorists’ lack of interest in or deeper devotion to radical feminist social movements is probably one of the reasons why Western feminism in the PRC is so different from original Western feminism in the West. Since Lydia H. Liu highlights the necessity to rethink cross-cultural interpretations between the East and the West, I would like to offer alternative Sino-West socio-political interpretations for the PRC’s unavoidable “change” or acculturation of Western feminism (Liu, xv & 30; Spivak, 154–184). Importantly, Chinese political repression and the lack of social liberty manifest themselves as the most crucial reasons for the different development and reception of feminist and gender theories in the PRC. Consequently, a transnational and multicultural investigation into the transfer of feminist and gender theories to the PRC becomes indispensable. In other words, the appropriated Western feminist theories in China are not actually how Western feminist theories were originally conceived in the West. Instead, Chinese scholars adapted Western feminist concepts to the socio-political situation of China in the 1990s. Beyond a feminist comparative study of differences and similarities between Western feminists and Eastern feminists, this observation of mine offers a possible answer to the preference for French feminist theories over American feminist activism in Wenyi lilun. By probing into the political repression of social movements and the censorship in the “velvet prison,” the Chinese feminist scholars’ socio-political difficulties in transferring feminist theories from the West into the PRC become obvious. Facing the consequences of practical activism, Chinese feminists could not but take refuge in French theorization.

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The way Western feminist theories are socio-politically situated in China displays a necessary strategy for Chinese feminist scholars’ survival that balances their academic pursuits with their intellectual freedom. Such a strategy for survival was cross-lingual as well as crosscultural.

F C-L  C- C S S To choose French theorization in order to dodge American feminism’s practical activism and social movements was not only a safe reaction for Chinese scholars to take in the 1990s but also one of the strategies for survival in Chinese academies of the 1990s. However, because there were so many French feminist theorists, it was also necessary for Chinese feminist scholars to narrow down the choices of which French feminist theories to transfer to the PRC. The solution of this problem of choice required further cross-lingual and cross-cultural survival strategies. Namely, Chinese scholars applied the mainstream taste of American/Western academies onto their decisions of which French feminist theorists to transfer. The question arises why the critical emphasis of American/Western scholars served as their criterion. On one hand, for most Chinese scholars, American publications in English were most likely more accessible than publications in other Western languages. On the other hand, from the Chinese perspective the United States was the strongest representative of the whole West in the 1990s. Consequently, from all of the French feminists, Chinese appropriators decided which ones they preferred to introduce to China. For instance, Monique Wittiq, Catherine Clément, Sarah Kofman, Christine Delphy (Delphy, 379–391), Toril Moi,42 and others do not seem very popular among Chinese feminist scholars, whereas Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Hélène Cixous are undoubtedly favorites. The Chinese literary academic journal that I have surveyed clearly exhibits its preference for these three French feminist theorists in the 1990s, and it evidences that at least in the 1990s Chinese scholars filtered, decided, and strategized the ways in which Western feminist theories and theorists came to be localized. More importantly, however, the journal’s preference for these three French feminist theorists in the 1990s actually runs contrary to most Chinese scholars’ Western language backgrounds. Chinese feminist scholars of the 1990s were usually more familiar with English

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than with French. Yet, despite most Chinese scholars’ average lack of acquaintance with the French language, Wenyi lilun displays an obvious predilection for these three French feminists. Therefore, I would like to highlight Chinese cross-lingual and cross-cultural impacts on the localization/sinicization of the three French feminist theorists in this specific period of time. In terms of the introduction of French feminist theories and theorists to China, theoretical appropriators’ cross-cultural and crosslingual knowledge and skill are much more important than how the original Western feminist theories or theorists are perceived in the West. Regardless of the strength Catherine Clément’s and Monique Wittiq’s theories were accorded in France, they were still not well known in the PRC of the 1990s. Thus, only rarely—if at all—did theoretical appropriators in America or the PRC enthusiastically introduce them by exerting American or Chinese academic power and making use of their cross-cultural and cross-lingual capacities. Similarly, the reason why Irigaray and Cixous are much more renowned and well liked by Chinese researchers is not because other French feminists offer worse theories than these two. Instead, they are better known in America and the PRC because of American or Chinese translators’ and introducers’ willingness to transfer their theories to America or the PRC, respectively. If I compare Hong Kong with China, this question of choice will become more understandable. Hong Kong of the 1990s did not have any obvious zeal for French feminist theories. The French feminists were hardly as famous and influential in Hong Kong as they were in China during this time. This was not because Hong Kong’s academics looked down upon French feminists, but rather because French feminists lacked enthusiastic Hong Kong appropriators’ help in order to be introduced to the specific academic environments of Hong Kong. In addition, it was during this period of time that Hong Kong was returned to China by the United Kingdom; thus the transfer of French feminist theories to Hong Kong in the 1990s did not happen because post-colonialist feminism seemed to be more attractive for Hong Kong feminists. Almost every Western theorist must have a local translator and introducer in order to make her way into Chinese culture. Otherwise, Western thoughts are not smoothly acculturated to China’s needs. Take Sarah Kofman in the PRC for instance. Except for the English translation of The Enigma of Women and some Chinese professors’ willingness to put it into their syllabi, there is almost no way for regular Chinese folks to get access to or understand Sarah Kofman because there were not enough kind-hearted Chinese introducers to fervently

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propagate Sarah Kofman’s theories. In addition, most Chinese theoretical appropriators did not choose to transfer the theories of Sarah Kofman, or they did not have enough motivation to wholeheartedly rephrase/paraphrase Sarah Kofman for Chinese folks. Therefore, Sarah Kofman is not as popular as Irigaray and Cixous in Chinese feminist theoretical discussions. Without enough enthusiastic Chinese theoretical translators, appropriators, and introducers to pave the way into Chinese culture, Western feminist theorists like Kofman could hardly become known in China. If I compare American academics’ appropriation of Sarah Kofman and Catherine Clément with that of Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Hélène Cixous, the Chinese situation appears much more understandable; only one of Sarah Kofman’s books has been translated into English, and Catherine Clément’s publications are also not nearly as popular as Kristeva’s. Consequently, Clément and Kofman are less well received in the United States than Irigaray, Kristeva, and Cixous. It is not because Sarah Kofman is a weaker theorist than Irigaray, or because Kofman’s academic importance is less than Irigaray’s. The same holds true for the theories of Catherine Clément as well. Therefore, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, and Julia Kristeva are more ardently welcomed in America not because they are better and stronger than all the other French feminists, but because American theoretical introducers were more willing to cross-culturally and cross-lingually transfer these three French feminist theorists into their academic environments. Similarly, these three theorists are better known in the PRC because Chinese introducers had enough motivation to transplant these three French feminists to their areas. Therefore, Chinese scholars indirectly applied this American/Western mainstream taste to their own reception of these three major French feminists. When to embrace the West in order to fit in the overall Chinese foreign policy, why French feminist theories were preferred in order to achieve academic survival, and which French theorists were to be selected in order to cut down the large number of French feministsall these problems reflect how Chinese feminist theoretical appropriators developed their cross-lingual and cross-cultural survival strategies within the Chinese socio-political trends of the 1990s.

R Ai, Xiaoming and Song Sufeng. Yindao dubai (The Vagina Monologues) (video). Guangzhou: Zhongshan University, 2004.

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Ai, Xiaoming, Song Sufeng, and Dai Fan. Yindao dubai: muhou gushi (The Vagina Monologues: Stories from China) (video). Guangzhou: Zhongshan University, 2004. Barlow, Tani E. “Theorizing Women: Funü, Guojia, Jiating.” Genders 10 (Spring 1991): 132–160. Barmé, Geremie. “The Greying of Chinese Culture.” China Review 1992. Kuan Hsinchi and Maurice Brosseau edt. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1992. ———. “The Chinese Velvet Prison: Culture in the ‘New Age,’ 1976–89.” Issues and Studies 25–27 (1989–91): 54–79. Barth, Kelly. The Tiananmen Square Massacre. San Diego: Greenhaven Press / Thomson Gale, 2003. Bartky, Sandra Lee. “Sympathy and Solidarity: On a Tightrope with Scheler.” Feminist Rethinking the Self. Diana Tietjens Meyers and Alison Jaggar edt. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. Bergner, Gwen. “Myths of Masculinity: The Oedipus Complex and Douglass’s 1845 Narrative.” The Psychoanalysis of Race. Christopher Lane edt. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, pp. 241–260. Brook, Timothy. Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy movement. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Chodorow, Nancy. “The Psychodynamics of the Family.” The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Linda Nicholson edt. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 181– 197. Chow, Rey. Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Delphy, Christine. “Faguo nüxing zhuyi: diguo zhuyi de faming” (“French Feminism: An Invention of Imperialism”). Wang Chih-hung trans. Nüxing zhuyi jingdian: shiba shiji ouzhou qimeng, ershi shiji bentu fansi (Feminist Canons: European Enlightenment in the 18th Century, Local Reflections in the 20th Century). Ku Yan-lin and Cheng Chih-hui edt. Taipei: Nüshu ( Fembooks), 1999. Ehrlich, Susan. “Critical Linguistics as Critical Methodology.” Changing Methods: Feminists Transforming Practice. Sandra Burt and Lorraine Code edt. Toronto: Broadview Press, 1995, pp. 60–71. Fewsmith, Joseph. China since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Findley, Dru. “The Impact of Recent Events in China on International Professional and Academic Exchanges and Related Development Activities.” Ford Foundation, Beijing Office, August 31, 1989. Han, Mingzhu. Cries for Democracy: Writings and Speeches from the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Hayhoe, Ruth. China’s Universities 1895–1995: A Century of Cultural Conflict. New York: Garland, 1996. He, Peichun. “Zhu li ye ke li si di wa yu nüxing zhuyi” (“Julia Kristeva and Feminism”). Shanghai wenlun 21 (March 1990): 69–70. Helly, Dorothy O. “The Fourth World Conference on Women: Beijing ‘95.” NWSA Journal 8(1) (Spring 1996): 171–178. The Concept of Defense Mechanisms in Contemporary Psychology. Uwe Hentschel, Gudmund Smith, Wolfram Ehlers, and Juris Draguns edt. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993. Hentschel, Uwe, Gudmund Smith, Wolfram Ehlers, and Juris Draguns. The Concept of Defense Mechanisms in Contemporary Psychology. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993.

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Honig, Emily and Gail Hershatter. Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988. Hsiung, Ping-chun, Maria Jaschok, Cecilia Milwertz, and Red Chan. Chinese Women Organizing: Cadres, Feminists, Muslims, Queers. New York: Berg Press, 2001. Janknowiak, William. “Parental Affection in the Chinese Family.” Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities. Susan Brownell and Jefferey N. Wasserstrom edt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Jayawardena, Kumari. Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London: Zed Books, 1986. Jian, Ding, Elaine Yee-man Chan, and Leslie Evans. The China Democracy Movement and Tiananmen Incident: Annotated Catalog of the UCLA Archives, 1989–1993. Los Angeles: University of California, 1999. Jiang, Hong. “Feminine or (Un)feminine: Struggles over the Meanings of Femininity in Chinese Women’s Literature.” Women and International Development, Michigan State University: Working Paper #272, May 2001. Koss, Mary. “Hidden Rape: Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample in Higher Education.” Rape and Sexual Assault. Vol 2. Ann Wolbert Burgess edt. New York: Garland Press, 1988. Li, Xiaojiang. “With What Discourse Do We Reflect on Chinese Women? Thoughts on Transnational Feminism in China.” Spaces of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang edt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Liang, Bohua. “Zhongwai xuezhe dui ‘liumei youtong’ yenjiu de chengguo” (“SinoWestern Scholars’ Research about ‘Chinese Young Children Studying in the US’ ”). Liushi nianlai de zhongguo jindai shi yanjiu (Studies of Modern Chinese History: A Bibliographical Review, 1928–1988). Vol. I. Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1988. Liu, Lydia H. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. Lokke, Karri. “Women as Mythmakers” (Book Review). Dong Junfeng trans. Shanghai wenlun 21 (March 1990): 76–77. MacFarquhar, Roderick and Michael Schoenhals. Mao’s Last Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. MacKinnon, Catharine A. Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979. Meng, Yue and Dai Jinhua. Fuchu lishi de dibiao: zhongguo xiandai nüxing wenxue yanjiu (Voices Emerging into the Foreground of History: A Study of Contemporary Chinese Women’s Literature). Taipei: Shibao, 1993. Miles, James A. R. The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Milwertz, Cecilia. Beijing Women Organizing for Change: A New Wave of the Chinese Women’s Movement. Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS Press, 2002. Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. New York: Methuen, 1985. ———. “Bianji yu dianfu: zhu li ye ke li si di wa” (“Borderlines and Subversion: Julia Kristeva”). Lin Jianfa trans. Shanghai wenlun 26 (Dec 1991): 71–80. Mu, Yi and Mark V. Thompson. Crisis at Tiananmen. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, 1989. Polumbaum, Judy. “ ‘Professionalism’ in China’s Press Corps.” Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yen-bo edt. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.

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Poovy, Mary. “Nüxing zhuyi yu jiegou zhuyi” (“Feminism and Deconstruction”). Zhang Jingyuan trans. Shanghai wenlun 29 (1991): 69–73. Rubin, Gayle. “The Traffic in Women.” The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Linda Nicholson edt. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 27–62. Rushing, Andrea Benton. “Surviving Rape.” Theorizing Black Feminisms. Stanlie M. James and Abena P. A. Busia edt. New York: Routledge, 1993. This article is reprinted in Feminist Theory and the Body. Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick edt. New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 371–380. Salisbury, Harrison Evans. Tiananmen Diary. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1989. Schein, Louisa. “Gender and Internal Orientalism in China.” Chinese Femininities/ Chinese Masculinities. Susan Brownell and Jefferey N. Wasserstrom edt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Selden, Mark. “Limits of the Democratic Movement.” Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yen-bo edt. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Spivak, Gayatri C. “French Feminism in an International Frame.” Yale French Studies 62 (1981): 154–184. This article also appears in Spivak, Gayatri C. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Routledge, 1988. Suettinger, Robert. Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of US-China Relations, 1989– 2000. Washington DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2003. Tan, Frank. “Epiphany of Press Reform.” Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yenbo edt. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Thomas, Antony. The Tank Man (video). Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2006. Tong, Shen and Marianne Yen. Almost a Revolution. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Wang, Lingyun. Suiyue cangcang: wo yu erzi Wang Dan (The Time Is Grey: My Son, Wang Dan, and Me). Hong Kong: Mingbao, 1999. Wilson, Lan. Power, the Gun and Foreign Policy in China since the Tiananmen Incident. Canberra, Australia: Strategic and Defence Studies Center, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1991. Wolf, Margery. Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985. Zhang, Boli. Escape from China: The Long Journey from Tiananmen to Freedom. New York: Washington Square Press, 2002. Zhang, Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link. The Tiananmen Papers. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. Zhao, Suisheng. Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. Zheng, Zhuyuan. Beyond the Tiananmen Massacre: Social, Political and Economic Ferment in China. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.

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CH A P T ER

7

Feminist Orientalism and Occidentalism: Feminist Theoretical Round-Trips, Feedback Loops, and “Not- one-ness”

What is Chinese feminism? What is feminism in the Chinese cultural realm? These are questions not merely for Chinese feminists and researchers in diverse Chinese-speaking areas but also for nonChinese feminists, Asianists, and all the other scholars who touch upon Chinese gender issues. How does non-Chinese academy define, outline, understand, develop, interpret, and represent women and feminism in the Chinese cultural realm? In this chapter, I will use prestigious English-language academic journals, most of whose bases are in the US academy, to examine how non-Chinese academy—at least the English-speaking or US academy—copes with women and feminism in the Chinese cultural realm.1 The US academy locates Chinese women and feminism mainly at the intersection of Asian studies and women’s studies. In this chapter, I will survey articles related to Chinese women and feminism in prestigious academic journals in Asian studies and women’s studies during the 1990s. I can analyze only the accepted and printed articles included in journals because editors keep all the rejected articles confidential; however, even only the accepted and printed articles deserve scholarly attention and academic analyses.2 In the research field of Asian studies, I will survey The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, and Modern China. The Journal of Asian Studies is an academic journal managed by the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). Modern China and Modern Chinese Literature and Culture are two of the most prestigious academic journals about modern Chinese studies in US

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academia. Each of these journals can be found in JSTOR, one of the premier digital archives of scholarly journals for researchers in English-speaking areas. In the research field of women’s studies, I will survey NWSA Journal, Feminist Studies: The Journal, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. NWSA Journal is an academic journal managed by the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA). Feminist Studies: The Journal and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society are two of the most prestigious scholarly journals about women’s/feminist/gender studies in US academia. In the US academy, an incredible number of feminist scholars are literary scholars. Therefore, I add PMLA (Publication of Modern Language Association) to the list of what I will survey. PMLA is a long-standing academic journal managed by the Modern Language Association (MLA) of America. When I survey these journals from the 1990s and compare them with other anthologies or monographs, I deduce that the boundary between feminists and scholars who touch upon issues related to gender problems is sometimes blurred. For example, not all literary critics who are concerned with gender issues are feminists; not all gender scholars are female. Some feminists never claim themselves to be feminists. Sometimes these feminists even dislike being regarded as feminists. There is certainly more gray area than one might expect. However, all of the feminists and gender scholars that I include in this research project are concerned with gender issues. It is actually not illogical for Western women’s studies to be more included in Chinese feminist journals and anthologies than the Chinese feminist theories included in US academic journals, anthologies, monographs, and publications. Most Western scholars’ understanding of Chinese, Taiwanese, or Hong Kong feminist theorists has been less comprehensive than Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong feminist scholars’ understanding of Western feminist theorists in the 1990s. For instance, most Chinese, Taiwanese, or Hong Kong feminist scholars read Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and other Western feminist theorists. However, in the 1990s the number of American or Western feminist scholars who read Lee Yuan-chen or Li Yinhe was limited. Even though Wang Zheng published a monogragh about Chinese women’s oral history in the United States and Li Xiaojiang and Dai Jinhua had some of their research translated into English and published in the United States in the 1990s and early 2000s, they became only slightly better known by Asianists in the West or the United States, but not by most feminist scholars in the West or

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the United States. One wonders to what extent American feminist scholars without backgrounds in Asian studies could immediately summarize these Chinese or Taiwanese feminists’ works. But, without a doubt, in the 1990s even Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong feminist scholars who had not traveled or lived in the United States or the West could likely immediately recognize some well-known Western feminist theorists and briefly summarize their significant works. Compared with a complete grasp of various Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese feminist theorists like graduate students’ reading lists in the doctoral qualification examinations, it was much easier for Western feminist scholars to participate in the United Nations’ World Conference on Women in Beijing and to report Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) women’s studies in the NGO forums. This is probably also why US scholarly journals, especially feminist academic journals, seem to focus on PRC women’s studies in the Fourth World Conference on Women to such an extent and miss the myriad of details about Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong women and feminism. These journals during the 1990s may not wholly represent global academia’s attitude toward “Chinese feminism” in general. However, the disproportion of attention toward different types of Chinese feminism is clear when examining these prestigious academic journals.3

W  F   C C R My contention is supported by Modern China during the 1990s. From 1990 to 1999, Modern China had approximately 152 journal articles—not including editors’ notes, introductions, review articles, and book reviews. Among these articles, nineteen are related to Chinese feminism or Chinese women’s/gender studies. Four of these articles address issues about Taiwanese women. One of these nineteen articles is about Hong Kong women’s/gender problems. These four articles about Taiwanese women cover a range of topics. For instance, Taiwanese family planning, the birth rate under Japanese colonization, Taiwan’s population, and extramarital affairs concern Ralph W. Huenemann, Richard E. Barrett, and Chang Juishan. Nicole Constable discusses Mainland Chinese and foreign maids in Hong Kong. Although the research subjects are not women in Republican China or the PRC in these articles, Modern China’s inclusion of them shows that women in Taiwan and Hong Kong are still considered Chinese women. That is to say, Modern China during

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the 1990s defines women’s/gender studies in Taiwan and Hong Kong as a part of Chinese feminism. Moreover, Taiwanese women’s/ gender issues account for four nineteenths, or around 21 percent, of all Chinese feminism in this journal. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture from the 1990s provides the same support found in Modern China in the 1990s. In the final decade of the twentieth century, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture has in total sixty-one journal articles, four interviews, and five special essays, not including editors’ remarks, notes on contributors, reviews, bibliography, preface, introductions, previews, and reports. Research subjects in those articles range from the 1950s to the 1990s. Among these, four articles touch on Taiwanese women writers or gender studies, such as Michelle Yeh’s literary criticism of Hsia Yü’s poetry, Yvonne Chang’s discussion of the cultural-literary trends reflected in Chu Tien-wen’s fiction, Christopher Luke’s investigation of Pai Hsien-yung’s literary and gender concerns, and Wang Der-wei’s analysis of the fin de siècle splendor in Taiwanese women’s literature. In this journal of the 1990s, the proportion of Taiwanese feminism and gender studies is around 6.5 percent. For example, Zhong Xueping combines gender concerns and her film studies of the 1950s and 1960s, while Amy Dooling reads Yang Jiang’s work as a feminist comedy and Chen Yu-shih focuses on women in Mao Dun’s creative writing. In addition to these articles related to gender issues in the PRC, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture of the 1990s has a total of four journal articles about Taiwanese women writers and gender concerns, such as Michelle Yeh’s literary criticism of Hsia Yü’s poetry, Yvonne Chang’s discussion of the cultural-literary trends reflected in Chu Tien-wen’s fiction, Christopher Luke’s investigation of Pai Hsien-yung’s gender concerns, and Wang Der-wei’s analysis of the fin de siècle splendor in Taiwanese women writers’ works, as well as Wendy Larson’s journal article about Hong Kong gender issues in Liu Yichang’s fiction Jiutu (The Drunkard). Modern Chinese Literature and Culture of the 1990s clearly includes Taiwanese and Hong Kong literature, culture, and women’s/gender issues in its scholarly probe into modern Chinese literature and culture. The Journal of Asian Studies of the 1990s also echoes my supposition that Chinese feminism includes feminism in Taiwan and Hong Kong. From 1990 to 1999, there are approximately 195 articles in The Journal of Asian Studies, not including editor’s notes, comments, book reviews, introductions, communications to the editor, and presidential addresses. Among these, six articles touch on issues

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related to gender ideology ranging from the late Qing Dynasty to post-Maoist China and Taiwan of the 1990s. Three articles address gender concerns in Imperial China and the PRC, two articles study women and marriage in Taiwan, and one article is remotely related to a male reformer who participated in feminist activism against footbinding and the establishment of girls’ schools/colleges in the late Qing Dynasty. In these articles, Eugene Cooper and Zhang Meng cover patterns of cousin marriage in Southeastern China; James A. Millward highlights the Islamic background of xiangfei (“the Fragrant Concubine”) in Emperor Qianlong’s court in the early Qing Dynasty; Chen Xiaomei problematizes post-Maoist Chinese actresses’ “room of [their] own” on stage; and Kang Youwei, the person whom Wong Young-Tsu investigates, is remotely related to early Chinese feminist activism in the late Qing Dynasty. In the 1990s, however, The Journal of Asian Studies did not limit itself to feminism in late Imperial China and the PRC. In addition to these articles, The Journal of Asian Studies includes not only Chung Ying-chang’s and Arthur P. Wolf’s exploration of Taiwanese marriage in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century but also Huang Chien-yu’s and Robert P. Weller’s analysis of Buddhist women in Taiwan. To include three to four articles on women in late Imperial China and the PRC and two articles on Taiwanese women demonstrates that The Journal of Asian Studies during the 1990s neither excludes nor marginalizes non-Mainland feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society also recognizes the diversity of Chinese feminism. In the 1990s, this journal had around 197 long articles, 27 review essays, 18 reports, and over 100 shorter essays. Among these articles, reports, and essays, one article addresses gender problems in Taiwan and Hong Kong, two articles focus on Asian American gender concerns, and eleven articles and reports discuss women’s/gender issues in either Imperial China or the PRC. Similar to The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern China, and Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society neither ignores nor excludes Taiwanese and Hong Kong women’s/gender studies in the 1990s. In addition to Modern China, Modern Chinese Languages and Literature, The Journal of Asian Studies, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, a few monographs or books on Chinese women and women’s/gender studies support my argument that

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Chinese feminism is not synonymous only with feminism in Qing China and the PRC. For instance, Chen San-ching includes not only PRC feminist activism but also Taiwanese feminist social movements in Jindai zhongguo funü yundong shi (A History of Women’s Movements in Modern China). The same is the case with Huang Lin in Zhongguo nüxing zhuyi (Feminism in China), Mayfair Mei-hui Yang in Spaces of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China, and Gail Hershatter, Susan Mann, Emily Honig, and Lisa Rofel in Guide to Women’s Studies in China. In Duocai de xuanlü—zhongguo nüxing wenxue zhuti yanjiu (Colorful Melody—Studies of Themes in Chinese Women’s Literature), Qiao Yigang analyzes not only women’s literature in the PRC but also Taiwanese women’s literature. Wendy Larson touches upon Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang, 1921–1995), who writes in Shanghai, colonial Hong Kong, and the United States, in Women and Writing in Modern China (Larson, 195–197). Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke include Hong Kong women in Women in Chinese Society. Finally, Tani E. Barlow includes chapters on Taiwanese women’s literature in Gender Politics in Modern China.

T I M  W  W’/G S  N-M A, S  T  H K Although Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society of the 1990s supports my argument that Chinese feminism deserves scholars’ research and publications, it has a larger number of articles or reports on PRC feminism than articles on Taiwanese or Hong Kong gender concerns. Signs appears to recognize the fact that Chinese feminism is not a singular entity, but it does not seem cognizant of what the previously mentioned disproportion divulges: the inadvertent marginalization of Taiwanese feminism. One possible explanation is that PRC feminism probably outshines other kinds of Chinese feminism, especially feminism in Taiwan, because of political problems, as at the Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum. But the answer to whether this is a convincing explanation for the ratio difference is still elusive because Hong Kong feminists’ active participation, reports, and publications about the Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum are not sufficiently analyzed in this journal during the 1990s. Another reason may be the fact that Signs is not an Asian studies specialty

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journal and that its editors may not be Asianists. Certainly the editors of Signs did not consciously omit Hong Kong feminism in the Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum; however, Signs seems to treat non-Mainland women’s/gender studies in the Chinese cultural realm as something less significant or somewhat marginal compared with feminism in the PRC of the 1990s.

T L  E  W  W’/ G S  N-M A Feminist Studies: The Journal of the 1990s exhibits the same ratio problem as does Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society of the 1990s. Feminist Studies is not an Asian studies specialty journal, either; however, the ratio difference is more dramatic in Feminist Studies than Signs. From 1990 to 1999, Feminist Studies has around 220 articles, including long articles, art essays, commentaries, and review essays, but not including novel excerpts, prefaces, notes, fictions, poetry, and creative writing. Among these articles, five discuss feminism in the PRC, one analyzes gender problems in the Qing Dynasty, and two touch upon Asian American women’s/gender studies.4 That is to say, the journal as a whole does not include anything related to women’s and gender studies in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Macao, Tibet, or non-Mainland Chinese-speaking areas. NWSA Journal, also not an Asian studies specialty journal, in the 1990s illustrates the same lack of attention to Taiwanese and Hong Kong feminism as Feminist Studies, having around 141 long articles, not including short essays in forums, short articles on teaching and learning, and reviews. There is one article on Asian American women in Hawaii, one short essay on Asian women, one article on sexism in Chinese language, and two articles on the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women. Again like Feminist Studies, NWSA Journal of the 1990s fails to include anything related to women and gender studies in Taiwan or Hong Kong. These two feminist periodicals unconsciously run the risk of defining Chinese feminism as feminism in the PRC only.

T U  E-AC W’/G S  C L S PMLA, one of the most prestigious academic journals in comparative literature, excludes research on Chinese feminism to an even greater

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extent than do Feminist Studies and NWSA Journal during the 1990s. From 1990 to 1999, PMLA has around 218 articles, not including directories and program agendum every September and November. Only two of these articles touch on Chinese studies; neither focuses on women and women’s/gender studies in the Chinese cultural realm. While one out of every four to five people in the world is Chinese, why did PMLA have such a small percentage of articles on Chinese people? While one out of every four to five women was Chinese in the 1990s, why did PMLA have no article on Chinese women or women’s/gender studies? Without enough space for women in the overall Chinese cultural realm, there was, of course, no space for nonMainland Chinese feminism in PMLA. This question might be one which Asianists and feminists would like to address. While PMLA of the 1990s almost entirely excludes Chinese women, it does include a few articles related to Asian American women. How does the Modern Language Association evaluate, interpret, or explain PMLA’s inclusion of Asian American women and exclusion of Chinese women? Do the editors of PMLA equate Chinese women with Asian American women in the 1990s? If this is the case, then why and how Asian American/Chinese American women and feminists are interchangeable with women and feminists in the Chinese cultural realm is a question that PMLA of the 1990s should address. Whether Asian American/Chinese American women’s studies should be considered interchangeable with Asian/Chinese women’s studies is a puzzle that the editors of PMLA might explore further. Is this Euro-Americancentrism a sort of universalization of Western literary critics’ or feminists’ own experience and worldview? This Euro-American-centrism is likely a problem that PMLA of the 1990s should examine.

T L  M  A In addition to Feminist Studies and NWSA Journal, a considerable number of books on Chinese women or women’s/gender studies share the same lack or exclusion of non-Mainland feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. Good examples are Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization, The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism, About Chinese Women, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment, and Chinese Women Organizing (Hsiung, Jaschok, Milwertz, and Chan, xxvi; Wesoky, 247; Wang, Zheng, 1–34). Although Margery Wolf, as an anthropologist, took field trips to Taiwan, interviewed women in Sanhsia, Taipei County, and published a book on rural Taiwanese women, her monograph on Chinese women, Revolution Postponed: Women in

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Contemporary China, inadvertently omits women in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Tibet, or the rest of the Chinese cultural realm. Maybe this is partly related to when Margaret Wolf conducted this anthropological fieldwork: around the time when the PRC had an open-door policy toward the West in the 1980s. However, the PRC’s opendoor policy is not a sufficient reason to explain why Wolf excludes women and feminism in all the non-Mainland areas. Other works guilty of this same exclusion include Mayfair Mei-hui Yang’s documentary film, Through Chinese Women’s Eyes, which includes women in Republican China and the PRC only. Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State does not include any focus on Taiwanese or Hong Kong women’s/gender concerns, and Xin Ran’s book, Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, though translated into English and published in New York, does not take Taiwanese and Hong Kong women into consideration at all. Similar problems arise in a number of books in Chinese language. For instance, Li Xiaojiang ignores Taiwanese and Hong Kong women and women’s/gender studies in Nüxing zhuyi wenhua chongtu yu shenfeng rentong (Feminist Cultural Conflicts and Identity). The same applies to Du Fangqin’s Zhongguo shehui xingbie de lishi wenhua xuancong (Selected Series on Chinese Gender History and Culture) and Li Yinhe’s Zhongguo nüxing de ganqing yu xing (Love and Sexuality of Chinese Women). As for the lack of research about Chinese women and feminism, PMLA during the 1990s is not the only publication that ignores gender problems in the Chinese cultural realm. The same lack of Chinese feminist/women’s studies appears in Alice S. Rossi’s The Feminist Papers, Miriam Schneir’s Feminism in Our Time, Elizabeth Weed’s Feminism Meets Queer Theory, and Teresa De Lauretis’s Feminist Studies/Critical Studies. The editors of PMLA and these books may not intentionally ignore or omit Chinese women and feminism; however, they may run the risk of universalizing Euro-American-centric experience by unconsciously assuming that women and feminists in the Chinese cultural realm must share the same experience as EuroAmerican women and feminists and assume that it is redundant to repeat these details as they appear in the Chinese cultural realm.

T J  P  P   P  I O Non-Mainland feminism in Chinese-speaking areas deserves scholarly research. Such a disproportion in prestigious journals of the 1990s

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gives an undue privileged status to non-Taiwanese women and feminists. If scholars can better balance the ratio of Taiwanese feminism and non-Taiwanese feminism, these useful feminist publications will be more widely appreciated. If my findings regarding The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern China, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, and Signs is acceptable support for my argument that neither PRC feminism nor Chinese Communist feminism can represent all the other aspects of Chinese feminism, academic periodicals such as NWSA Journal, Feminist Studies, and PMLA should recognize and explore the diversity and complexity of women and feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. Non-Mainland feminism in Chinese-speaking areas is distinct from PRC feminism and deserves to be treated as such. NWSA Journal, PMLA, and Feminist Studies will benefit if feminist activists and scholars in the PRC avoid the false assumption that Chinese Communist feminism or PRC feminism5 can represent Nationalist/KMT feminism in Republican China, feminism in Taiwan, feminism in pre-1997 Hong Kong, or feminism in colonial Macao. Feminists and Asianists working on non-Mainland feminism would better appreciate Li Xiaojiang’s Nüxing zhuyi wenhua chongtu yu shenfeng rentong (Feminist Cultural Conflicts and Identity), Du Fangqin’s Zhongguo shehui xingbie de lishi wenhua xuancong (Selected Series on Chinese Gender History and Culture), and Li Yinhe’s Zhongguo nüxing de ganqing yu xing (Love and Sexuality of Chinese Women) if PRC feminism is not presented as the only kind of feminism in Chinesespeaking areas. In other words, Chinese feminism must be studied in its multiple forms, instead of with a concentration on the Mainland only. Such a disproportion in prestigious journals of the 1990s gives an undue privileged status to women and feminists in the PRC. If scholars can better balance the ratio of Mainland feminism and non-Mainland feminism, these useful feminist publications will be more widely appreciated. Although research subjects, fields, and “discourses are [supposed to be] created equal, some of them are more equal than others” (Chow, 17). Research subjects and academic fields tend to perpetuate inequalities not only in Western but also in cross-cultural academia. The mood and taste of journal editors, college instructors, and writers of academic essays does not remain static over time. Likewise, academic and literary trends do vary from place to place. In the following paragraphs, I will examine the rise of Asian studies, women’s/ gender studies, and Taiwanese literary studies as examples to illus-

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trate that different research subjects, academic fields, and scholarly trends do need to compete for the position of power within academic power structures before they are properly recognized, accepted, and respected. Prior to the nineteenth century, there were few Asianists in the United States. American missionaries’ trips to Asia and the European academia’s sinological and Sanskrit impacts on American higher education initiated American intellectuals’ studies of Asia. Since the 1820s, there have been American specialists in the academic field of Asian studies, such as William C. Hunter (1812–1891),6 Elijah Coleman Bridgman (1801–1861),7 Edward Elbridge Salisbury (1814– 1901), and William Dwight Whitney (1827–1894). In 1872, Edward Tompkins, one of the founders of the University of California, presented the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures with its first endowed chair, the Agassiz Professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature (Tsien, 7).8 In 1876, Yale University began to offer courses related to sinological/Chinese studies. Harvard University followed Yale three years later and began to hire Chinese-speaking instructors (Tsien, 3–8). At Columbia University, a Chinese housekeeper, Dean Long, and his master, Horace Walpole Carpentier (1824–1918), donated money to establish the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. Columbia University attempted to offer courses in Chinese studies in 1877, but this effort failed due to the lack of enrollment (Wang, Hailong, 5–17). Asian/Chinese/Japanese studies became more relevant and popular following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the United States’ participation in World War II. Since then, almost every large university or good college of liberal arts has founded its own program, center, or department of (East) Asian Studies. (East) Asian/ Chinese/Japanese research subjects achieved a position of power in US academia because of World War II. In US academia, Chinese women’s history and literature gradually became popular research topics because more and more female scholars entered the academic field of Chinese studies. In addition to countless research projects on modern Chinese women,9 there are numerous works on Chinese women in the late Imperial era. For instance, Dorothy Ko and Wang Ping do research on foot-binding (Wang, Ping, 29–54; Ko, Every Step A Lotus, 47–76); Victoria Cass and Dorothy Ko study women’s nontraditional jobs in Imperial China (Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 115–142; Cass, 65–86); Rubie S. Watson and Patricia Buckley Ebrey examine details of women’s marriage in the late Imperial era (Ebrey, 1–20; Watson and Ebrey,

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1–24); and Vivian W. Ng shows her concern with women’s madness in late Imperial China (Ng, 134–164). Since September 11, 2001, Islamic Asians have also inadvertently achieved a position of power and have become popular research subjects. Middle East studies has become one of the most popular research fields in American academia because of 9/11. The rise of women’s/gender studies, like the rise of Asian studies in US academia, resulted from struggles for survival and prosperity. Since the late 1960s, feminist scholars have struggled for the recognition and acceptance of women’s/gender studies. On the official website of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) in 2004, Jacquelyn N. Zita, the 2004–2005 president of the NWSA, remarks, From a meager beginning of a few texts and classes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we not only survived but flourished in the development of undergraduate and graduate degree programs; effective classroom teaching; and means of mass instruction fostered through feminist scholarship and activism, popular and manifesta writings, and film, video, and electronic media. To witness all of this in the last thirty-five years is to know hope.

In Taiwan and the PRC of the late 1990s and early 2000s, feminist scholars also strove to institutionalize women’s/gender studies. Often, male gatekeepers in Taiwanese academia prohibited feminist scholars from naming their research field “women’s studies.” Taiwanese feminist scholars were forced to compromise and establish graduate institutes of “gender studies”10 rather than “women’s studies.” In the PRC of the 1990s, both undergraduate and graduate courses revolved around women’s literature and gender concerns. Issues related to sexuality are also considered fashionable topics in PRC academia. However, between 1949 and the early 2000s none of the universities in the PRC offered undergraduate or graduate degrees in women’s/ gender studies. As for Hong Kong curricula, the Chinese University offers a certificate in women’s/gender studies. Taiwanese literary studies would also have not been recognized, accepted, developed, and respected without scholars struggling for the rise and the institutionalization of this literary field. Before the lifting of martial law (1987), to study Taiwanese literature, especially grassroots Taiwanese literature in the Japanese colonial era, was unacceptable because the leaders of the Nationalist Party regarded Taiwanese literature as taidu sixiang (thoughts of Taiwanese independence) during that time. A number of senior researchers in the

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Taiwanese literary field, such as Chang Liang-tze, even suffered from zhengzhi pohai (witch hunt)11 and were forced to take refuge in Japan or other foreign countries in the pre-1987 era. It was not until the lifting of martial law that the KMT government removed the old, negative labels from Taiwanese literary studies. Since the late 1990s, some schools, such as National Hsin-chu Teachers’ College,12 have established departments of Taiwanese language and literature. In the autumn of 2000, National Cheng Kung University founded the first graduate institute of Taiwanese literature. National Kaohsiung Normal University established its graduate institute of Taiwanese Language and Language Teaching in August 2002. Other universities, such as Aletheia University, Chung Shan Medical University, and National Tsing Hua University, followed and established their own graduate institutes of Taiwan language and literature. In the United States, prestigious universities, such as Harvard and Stanford, also have begun to offer more and more courses on Taiwanese language in the early twenty-first century. In brief, research subjects, academic fields, literary trends, and even star scholars have ups and downs in academic power structures. In current research fields of worldwide women’s/gender studies and comparative literature, the West occupies the position of power that most Chinese feminists and Asianists have not yet achieved. In current American academia, research subjects in the PRC are more popular than most non-Mainland research subjects, which, again, have not fully permeated the academic field of Chinese studies and transnational Chinese women’s/gender studies.

A D  S   U S   PRC In this chapter, I stage a dialogue with scholars in the United States and the PRC. I contend that Chinese feminism should be feminism in the Chinese cultural realm and that the PRC is not synonymous with the whole Chinese cultural realm. This chapter illustrates how several prestigious Western journals in Asian/Chinese studies do support my argument, but also that some prestigious Western journals in women’s/gender studies or comparative literary studies inadvertently mistake Asian American feminism or Chinese American feminism as Chinese feminism, which global or transnational feminism claims to include, without an awareness of whether Chinese American feminism or Asian American feminism represents all feminism in the Chinese cultural realm. It illuminates prestigious academic journals’ misrep-

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resentation of PRC feminism or Chinese Communist feminism as the whole of Chinese feminism. It also reiterates what Chinese feminism is not, points out some Western feminist journals’ unintentional ignorance and exclusion of Chinese women’s/gender studies, and emphasizes that neither Asian American, Chinese American, Chinese Communist feminism, nor PRC feminism should serve as a representation of the whole of Chinese feminism. Current American feminist scholars need to include Chinese feminism in order to recognize “diversity.” However, it is significant for American feminists to understand the differences among various kinds of Chinese feminism. More often than not, Asian American feminism, PRC feminism, or generalizations about women of color in the third world are used to represent other sorts of Chinese feminism. It is useful for authors of journal articles or books to examine whether the whole Chinese cultural realm belongs to the second world or the third world if Communist areas, especially Communist nations during the cold war, generally belong to the second world and the third world primarily includes undeveloped or developing countries. In the 1970s, Zhou Enlai said, “[t]he third world is the main force in combating colonialism, imperialism, and hegemonism. [The People’s Republic of] China is a developing socialist country belonging to the third world” (Yu, 1036–1048). In “Political Economy of Crisis Management in the Third World: A Comparative Study of South Korea and Taiwan, 1970s,” Jei Guk Jeon categorizes Taiwan of the 1970s as part of the third world (Jeon, 565–585). However, in the early twenty-first century, Taiwan is already a developed area, no longer a developing country. In the journals I surveyed, it will be useful if Asianists, feminists, and Marxists make further investigations into the issue of second-world feminism or third-world feminism in the PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the rest of the Chinese cultural realm. In US academia, it is important to recognize that second-generation Chinese immigrants or Asian American women are different from Chinese women who have never left the PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, or the rest of the Chinese cultural realm. It is also important to be fully aware that women in the PRC are not exactly the same as Taiwanese women, female Hong Kongers, women in Macao, and women in all the other parts of the Chinese cultural realm. American feminists have a scholarly convention to concentrate on local gender problems and what they can effectively deal with. Therefore, it is understandable that current feminist scholars in the United States may pay less attention to the differences in Asian

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American studies and Asian studies.13 For instance, in American feminist or comparative literary fields, Maxine Hong Kingston or Amy Tan may be mistaken as representative of “Chinese women” even without any distinction of whether Kingston and Tan are Chinese American women born, bred, and educated in the United States or first-generation immigrants from the PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, or other Chinese-speaking areas. Julia Kristeva wrote about Chinese women based upon her shortterm trip, but her book, About Chinese Women, would be more compelling if she were to distinguish between the parts of Chinese feminism that serve only as Communist political propaganda after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and which parts are true Chinese feminism. Feminists in the PRC organized themselves for the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum; however, a more complete view would have been presented if Chinese feminists in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or other non-Mainland areas were also taken into serious consideration in Hsiung, Jaschok, Milwertz, and Chan’s Chinese Women Organizing and Wesoky’s Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization. It will be interesting if Marxist feminists in both the West and the PRC can discuss why the union of Marxism14 and feminism in the PRC is different from the “unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism” that Heidi Hartman mentions (Hartman, 7–8). While more and more PRC feminists who have research experience in the United States understand Susan B. Anthony’s radical feminist activism for American women’s voting rights in the late nineteenth century and her image on American dollar coins introduced in 1979, it will be useful to analyze why PRC feminists lacked radical feminist social movements in the 1990s. Except for Tani E. Barlow, in monographs or book projects seldom do Asianists, Marxists, feminists, or literary theorists compare Maoist feminism and post-Maoist feminism with Marxist feminism in post-Communist Europe, America, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Russia, or other areas of the world. Black feminists have left a large number of important historical writings about feminism, but it would be more useful if Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings and Contemporary Feminist Theories had included some significant essential historical writings or theories by feminists in the Chinese cultural realm (Schneir, 1–11). It is risky to oversimplify non-Mainland feminism by mistaking it as something already represented by Mainland Chinese feminism. It is also risky to marginalize non-Mainland gender studies as just an insignificant part of this vast feminist diversity in Chinese-speaking areas.

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Catherine S. P. Farris questions whether it is possible for Western scholars, including herself, to “represent the experiences of women in China and Taiwan without distorting, exploiting, or colonizing them” (Farris, 329). My question is actually similar to her question. In order to eliminate the gap between her understanding or representation of Chinese feminism and what feminism really is in Chinesespeaking areas, Catherine Farris thinks that she should collaborate with native scholars and lay people to develop explanations of women in Chinese societies . . . strive to keep in touch with native scholarship and popular writing in Chinese . . . seek a dialogue with Chinese people in the PRC and on Taiwan that will result in increased intercultural understanding. (Farris, 330)

She also quotes Johnnetta Cole and insists on the necessity of listening to “individual assessment which each woman makes . . . rather than assume that a synonymous experience of female oppression [or feminist experience] exists among all [Chinese] women” (Cole, 5). I entirely agree with Catherine Farris and Johnnetta Cole, and I hope Western feminists, Western Asianists, and feminists in the PRC will listen to my “individual assessment” that this Chinese feminism is not “one” when I have a dialogue with them in this chapter. To sum up, what feminism really is in the Chinese cultural realm cannot be more critical in the fields of women’s and gender studies and Asian/Chinese studies. This chapter illustrates that the PRC and the Chinese cultural realm are neither one nor the same and that Chinese feminism is a singular entity. To American feminist scholars, I would like to suggest that the editors of feminist and comparative literary journals should avoid mistaking Asian American feminism or Chinese American feminism as Chinese feminism, which global feminism claims to include. It will be more useful to give sufficient space to the various kinds of Chinese feminism. To American Asianists and scholars in the PRC, I hope to suggest that authors or editors of books on PRC feminism should prevent their publications from claiming to represent feminism in the whole Chinese cultural realm. To scholars at the intersection of Asian/Chinese studies, comparative literary studies, and women’s/gender studies, I emphasize that Chinese feminism is not only PRC feminism. Chinese feminism is not merely Chinese Communist feminism, either. I highlight some American feminists’ and comparative literary scholars’ inadvertent marginalization, igno-

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rance, or exclusion of Chinese women’s/gender studies. Finally, I also stress that neither Asian American feminism nor PRC feminism equates with the diversity of feminism in the whole Chinese cultural realm.

R-T  F T In the late Qing Dynasty, Japan and the West enlightened Chinese overseas students on feminist activism and studies, such as Japanese socialist feminist movements and American feminists’ women’s suffrage movement; however, I argue that feminist thought and activism did not move from the West to China only. In the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Chinese feminists have been developing various kinds of feminist thought based upon their own acculturation of the Western feminist theories and activism that more appropriately fit into the Chinese cultural realm. Western feminists and Asianists can learn about the feminist thought that women in the PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and all the rest of the Chinese cultural realm have been developing; therefore, feminism can move to the West in this way. The transfer of feminist theories can be two-way transfer between the West and the Chinese cultural realm. Transcending national, socio-cultural, and linguistic boundaries, the round trips of feminist thought can form a feedback loop between the West and the Chinese cultural realm. Theories to Back Up the “Not- One-Ness” of Chinese Feminism At the beginning of this book, I mentioned two questions: What is Chinese feminism? What is Chinese feminism not? My answer to the first question is that Chinese feminism is “not one”; my answer to the second question is that Chinese feminism is not “one.” Anticipating some readers might feel that this book more or less indicates the inevitably delayed conclusion and summary of what Chinese feminism is, I insist that my answers in this book safeguard the unlimited diversity, everlasting ongoing-ness, ceaseless open-ended-ness, and thus “notone-ness” of Chinese feminism. This indispensible delay of my conclusion or summary of what Chinese feminism is to highlight the plurality or multiplicity of Chinese feminism in this book, The Many Dimensions of Chinese Feminism, is actually similar to and thus indirectly endorsed by Luce Irigaray’s feminist theoretical strategy to replace the “one-ness,” “single-ness,” or “sameness” of the male sexual organ that concerns Freudian psy-

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choanalytical theorists with the “not-one-ness” of female erogenous zones in This Sex Which Is Not One. For instance, Irigaray argues that woman has sex organs more or less everywhere. She finds pleasure almost anywhere. Even if we refrain from invoking the hystericization of her entire body, the geography of her pleasure is far more diversified, more multiple in its differences, more complex, more subtle, than is commonly imagined – in an imaginary rather than too narrowly focused on sameness. . . . [N]o systematic regrouping of the various phases of the investigation of hysteria is to be found in Freud’s work. . . . We now know that the ovum is not as passive as Freud claims. (Irigaray, 28 & 46 & 71)

In addition to Luce Irigaray’s theoretical insistence of “not-one-ness” in This Sex Which Is Not One, theories about différence and différance also indirectly support the deferral of an ultimate conclusion of what Chinese feminism is, the everlasting and ongoing possibilities of what else Chinese feminism may also be, and the “not-one-ness” of Chinese feminism. Theoretically speaking, différance is the key point to determine the ongoing-ness and the everlasting-ness. Derrida elaborates Saussures’ notion of linguistic difference to create what he calls différance, spelled with an a . . . (In French there is no phonetic difference between différence and différance; the difference, seen and not heard, thus reveals in writing something speech does not have.) Différance retains its Saussurean structuralist connotation of noncoincidence—as well as its meanings of deferring in time/differing in space—but Derrida expands the concept to include the whole field of signs. (Kneale, 186–187)

Within the interdependence of différence and différance, what is finally signified—namely, the ultimate truth or answers to questions, including the question about what Chinese feminism is—is forever deferred. In the circumstance, the quest for the ultimate true answers in the universe leads to an open ending. The “potential for method to reinscribe power in the relationship between the investigator and the object of study” (Apperley, 26) will result in an everlasting “methodological . . . openness” (Apperley, 22). Once there is a conclusive or summary-like answer to what Chinese feminism is, this answer may immediately put an end to what else Chinese feminism can also be. To conclude what Chinese feminism is is to unavoidably exclude what else Chinese feminism may be. In

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other words, it is to indirectly force Chinese feminism into “one” or “one-ness” and hence to academically “rape” Chinese feminism. Chinese feminism is not just the “one” that is synonymous with Communist feminism. It is not only the “one” that any single kind of PRC feminism or Asian American feminism can represent, replace, or generalize, either. Chinese feminism cannot be academically “raped” and forced into any “one” or “one-ness.” Therefore, my strategy is to replace the conclusive end of what Chinese feminism is with the open ending of what Chinese feminism is. In this sense, my best answers to what Chinese feminism is and what Chinese feminism is not are that Chinese feminism is “not one” and that Chinese feminism is not “one.” Finale Chinese feminism is not just Chinese Communist feminism, PRC feminism, Taiwanese feminism, Hong Kong feminism, or Tibetan feminism. It is more than them. They are only parts of Chinese feminism. To be more specific, my answer is the abysmal difficulty or impossibility to easily conclude diverse kinds of feminism in various Chinese cultural realms during different periods of time. While cautious feminist researchers are aware that a quick and brief definition of what Chinese feminism is and an immediate answer to the question about what Chinese feminism is may oversimplify or limit the diversity of Chinese feminism, it is obviously indisputable that Chinese feminism is not “one.”

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———. Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in the Seventeenth Century China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. Larson, Wendy. Women and Writing in Modern China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. Ng, Vivien W. Madness in Late Imperial China: From Illness to Deviance. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. Schneir, Miriam. Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings. New York: Vintage, 1972. Su, Hui and Asian People’s Anti-Communist League. Womanhood under Chinese Communist Control. Taipei: World Anti- Communist League, China Chapter, Asian People’s Anti- Communist League, 1984. Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin. “Asian Studies in America: A Historical Survey.” Lecture delivered at the Summer Institute on Asian Studies, University of Hawaii, June 22, 1959. Vannozzi, Peggie T. “The Evolution of Chinese Womanhood: From Confucian Prohibition to Communist Participation” (Thesis). Las Vegas: University of Nevada, 1983. Wang, Hailong. Geda yu xiandai zhongguo (Columbia University and Modern China). Shanghai: Shanghai Wenyi, 2000. Wang, Ping. Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Wang, Zheng. Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Wasserstrom, Jeffrey. Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches. London: Routledge, 2003. Watson, Rubie S. and Patricia Buckley Ebrey. Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Wesoky, Sharon. Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization. New York: Routledge, 2002, pp. 239–247. Yu, George T. “China and the Third World.” Asian Survey 17(11) (November 1977): 1036–1048.

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N 

C  T C F W I N “O” This chapter derives from my article “The Struggles of Taiwanese Feminism.” 1. Also consult Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women; Biographical of Women Healers; Feminist Bioethics; Notable Women in the Life Science; Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, Merchants’ Daughters; Once Iron Girls; Backward Glances; Pioneer Chinese Christian Women; Chinese Women through Chinese Eyes; The Chinese Virago; Women in a Changing China; Mainstreaming Gender in Hong Kong Society; Echoes of Chongqing: Women in Wartime China; Gender, China, and the World Trade Organization, “Lesbians” in East Asia, etc. 2. The word fu also indicates “[a married woman’s] service to the husband.” For details, see Mou Zhengyun’s “Jiegou ‘funü’: Jiu ci xin lun” (“Deconstructing funü: Old Term, New Discourse”), 127. 3. The meaning of the word funü changes over time. “Funü signified the collectivity of kinswomen in the semiotics of Confucian family doctrine . . . In Maoist rhetoric, funü referred to a national subject that stood for the collectivity of all politically normative or decent women . . . It imagined a national woman, funü, intertwined directly in state processes over the period of social revolution and socialist modernization who, because of her achievements as a state subject, would modernize family practices” (Barlow, The Question of Women, 37–38). In “Politics and Protocols of Funü,” Tani E. Barlow says that funü means “national woman under a Maoist-communist state inscription” (345). 4. See Paul Rouzer’s Articulated Ladies: Gender and the Male Community in Early Chinese Texts, 27. Also consult Barlow, The Question of Women, 44. 5. “Nüxing . . . [means] the reverse of normativity for women, at least in theoretical and political terms . . . [and] a femininity that [is] ‘Westernized,’ ‘bourgeois,’ individualist, erotic” (Barlow, The Question of Women, 38). Culturalists such as Huang Hongyu choose the word nüxing to replace funü in order to refer to the female sex. For details, consult Huang Hongyu’s Nüxing zhuti yishi ji qi jianguo tujing (Essential Female Consciousness and the Constructed Path). Also see Barlow, “Politics and Protocols,” 349. “The post-Mao state’s efforts to reestablish mass organizations like Fulian brought on an overt conflict between the national subject funü and an increasingly sexualized, consumer-oriented, retheorized nüxing” (Barlow, The Question of Women, 62).

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6. For details, see Charlotte Furth’s “Androgynous Males and Deficient Females: Biology and Gender Boundaries in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century China.” 7. Consult Mechthild Leutner and Nicola Spakowski’s Women in China: The Republican Period in Historical Perspective. 8. Zhou Jinghao’s academic exploration of the mixing of Confucianism, Marxism, and feminism may look more interesting when we rethink the diversity of Chinese feminism in Imperial China, Communist China, Republican China, etc. For details, consult Zhou Jinghao’s Remaking China’s Public Philosophy and Chinese Women’s Liberation: The Volatile Mixing of Confucianism, Marxism and Feminism. 9. In the 1990s most academics in the West and the PRC also seemed to mean Han people when talking about China or Chinese culture. I cannot guarantee that most scholars in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or other parts of the world were free from this oversight at that time; however, I want to mark my awareness of the fact that Han identity does not constitute the whole identity within the borders of the Chinese nation-state or culture. 10. For example, Zhu Aijun rethinks “Chineseness” and feminism in global perspectives. For details, consult her Feminism and Global Chineseness: The Cultural Production of Controversial Women Authors. Also consult Amy D. Dooling’s Women’s Literary Feminism in Twentieth-Century China. 11. Hong Kong is not the first part of Chinese territory to be colonized. Portugal began to informally colonize Macao early in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, women in Macao have not shared the same life experience and gender concerns with women and feminists in the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, the Republican era, and the PRC since that time. 12. For instance, early feminist activists in Hong Kong were English-speaking upper-class women as a result of the historical colonial background. Yet contemporary Hong Kong feminists are chiefly grassroots Cantonese-speaking and Chinese-speaking women who are interested in post-colonialist feminism and feminist activism. The United Kingdom returned Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997. Since then, Hong Kong feminists have been concerned about not only local Hong Kongers’ gender issues but also feminist issues in the PRC and the whole Chinese cultural realm. For details about Hong Kong women, consult Cheng Siu Keung’s Gender and Community under British Colonialism: Emotion, Struggle, and Politics in a Chinese Village; Wan Ru’s Ranliang ban bian tian: gang tai xin nüxing chao (To Light Up Half of the Sky: Hong Kong and Taiwanese New Feminist Waves); Sarah Swider’s “Working Women of the World Unite: Labor Organizing and Transnational Gender Solidarity among Domestic Workers in Hong Kong”; Day Wong’s “Beyond Identity Politics: The Making of an Oral History of Hong Kong Women Who Love Women”; C. Tang’s “Breaking the Patriarchal Paradigm: Chinese Women in Hong Kong”; Maria Jaschok and Suzanne Miers’s Women and Chinese Patriarchy: Submission, Servitude, and Escape; Shih Shu-mei’s “Gender and Geopolitics of Desire: the Seduction of Mainland Women in Taiwan and Hong Kong Media”; and Fanny M. Cheung, Siumi Maria Tam, and Serena Sheng-hua Chu’s A Bibliography of Gender Studies in Hong Kong 1991–1997. 13. See Women in Taiwan: Sociocultural Perspectives; Women’s Movements in Twentieth-Century Taiwan; Acting “Otherwise”; Women in the New Taiwan; The Second Sex, Confucianism and Individualism in Lu Hsiu-lien’s New

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14. 15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

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Feminism in Taiwan; From Politics without Parties to Politics with Parties; Political Participation and Empowerment of Grassroots Women Leaders; Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns, etc. Consult Mainstreaming Gender in Hong Kong; Maids to Order in Hong Kong; Gender and Community under British Colonization, etc. See Chinese Women through Chinese Eyes; The Chinese Virago; Chinese Footprints: Exploring Women’s History in China, Hong Kong, and Macau, etc. Consult Women in Tibet; Sky Train; Female Buddhas; Empowerment of Women: Answers from Tibet; Feminism, Nationalism, and Exiled Tibetan Women, etc. For instance, both Nationalists and Communists in the Chinese cultural realm have been disputing the claim in Japanese high school textbooks that Japan simply “entered and left” China during World War II, criticizing the fact that Japan’s younger generations do not realize the version of history relating how Japan, in fact, invaded China and massacred Chinese people, especially Chinese people in Nanjing. For details about the Nanjing Massacre, consult Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking. This dispute over the Japanese version of history and the Chinese version began in the twentieth century and continues in the early twenty-first century. In November 2004, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education’s decision to separate Taiwanese history from Chinese history resulted in controversy. For details, consult Lianhe bao (The United News) and Zhongguo ribao (China Daily) dated November 10 and 11, 2004. Different scholars involve themselves in endless disputes over issues like these. However, the issue of reshaping younger generations’ understanding of history cannot wait until every scholar weighs in. This also applies to how to construct and improve younger generations’ comprehension of women’s and feminists’ history in the Chinese cultural realm. Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Criticism and Theory and The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory are certainly not the only Western feminist anthologies that highlight Asian American feminism. For more examples, consult Amy Ling and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim’s Reading the Literatures in Asian America; Mitsuye Yamada’s “Asian Pacific American and Feminism”; Amy Ling’s “I’m Here: An Asian American Woman’s Response”; and Marina Heung’s “Representing Ourselves: Films and Videos by Asian American/ Canadian Women.” I am aware that there are countries and areas considered neither Eastern nor Western, such as Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and Turkey. But I still decide to use this word, “Western,” because this word for my purposes means the “pure” West, especially what the upper-middle class and white people usually label as advanced countries and civilized areas. They are not the only Western feminist anthologies that do not clearly specify different kinds of feminism in the Chinese cultural realm or even in Asia. For more examples, see Alice S. Rossi’s The Feminist Papers; Miriam Schneir’s Feminism in Our Time: The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present; Elizabeth Weed’s Feminism Meets Queer Theory; Teresa De Lauretis’s Feminist Studies/Critical Studies; and Stevi Jackson and Jackie Jones’s Contemporary Feminist Theories. Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization and Chinese Women Organizing are not the only two examples. Other examples are Women in the Chinese

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22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

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Enlightenment; The Good Women of China; Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China; Engendering China; Women’s Work in Rural China; Women of China; Daughters of the Dragon: Women’s Lives in Contemporary China; Women in Rural China: Personal Voices; Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China; etc. Also consult Sharon Wesoky’s Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization, 239–247; Hsiung Ping-chun, Maria Jaschok, Cecilia Milwertz, and Red Chan’s Chinese Women Organizing: Cadres, Feminists, Muslims, Queers, xxvi; and Barlow, The Question of Women, 37–63. Li Xiaojiang’s and Du Fangqin’s works are not the only two examples. For other evidence, see Chinese-language publications like Li Yinhe’s Zhongguo nüxing de ganqing yu xing (Love and Sexuality of Chinese Women). From the standpoint of some Nationalists, especially those who moved to Taiwan around 1949, the word “Mainland” may indicate their past possession of the large territory of China before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It may also imply these Nationalists’ strong wish to defeat Communists and repossess the large territory of China. However, in this conclusion, I use the word “Mainland” only to refer to the part of Chinese territory that does not include non-Mainland areas of the Chinese cultural realm, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. I do not share any indication or implication with Nationalists when I use the word “Mainland” in this conclusion. Consult the official website: http://www.nwl.org.tw. See the official website: http://www.womenweb.org.tw. Between Communist Chinese feminism and Taiwanese feminism, there would surely be more nuances. However, it is not possible for me to list everything here. For this reason, I list these to support my own argument. Consult the official website of the Hong Kong Women Development Association: http://www.hkwda.org.hk. The CCP’s Fulian is neither a formal department nor a branch of the central government. However, its members’ salary comes from the PRC government. Before the lifting of martial law, the Nationalist Party’s Fulian also had no opposition women’s organization to compete with. Led by the first lady, it was as monopolistic in Taiwan as the CCP’s Fulian in the PRC. For instance, Carole R. McCann and Kim Seung-Kyung’s Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives includes not only chapters on Asian American women but also an article about Communist Chinese feminism in Beijing. For details, consult Mitsuye Yamada’s “Invisibility Is an Unnatural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman”; Karin Aguilar–San Juan’s “Going Home: Enacting Justice in Queer Asian America”; and Mallika Dutt’s “Some Reflections on US Women of Color and the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum in Beijing, China,” all in McCann and Kim. McCann and Kim do not seem to replace Chinese feminism with Asian American feminism in this feminist anthology. Bonnie Smith even makes an obvious distinction about Communist Chinese feminism, Vietnamese feminism, Korean feminism, and Japanese feminism in her anthology, Global Feminisms: A Survey of Issues and Controversies. For details, see Dutt’s, “Some Reflections”; Mary Ann Tetreault’s “Women and Revolution

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in Vietnam”; Miriam Ching Yoon Louie’s “Minjung Feminism: Korean Women’s Movement for Gender and Class Liberation”; and Vera Mackie’s “Feminist Critiques of Modern Japanese Politics.” Marianne Marchand also specifies Filipino, Hong Kong, and Japanese women’s problems in Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites, and Resistances. For details, consult Kimberly A. Chang and L. H. M. Ling’s “Globalization and Its Intimate Other: Filipino Domestic Workers in Hong Kong” and Yumiko Mikanagi’s “A Political Explanation of the Gendered Division of Labor in Japan.” Other examples are in the following: Alka Kurian’s “Women and the Developing World”; Lee Jeeyeun’s “Beyond Bean Counting”; Fiona Lee’s “Militarism and Sexual Violence”; Nellie Wong’s “When I Was Growing Up”; Gloria Yamada’s “Something about the Subject Makes It Hard to Name”; Wu Samnang’s “A Lucky Woman”; Marilyn French’s From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women; and Yang Ge’s “A Woman in a Borrowed Country.” 31. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang’s Spaces of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China is probably one of the best examples. Besides Communist Chinese feminist scholars’ articles, Yang includes chapters on Taiwanese and Hong Kong women, such as Lee Yuan-chen’s “How the Feminist Movement Won Media Space in Taiwan”; Sang Tze-lan’s “Feminism’s Double Lesbian Activism in the Mediated Public Sphere of Taiwan”; and Elaine Yee Lim Ho’s “Women on the Edges of Hong Kong Modernity.” In this anthology, Shih Shu-mei even comparatively touches upon Communist China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. For details, consult Shih Shu-mei’s “Gender and a Geopolitics of Desire: The Seduction of Mainland Women in Taiwan and Hong Kong Media.” Gail Hershatter’s monograph, Women in China’s Long Twentieth Century, also includes Margery Wolf’s and Arthur Wolf’s academic data about nonMainland Chinese women, such as Taiwanese women. For details, consult Gail Hershatter’s Women in China’s Long Twentieth Century, 11–12. The following edited books also include academic investigations about Taiwanese gender and feminist issues: Fran Martin’s AsiaPacifiQueer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), Rajni Palriwala and Patricia Uberoi’s Marriage, Migration and Gender (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008), Rita Nakashima Brock’s Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), and Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela’s Soaring Beyond Boundaries: Women Breaking Educational Barriers in Traditional Societies (Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2007). Some publications contain not merely Taiwanese but also Hong Kong feminism. For instance, Zhang Jing’s Nüxing zhuyi yu Canxue xiaoshuo zhong de “ziwo” (Feminism and Ego in Canxue’s Novel) involves Taiwanese feminist literary discourse. Louise Edwards and Mina Roces have C. Tang’s chapter on Hong Kong women and Nora Lan-hung Chiang’s chapter on Taiwanese women in their co-edited book, Women in Asia: Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000). Pao Chialin’s Funü wenti suixiang lu er—shamo ganlin (Random Thoughts on the Issues of Chinese Women Vol. II—The Rain in the Desert) touches upon Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, and Chinese-American women’s concerns. Li Yu-ning’s Chinese Women through Chinese Eyes includes diverse Mainland Chinese,

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32.

33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

38.

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Taiwanese, and even Manchurian gender issues in both ancient and modern eras. With reference to books that mention Hong Kong feminism and gender concerns, here are examples. Maria Jaschok and Suzanne Miers include three chapters on Hong Kong women in Women and Chinese Patriarchy: Submission, Servitude, and Escape (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1994). Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp have Sarah Swider’s “Working Women of the World Unite: Labor Organizing and Transnational Gender Solidarity among Domestic Workers in Hong Kong” in their book, Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing and Human Rights (New York: New York University, 2006). Day Wong’s chapter on Hong Kong lesbianism also appears in Diana Khor and Saori Kamano’s “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identity and Resistance (Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2006). Generally speaking, the tendency for non-Mainland feminist and gender issues to be understudied and PRC/Mainland Chinese feminism or Chinese Communist feminism to misrepresent all the non-Mainland feminism seemed to be a little bit improved after the early 2000s. The improvement after the early 2000s supports my argument by highlighting and serving as a foil to the undeniable fact of the disproportion in the 1990s. For details, see the following publications: Tseng Chiu-mei’s Taiwan xifuzai de shenghuo shijie (The Lives of Sim- pua: The Stories of Taiwanese Daughtersin-Law); Yu Chien-hui’s “Yijiuwuling niandai Taiwan de ‘baohu yangnü yundong’ ” (“The Movement to Protect Adopted Daughters in Taiwan of the 1950s”); Yu Chien-ming’s Qingting tamen de shengyin (Listening to Their Voices); and Chiang Wen-yu’s Ama de gushi (Stories of Grandmothers) and Xiaoshi zhong de taiwan a ma (Taiwanese Grandmothers Who Are Disappearing). In chapter 6, I relate the Tiananmen Square Incident, the best-known social movement in the PRC in 1989, to PRC feminist scholars’ transfer of French feminist theories and avoidance of Anglo-American feminist social movements. In my chapters 2 and 4, I discuss the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women and Feminist NGO Forums. I relate the lifting of martial law to Taiwan’s socio-cultural diversity and freedom for different thoughts, including feminist thoughts and activism. I include these details, such as Lü Hsiu-lien and Lee Yuan-chen as feminist activists, in chapters 2 and 3. In chapters 2 and 3, I touch upon new gender problems, such as problems of “Mainland brides” and Taiwanese businessmen’s extramarital love affairs, which occur and worsen after the resumption of the traffic between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. The rise of Taiwanese localism is related to the rise of indigenous, Hakka, and aboriginal (women’s) literature as well as indigenous, Hakka, and aboriginal gender studies in Taiwan. I incorporate these details in chapters 2 and 3. Between 1997 and 1999, almost every college and university in Taiwan changed their rules of assistant professors’ and associate professors’ promotion. This change of rules influenced women researchers and feminist scholars. My Taiwanese interviewees mention their or their acquaintances’ experience with this.

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39. The rise of the Democratic Progressive Party is closely related to social movements and feminist activism after the lifting of martial law. It is also closely related to current Taiwanese people’s comprehension, interpretation, and acceptance of all kinds of protests, petitions, parades, and social movements, including feminist protests, petitions, parades, and social movements. I mention these details in chapter 2. 40. For details, consult Carol C. Chin’s “Translating the New Women: Chinese Feminists View the West, 1905–15.”

C 

M T T W  F

The Taiwanese part of this chapter derives from my article “Taiwanese Feminist History: A Historical Review.” 1. Early in 1854, the Qing government sent Chinese students to the United States to learn xixue (Western knowledge), to bring xixue to China, and to apply xixue to local Chinese social conditions in order to strengthen China. Of course, America is not the only place where the Qing government sent Chinese students. America is only a part of the West and cannot fully represent the whole West. What the West is sounds vague from time to time because many areas and cultures are actually between the East and the West, such as Russia, Australia, Hawaii, or Turkey. However, it is undeniably a convention for native speakers of Chinese languages and dialects to just vaguely mention “the West.” When native speakers of Chinese languages and dialects talk about “the West,” they usually regard Euro-America or the United States as the representative of it. 2. “Chineseness has been imagined nationally and transnationally in the writings from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, as a result of the complicated political situations across the Taiwan Strait.” See Zhu Aijun’s Feminism and Global Chineseness. 3. Gilbert Rozman regarded Chinese modernization as “the process by which societies have been and are being transformed under the impact of the scientific and technological revolution . . . [M]odernization is best considered as a process affecting all aspects of society” (Rozman, 3). 4. Male propagators of the earliest Chinese feminism ranged from governmental officers of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), the early Republican era (1911–1928), the Nationalist period (1928–1949), and even the Communist era (1949–present). Tan Sitong (1865–1898) and Kang Youwei (1858–1927) were probably the most famous representatives in the late Qing Dynasty. Hu Shi (1891–1962) and Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940) were two of the most outspoken promoters of Chinese feminist activism in the early Republican era and Nationalist period. Mao Zedong (1893–1976) advertised the necessity to abolish gender inequality with the highest volume in the late Nationalist period and the Communist era. 5. For details of the Opium War, see chapter 1. 6. In addition, China was requested to give Kowloon to the United Kingdom. China also lent Guangzhou to France, Lüshun and Dalian to Russia, and Tianjin and Hankou to Germany. Farmers in Shandong started “the Boxers’ Uprising” in 1900. Their goal was to expel all the Western imperialists.

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7.

8.

9.

10.

However, American, French, German, Japanese, Italian, British, and Russian imperialists used this incident as an excuse to attack China. Empress Dowager declared the war. China lost the war and signed more unequal treaties. In various Chinese urban areas and seaports, the above-mentioned countries gained almost the same imperial and colonial benefits as the United Kingdom had according to the most-favored nation clause. Most of them were related to Western missionaries and churches in China. For details, consult Jessie G. Lutz’s Pioneer Chinese Christian Women. Also see Mary Keng Mun Chung’s Chinese Women in Christian Ministry: An Intercultural Study. In “China’s Official English: The Curriculum for Junior Secondary Schools since 1949,” Bob Adamson’s translation is “to study China to extract the cultural essence; to study the West for practical techniques.” Consult Humanising Language Teaching May 2003 at http://www.hltmag.co.uk/ may03. My own shortened translation is “Western theoretical research methodology but Chinese research subjects.” Wendy Larson’s shortened translation is “Western knowledge for application, Chinese knowledge for substance.” Missionaries assigned to travel from the West to China reported what they witnessed and contributed. Women missionaries usually paid more attention to Chinese women’s problems, such as foot-binding, women’s education, and child care. For example, the movie entitled The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (directed by Mark Robson in 1958) delineated how a Western woman missionary assisted anti-foot-binding and took care of Chinese orphans during wartime. For details about women’s liberation and anti-foot-binding, consult Fan Hong’s Footbinding, Feminism, and Freedom: the Liberation of Women’s Bodies in Modern China. Recent Taiwanese women scholars, such as Lin Mei-mei and Wang Hsiuyun, have published their research on Western female missionaries’ impacts on Chinese women. See the following Chinese journal articles: Lin, Mei-mei, “Meiguo sheng gong hui nü chuanjiaoshi zaoqi zai hua huodong: shijiou shiji meiguo ‘chunzheng funü yishi’ de zhanxian” (“Anglican Church’s American Women Missionaries in China: the Demonstration of American ‘Pure Women’s Awakening’ in the Twentieth Century”) and “Funü xingbie kongjian gainian yong yu shijiou shiji meiguo jidu xin jiao zai hua nü chuanjiaoshi yenjiou zhi tantao” (“The Application of Women’s Spacial Concepts onto Research on Nineteenth- Century American Christian Women Missionaries in China”); Wang, Hsiu-yun, “Youguan xifan nü chuanjiaoshi yu zhongguo funü de jige wenti: cong wenxian tanqi” (“On Historical Problems about Western Women Missionaries and Chinese Women: from Literatures”). For academic publications in English, see Jane Hunter’s The Gospel of Gentility: American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the-Century China; Pierce R. Beaver’s American Protestant Women in World Mission: History of the First Feminist Movement in North America; and Kenneth L. Wilson’s Angel at Her Shoulder: Lillian Dickson and Her Taiwan Mission. One of the most famous examples was probably the last Chinese emperor’s Scottish tutor, Reginald Johnston. He taught this emperor English, science, geography, and Western etiquette. After returning to England, he became the first department chair of Chinese studies in London University.

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12.

13.

14.

15.

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A movie entitled Muodai huangdi (The Last Emperor, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1987) made references to this Englishman’s experiences in China. For academic research about Western helpers in Chinese history, see Jonathan D. Spence’s To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960. Chen, Dongyuan, Zongguo funü shenghuoshi (A History of the Lives of Chinese Women), 316–329. For details of late-Qing women’s rights in this journal, see Jin Tianhe’s Nü jie zhong (The Women’s Bell). In 2003, Fudan University planned an academic conference for feminist scholars to celebrate the 100th anniversary of feminism in China. This conference was named Bainian zhongguo nüchuan sichao yanjiu: jinian nüjiezhong fabiao yibai zhounian guoji xueshu yantao hui (One Hundred Years of Chinese Feminist Studies: An International Academic Conference in Memory of the One Hundredth Anniversary of Nüjiezhong). However, this conference was postponed to the summer of 2004 because of the outbreak of SARS. For details, consult Chou Hsü-chi’s “ ‘Bainian zhongguo nüquan sichao yenjiu’ guoji xueshu yantao hui jiyao” (“One Hundred Years of Chinese Feminist Studies: An International Academic Conference in Memory of One Hundred Anniversary of Nüjiezhong”). “In May 1896, . . . the [Qing] court dispatched the first group of 13 Chinese students to study in Japan. These students, varying in age from 18 to 32 years, had successfully passed the examination as required by [the Office of General Affairs (zongli yamen) in Bejing and studied in Japan with] . . . the assistance of Prince Saionji Kinmochi (1849–1940), Japan’s Foreign Minister and concurrently Minister of Education” (Ching, 15). In 1901, Shimoda Utako admitted the first female Chinese students in Japan to Kojimachi Girls’ Practical School, in Tokyo. Among all the Chinese students in this school, Qiu Jin turned out to be the most famous and influential feminist activist in China. For details, consult Kazuko Ono’s Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850–1950, 55. Most of the earliest female Chinese overseas students from the United States became women physicians in the 1880s. From the turn of the early twentieth century to the mid-1910s, the second group of female Chinese overseas students returned from the West to China. Most of them had studied in the United States, and then became ideal mothers and virtuous housewives. From 1915 to 1919, most of the female Chinese overseas students from the United States were participants in the May Fourth Movement. For details, consult Ye Weili’s “Nü Liuxuesheng: The Story of American-Educated Chinese Women, 1880s-1920s.” Although Qiu Jin used to be an overseas student and wrote articles in vernacular Chinese language, she belonged to the generation of late Qing elites, such as Tan Sitong and Liang Qichao, not the generation of early Republican elites. For instance, Qiu Jin was less than ten years older than Liang Qichao and Dr. Sun Yat-sen; however, she was approximately twenty years older than Xü Zhimo, Sophie H. Chen, and Soong Mei-ling. In addition to Qiu Jin’s participation in political revolutions, a number of young and educated women also joined political revolutions. For details, consult Lin Wei-hung’s “Tongmenhui shidai nü geming zhishi de huodong” (“The Activities of Women Revolutionary Heroes during the Tongmenhui Era”).

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16. In this late Qing era, male elites, such as Tan Sitong and Kang Youwei, also advocated feminist activism, such as anti-foot-binding and women’s education. Kang studied in Japan. But Tan never studied abroad. 17. Sun was from Canton. He used to be an overseas student in Hawaii when he was young. But his medical studies were completed in Hong Kong. After 1911, he became the national father of the whole modern China—both the ROC and the PRC. 18. See Frank W. Price’s English translation of Dr. Sun’s The Three Principles of the People. Also consult the following publications: Sun Yat-sen’s Sanmin zhuyi (The Three Principles of the People); Chang Hsu-hsin and Leonard H. D. Gordon’s All under Heaven: Sun Yat-sen and His Revolutionary Thought, xi-xvii; and Chang Hsu-hsin and Leonard H. D. Gordon’s Bibliography of Sun Yat-sen in China’s Republican Revolution, 1885–1925, xii-xiv. 19. The KMT included not only male revolutionists but also female revolutionists. 20. Qing Taizong Huang Taiji (1592–1643) and Emperor Kanxi (1654–1722) in the Qing Dynasty tried to un-bind women’s feet but failed. For details, consult Dorothy Ko’s “The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth- Century China,” 16–22. 21. May Fourth elites personified democracy and science and gave them nicknames. Democracy was called “Mr. De”; science was called “Mr. Sai.” To personify democracy and science is a good way to propagate them. 22. For details, also consult Shi Jianguo’s Chen Hengzhe zhuan (Biography of Sophie H. C. Chen). 23. For details, consult Wang Zheng’s Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories, 7. Even in the twenty-first century, feminists in the PRC and Taiwan have different Chinese translations for the word “feminism.” In the PRC, “feminism” is translated as nüquan zhuyi (the principle of women’s rights). From the beginning of the Chinese Communist era to the present, this translation has been regarded as a horrifying and displeasing word for most Chinese Mainlanders. Nowadays, most PRC feminist scholars call themselves “gender scholars” in the Chinese language in order to avoid the word “nüquan.” In Taiwan, “feminism” is translated as nüxing zhuyi (the principle of the female sex/gender). 24. These female college students included Zheng Chunlan, Wang Lan, Xi Zhen, Meng Xiaoyuan, Han Xunhua, Zhao Maohua, Yang Shoubi, and Cheng Ruoqin. Female students gradually became a new category in modern Chinese cultural history. For details, consult Joan Judge’s “The New Category: Female Students” in her The Precious Raft of History: The Past, the West, and the Woman Question in China. 25. For Sophie H. Chen’s description about her education, see her article entitled “My Childhood Pursuit of Education: In Memory of My Uncle, Mr. Chuang Szu-chien.” For Sophie H. Chen’s representative creative writing, see the anthology of her writings in Chen Hengzhe sanwenji (Anthology of Prose by Chen Hengzhe). 26. For criticism and analysis of Sophie H. Chen’s Luyisi de fannao (Sorrow of Louise), see Wendy Larson’s second and third chapters in Women and Writing in Modern China. 27. Soong Mei-ling’s sister, Soong Ching-ling (1893–1981), was also an important female overseas student. She got her bachelor’s degree in the United

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28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

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States. In October 1915, she married Dr. Sun Yat-sen in Tokyo, Japan. In the early 1920s, she, as the first lady, served as the head of the national women’s organization and talked about women’s rights. Soong Ching-ling cooperated with two feminist activists: He Xiangning and Deng Yingchao. He Xiangning (1878–1972) was an overseas student who returned to China and became a feminist activist. He Xiangning studied in Japan in the early 1900s. In 1924, she served as the head of the Central Women’s Department of the Nationalist Party and made contributions to Chinese femninist activism. For instance, she began the first ceremony of Women’s Day in China on March 8, 1924. Deng Yingchao (1904–1992), Zhou Enlai’s wife, regarded He Xiangning as a feminist collaborator. For details, consult Wu Qin’s Deng Yingchao yü He Xiangning (Deng Yingchao and He Xiangning), 3–14. See Cornelia Spencer, Three Sisters: The Story of the Soong Family of China. Also consult Laura Tyson Li’s Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady. Chiang Kai-shek used to be a Chinese overseas student with military training in Japan. He joined Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolution and led Nationalist troops since the 1910s. After leftist students, such as Mao Zedong, established the CCP in July 1921, Chiang became Chinese Communists’ enemy. Conflicts between the KMT and the CCP arose early in the 1920s and the 1930s. In modern Chinese history, Soong Mei-ling is not the first example of how a wife bravely met with the kidnapper and rescued her husband in a complicated political situation. In 1922, Chen Jongming kidnapped He Xiangning’s husband, Liao Zhongkai. He Xiangning negotiated with Chen and rescued Liao. For details, consult the following publications: Wu Qin’s Deng Yingchao yü He Xiangning (Deng Yingchao and He Xiangning), 36–41; Zhou Xingliang’s Liao Zhongkai he He Xiangning (Liao Zhongkai and He Xiangning), 126–134; and Liao Mengxing’s Wo di muqin He Xiangning (My Mother, He Xiangning), 18–21. Soong Mei-ling had a different attitude toward Zhang Xueliang than did Chiang, who originally wanted to kill Zhang. But Soong persuaded Chiang to put Zhang under lifelong house arrest rather than kill him. Soong later wrote letters to Zhang and exchanged gifts with him. Before Zhang died, he refused to disclose any details of their negotiation in Xi’an. Chinese Communists were basically nice to both Zhang Xueliang and Soong Meiling. Although Chiang was one of the CCP’s biggest enemies, Chinese Communists still praised Soong Mei-ling even after Soong died in New York in October 2003. Soong Mei-ling’s older sister, Soong Ching-ling, married Dr. Sun Yat-sen and was also an internationally visible Chinese first lady before Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of the Nationalist Party. Between the Xi’an Incident in 1936 and the CCP’s triumph in 1949, there were several important historical events. In the early morning of July 7, 1937, Japanese military troops walked closer and closer to the Chinese army in the Lugouqiao (Lugou Bridge/Marco Polo Bridge) area. A Chinese platoon leader went forth to stop them, but they killed him and all the Chinese soldiers there. Later on, Japan occupied nearby areas. The Japanese’s explanation for their occupation was that they wanted to search for a soldier who was lost. China, of course, did not accept this explanation. This was where the Sino-

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Japanese story of the Second World War began. The Japanese attack psychologically united the KMT, the CCP, and all the Chinese people. This incident was known as the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident.” In Mandarin Chinese, this incident was named either the “Lugouqiao Incident” or the “77 Incident.” Japan’s original plan was to conquer China within only three months. However, China was determined not to give in. Since December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted for six weeks. According to the post-war military court in 1947, the Japanese army slaughtered more than three million Chinese people and raped at least twenty thousand Chinese women. This massacre shocked international media at that time. But some Japanese journalists reported that the story was not true. China and Taiwan re-emphasized that this massacre was undeniable. For documentation, please see Christine Choy and Nancy Tong’s In the Name of the Emperor (Videotape) (New York: Filmmakers Library, 1996). The year 1941 was a turning point. On December 7 (December 8 in Asia), 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack on Pearl Harbor turned the United States into China’s best friend and Japan’s worst enemy. This incident resulted in American academia’s determination to start the field of East Asian studies. On August 6 and August 8, 1945, the United States bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Japan surrendered on August 10, 1945. The Sino-Japanese War lasted for entirely eight years. Taiwan was returned to China at the end of this war. The KMT and the CCP resumed their previous conflicts after the war was over. The KMT lost a lot of strong army force during the Second World War, and it even kidnapped young boys to be new Nationalist soldiers. For instance, one of my high school teachers went out to buy a bottle of soy sauce for his mother when he was only a teenager. On his way home, he was kidnapped by the KMT troops and forced to become a Nationalist soldier. He followed the KMT and moved to Taiwan after 1949. He was not able to go back home until the KMT allowed people to travel back to China in 1988. When he returned home, he was already in his sixties. He bought a bottle of soy sauce and brought it to his mother’s tomb. In the postwar era, to poor villagers in the countryside Chinese Communism was more attractive than the KMT. Communists adopted a brand-new strategy: to win villagers’ hearts first and then to use their support to encircle and conquer urban areas. In 1949, the CCP won the civil war and defeated the KMT. Communists called this year the year to jiefang (liberate) China. The CCP also declared to liberate all the Chinese women, who were compared to ban bian tian (half of the sky). But the KMT described this year to be the year of dalu lunxian (Chinese Mainland fallen into enemy’s hands). Nationalists retreated to Taiwan. Chiang claimed he would counterattack the Communists and win China back. However, this dream of Chiang’s never came true. 34. In the Nationalist era (1927–1949), a number of modern women became ill-fated, commercialized, or severely criticized. Leslie Collins, for instance, points out the fact that the KMT killed over one thousand women leaders in 1927 after the impossibility of the KMT-CCP collaboration. Carlton Benson notices that in the 1930s many advertisements in urbanized areas, such as Shanghai, turned modern women into female shoppers with bobbed hair who purchased fashionable dresses, high heels, perfume, cosmetics, or even

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35. 36.

37.

38.

39.

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cigarettes. Intellectuals, thus, deeply doubted whether women truly became modern women as long as they bought and possessed products in department stores and severely criticized that some “modern women” were actually pseudo-modern women. Other problems about Chinese feminism between the 1920s and 1940s include the lack of significant female Communist leaders in the pre-1949 era and Ding Ling’s complaint about Communist feminist slogan. For details, consult the following publications: Carlton Benson’s “The Manipulation of Tanci in Radio Shanghai in the 1930s,” 134–135; Chen Duxiu’s “Funu wenti yu shehui zhuyi” (The Women Question and Socialism); Leslie E. Collins’s “The New Women: A Psychohistorical Study of Feminist Movement from 1900 to the Present,” 620; Ding Ling’s “Wuo de chuangzuo jingyan” (“My Experience in Literary Creation”), 105–107; Louise Edwards’s “Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China”; and Christina Gilmartin’s “Gender in the Formation of a Communist Body Politic,” 308. Also consult Women Journalists and Feminism in China; The Chinese People at War; Casting off the Shackles of Family; Holding up Half the Sky; Feminism/ Femininity in Chinese Literature; Dress, Sex and Text in Chinese Culture; and Women’s Literary Feminism in Twentieth-Century China. See also John Selby’s, The Paper Dragon: An Account of the China Wars, 1840–1900. Ebrey, Patricia B. The Cambridge Illustrated History to China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Also consult the following publications: Fairbank, John King. China: The People’s Middle Kingdom and the USA. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967. ———. China Perceived: Images and Policies in Chinese-American Relations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. Feuerwerker, Albert and Rhoads Murphey and Mary C. Wright. Approaches to Modern Chinese History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Geoffroy-Dechaume, Francois. China Looks at the World. Jean Stewart trans. New York: Pantheon Books, 1967. Lieberthal, Kenneth. Governing China. New York: Norton, 1995. Twitchett, Denis and John King Fairbank. The Cambridge History of China. Vol.14 and 15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Yeh, Wen-hsin. Becoming Chinese: Passages Modernity and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. The era from 1949 to 1976 was called the Maoist era. Under Mao Zedong’s leadership, China closed her door to Western countries and regarded the United States as the biggest devil among all the democratic nations in this era. The PRC experienced numerous sorts of internal political power struggles. The longest and the most serious one was named Wenhua da geming (the Cultural Revolution). This revolution ranged from 1966 to 1976. Mao’s original attempts at reformation might have been benevolent, but the Cultural Revolution horrified China. For example, Chinese literature about this era was termed shanghen wenxue (scar literature). See Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke’s Women in Chinese Society; Xin Ran’s Good Women of China: Hidden Voices; and Mayfair Mei-hui Yang’s Through Chinese Women’s Eyes (Documentary Film). For details about Chinese Communists’ opinions about women, consult Claudie Broyelle’s Women’s Liberation in China. Also see New Women in New China published by Foreign Language Press in Beijing in 1972.

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40. “On the eve of [Communist] liberation, the bureaucratic capitalists controlled two-thirds of China’s industrial capital, 90 percent of iron and steel production, 67 percent of electric power, 33 percent of coal production, and all petroleum and nonferrous metal industries . . . By the end of 1949, the people’s government had confiscated over 2800 . . . enterprises employing a total of 750000 workers. [The CCP’s] conversion into state-owned enterprises laid the foundation for the socialist industrialization of China” (Su, 207). 41. The first publication of this article was in Jiefang ribao (Daily News of Liberation) on May 9, 1942. 42. For details, see Dongfang zaobao (Morning News of the East) dated November 20, 2003. 43. For details about the sex-selective infanticide and missing baby girls, consult Brigitte H. Bechtold and Donna Copper Graves’s Killing Infants: Studies in the World Practice of Infanticide. 44. Consult Nie Jing-Bao’s “The Problem of Coerced Abortion in China and Related Ethical Issues.” Also see his Behind the Silence: Chinese Voices on Abortion. 45. This information about the abortion fee was retrieved in Shanghai in summer 2004. 46. For more details about the Tiananmen Square Incident, consult the following publications: Gregor Benton and Alan Hunter’s Wild Lily, Prairie Fire: China’s Road to Democracy, Yan’an to Tian’anmen, 1924–1989, 270–271; Han Mingzhu’s Cries for Democracy: Writings and Speeches from the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement; Mu Yi and Mark V. Thompson’s Crisis at Tiananmen; Judy Polumbaum’s “ ‘Professionalism’ in China’s Press Corps”; Mark Seldon’s “Limits of the Democratic Movement”; Jonathan D. Spence’s The Gate of Heavenly Peace: the Chinese and Their Revolution 1985–1990; Lawrence R. Sullivan’s China Since Tiananmen: Political, Economic, and Social Conflicts; and Frank Tan’s “Epiphany of Press Reform.” For audio-visual data about Tiananmen, see Carma Hinton and Richard Gordon’s The Gate of Heavenly Peace (Videotape). San Francisco: NAATA Distribution, 1995. 47. But for Chinese feminists, this Women’s Congress decreased most Chinese people’s hatred for feminists, whose social movements were regarded as a part of all the social movements in modern Chinese history. This subject will be elaborated in the section about World Women’s Congress in Post-Maoist Beijing. 48. In 1966, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong started to use a paramilitary teenage organization, the Red Guards, to fight against everything either old or foreign. The PRC became anti-American and rejected almost all the West. In this anti-West era, seldom could Western scholars do any field research or studies abroad in the PRC. Under these circumstances, most Western scholars usually did their research in either Taiwan or Hong Kong. After Mao’s death, the CCP began an open-door policy (since the late 1970s) and enthusiastically embraced the West. For details, consult John King Fairbank’s China Perceived: Images and Policies in Chinese-American Relations, 82–84. Also see Denis Twitchett and John King Fairbank’s The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 15, 469–474. Since the start of the post-Maoist era, more and more Western Asianists and feminists travel to the PRC and have more confidence in their understanding

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49.

50.

51.

52. 53.

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of women and feminism in the PRC. However, what I would like to argue is that neither Western scholars who traveled to the PRC nor Chinese scholars who were born and bred in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong can claim a full understanding of everything about Chinese women and Chinese feminism. Recent Western scholars in Asian studies or women’s/gender studies went to the PRC for their abroad studies. They witnessed Communist feminism in the PRC, but what they witnessed was not the whole of Chinese feminism. What Western scholars could personally experience in their academic trips might be too limited to represent all the details in the whole of Chinese cultures. For instance, before the end of the Cultural Revolution, most Western researchers could travel to Taiwan and Hong Kong only. It was hardly possible that they acquainted themselves with every detail of women in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Even if they really did so, what they observed and realized about Taiwanese women and female Hong Kongers could not represent women Communists in the PRC at all. After the CCP opened her door widely to the West, most Western scholars chose to do their further studies in the PRC. It might not be possible that they were able to see and understand all the women in the PRC. Even if they truly comprehend everything about women in the PRC, what they heard and knew about women in post-Maoist China did not represent all the women in the whole of greater China. For details, consult R. Keith Schoppa’s Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History, 405–408. In addition to Western scholars’ limitation, Chinese scholars from the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan also have their own limitations. Take Taiwanese feminist scholars for example. Although feminist theories and Taiwanese academics are their research subjects, they cannot claim that they specialize in all parts of feminist practice and theories even in Taiwan, not to mention a large territory like the PRC. In brief, more and more Western Asianists and feminists travel to the PRC after the CCP opened China’s door to the West. This may influence Western understanding of Chinese women and feminism. Even if every Western Asianist and feminist goes to all parts of greater China, it is not possible to claim that he or she fully understands or specializes in all parts of feminist practice and theories in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Chinese scholars in the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan cannot declare that they know every detail of Chinese women and Chinese feminism, either. According to Betty L. L. Yao, Au Kit-chun, and Fanny M. Cheung, early feminism in Hong Kong “began some time between the two World Wars”(Yao, Au, and Cheung, 24). The Hong Kong Council of Women (HKCW) assisted the “abolition of the legally sanctioned polygamous system in 1971, and it also helped women to gain the right of inheritance” (Yao, Au, and Cheung, 1). See the Association for the Advancement of Feminism (AAF)’s Feminist Organizations in Hong Kong, Fact Sheet Series, No. 1. Also consult the AAF’s The Other Half of the Sky: Women’s Movement in Hong Kong Since the PostWar Years. Consult Daniel H. Bays’s Christianity in China: From the 18th Century to the Present. Also consult Yao, Au, and Cheung’s Women’s Concern Groups in Hong Kong, Occasional Paper No. 15.

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54. See the Hong Kong website of the Association for the Advancement of Feminism: http://www.aaf.org.hk. 55. See Maria Jaschok’s Concubines and Bondservants. 56. As a Taiwanese writer, Li Qiao (Li Chiao) compares Taiwan to a child abandoned by China. In his speech, he states, I recall a couple taking a walk with two children along the seashore of Taiwan in 1894. All of a sudden, there came a tsunami; the couple grasped the bigger child and ran away. The smaller child stood there and asked, “It is weird. Why did my parents abandon me and leave me here? Why did they rescue my older brother but desert me?” What is this situation like? It is like how the Qing government of China threw Taiwan to Japan after being defeated by Japan, isn’t it? For details, consult my chapter “No More Penis Envy of the ‘Orphan of Asia’: ‘The Hakka Female ‘Orphan of Asia’ in Li Qiao’s Wintry Night” in Women in Taiwan: Sociocultural Perspectives. 57. Koreans, for instance, also requested Japanese compensation to their comfort women, who were terribly abused during World War II. 58. This part derives from my chapter “Taiwanese Feminist History: A Sociocultural Review” in Women in Taiwan: Sociocultural Perspectives. I thank the executive director of the university press for approving my inclusion of this section in this book. 59. It is incorrect to assume that all Taiwanese women tied their feet. Aboriginal women, for instance, “did not bind feet” according to Japanese-period household register data. For details, consult Melissa J. Brown’s Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities. 60. For details about Taiwanese girls’ education in the era of Japanese colonization, see Yu Chien-ming’s Riju shiqi taiwan de nüzi jiaoyu (Taiwanese Girls’ Education in the Era of Japanese Colonization) as an example. 61. The nation that Japanese colonizers wanted Taiwanese patriot women to love at that time was, of course, their great and modernized Japanese empire. For details, consult Yang Tsui’s Riju shiqi Taiwan funü jiefang yundong (Movements of Taiwanese Women’s Liberation in the Era of Japanese Colonization). 62. The title, Tai-oan chheng-lian, was changed to Tai-wan min-pao (Taiwan People’s News) in 1923. For details, consult Lu Hsin-yi’s “Imagining ‘New Women,’ Imagining Modernity: Gender Rhetoric in Colonial Taiwan” in Women in the New Taiwan: Gender Roles and Gender Consciousness in a Changing Society. 63. Margery Wolf, with her expertise in anthropology, gives a clear explanation about many subtexts of Taiwanese brides. Unfortunately, she does not touch upon details of traditional gender roles in Tainan because her research subject was in San-hsia, Taipei county—not in the Tainan area. Of course, it is the nature of anthropology to pick a site and do fieldwork there. There are other researchers who did research in the Tainan area, such as Murray A. Rubinstein. In addition, I know very well that the periods of Wolf’s and Rubinstein’s anthropological studies are not the period I am discussing in the main text. However, to have shy brides with a dowry is a convention that lasted long, even including rural Tainan areas in the early 2000s. For details, consult Margery Wolf’s Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan.

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64. Local Taiwanese elites in humanities, such as law, politics, literature, and cultural studies, easily became anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, or anti-Japanese. They were also easily involved in fights against Japan and were killed or illfated. Japanese imperialists would of course discourage local Taiwanese elites from being in liberal arts or social sciences. Entering the field of medical studies, therefore, turned out to be a good way for local Taiwanese elites to avoid political troubles under Japanese colonization. For example, Tu Tsung-ming studied at Kyoto University in Japan and became the first Taiwanese person with a doctoral degree in pharmacology (see Chen Ding-shinn’s opening remarks for the Fifth Lifu Academic Award for Chinese Medicine Symposium at the College of Medicine in National Taiwan University on October 24, 2002). Of course, physicians who revealed anti-Japanese thoughts would still risk their safety. For instance, Chiang Wei-shui was put in jail in 1924, and Lai Ho was arrested and jailed twice between 1923 and 1942. For details, consult the second volume of Chuang Yung-ming’s Taiwan bairen zhuan (Biography of One Hundred Taiwanese People). 65. This story was published in 1945. In it, an uneducated Taiwanese mother dislikes how her physician son abandons his Taiwanese cultural heritage, rushes to Japanize himself, and even discriminates against local Taiwanese culture in the Japanese colonial era. In addition, Lai Ho is playing a game of puns. In Southern Min language or Taiwanese dialect, the word “blame” shares the same pronunciation with the word “mother.” The title of this literary work, therefore, indicates that the physician’s mother believes it is wrong for her son, the physician, to desert his Taiwanese self-identity. 66. See http://228.culture.gov.tw (website retrieved in March 2011). 67. For details, consult Doris Chang’s The Second Sex, Confucianism and Individualism in Lü Hsiu-lien’s New Feminism in Taiwan. 68. What was rediscovered and dug out was not only Taiwanese feminism outside of Soong Mei-ling’s leadership but also the history of the whole modern Taiwan that the KMT had not paid enough attention to in the past. Before 1987, what Nationalists had been willing to write down in their governmental version of Taiwanese history was not everything in the history of modern Taiwan. The more historical subtexts the KMT omitted, the more important other Taiwanese people’s supplementary editions of modern Taiwanese history became. 69. Lü is a politician; Lee is an academic. However, both of them identify themselves as feminist activists. 70. Consult Lü’s book on feminism (Lü, 1974). 71. In 1988, waishengren (Mainlanders in Taiwan/people who followed Chiang Kai-shek and moved from other provinces to Taiwan Province around 1949) were allowed to visit relatives in the PRC. People across the Taiwan Strait gradually resumed mutual communication after the long separation following Chiang Kai-shek’s move to Taiwan. But Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988. After Chiang Ching-kuo’s death, Lee Teng-hui, the head of the KMT but a pure benshengren with experience in Japanization during the colonial era, served as president for twelve years. Because of his background, Lee paved the way for the KMT’s growing sense of Taiwanese localism. For instance, Lee identified himself as the first local Taiwanese president. His mother language, Taiwanese/Southern Min dialect, had been discriminated against and labeled as an inferior language before the lifting of martial law, but it became

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extraordinarily popular and fashionable afterward. In the twenty-first century, prestigious universities in the United States, such as Harvard University and Stanford University, also began to offer classes on Southern Min dialect. Taiwanese literature, which was an illegal research field that Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo had misunderstood to be taidu (Taiwanese independence), began to prosper. The 228 Incident, which Chiang had prohibited Taiwanese people to comment on, was reported to the public. However, Lee Teng-hui annoyed the CCP and some waishengren, who complained that the increasing Taiwanese localism alienated them. Both the CCP and some waishengren criticized that Lee’s plan was to win Taiwanese independence. Some of these waishengren left the KMT and founded their own political party, the New Party, in 1993, and the CCP threatened to attack Taiwan with missiles in 1995. In 2000, the DPP defeated the KMT in the presidential election. Chen Shui-bien and Lü Hsiu-lien became the president and vice president. In the same year, Lee chose Lien Chan to be his KMT successor. This led to Song Chu-yu’s departure from the KMT to establish the People First Party in the same year. In 2001, supporters of Lee Teng-hui founded the Taiwan Solidarity Union. Chen Shui-bien broadened and deepened what Lee had started: the overall acceptance of Taiwanese localism. For instance, the past focus on Taipei was gradually replaced with more balance between the urbanized north and the indigenous south. The media and press began to recognize and present the importance of Hakka dialect and culture. This was also the case with various aboriginal tribal languages and cultures: The DPP government encouraged aboriginal people to use their own Polynesian languages and family names again. The recognition of different Taiwanese subcultures and minorities drove researchers to rethink more and more the unknown history and future of Taiwan. From 2000 to 2002, Chen Shui-bien was criticized because the Taiwanese economic situation declined. The average rate of unemployment and suicides increased quickly, and the KMT and the PFP severely blamed the DPP for this. The DPP explained that the falling American economy after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks influenced Taiwan. In 2002, the DPP government began xiaosantong (the mini three links) between Chin-men and the PRC. Starting in the fall of 2003, the American economy gradually improved. The Taiwanese economy gradually got better, too, and since winter 2003, the Taiwan Solidarity Union and the DPP have been regarded themselves as the pan-green alliance, while the KMT, the New Party, and the People First Party regarded themselves as the pan-blue alliance. On March 20, 2004, Chen Shui-bien and Lü Hsiu-lien were reelected as president and vice president. On the day before the election, both Chen and Lü were shot in Tainan: this is called “the 319 Incident.” The pan-blue alliance questioned the validity of the presidential election. Since 2006, Chen Shui-bien, his family members, and high-ranking governmental officials have been involved in scandals of corruption, graft and money-laundering. Chen Shui-bien was arrested and jailed. Ma Ying-jiu won the presidential election in 2008. His political standpoint is more intimate with Mainland China than Chen Shui-bien’s and Lee Teng-hui’s had been. After Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat from Mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, Ma is the first Taiwanese administrative head to invite

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72.

73.

74.

75.

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high-ranking Mainland Chinese Communist governmental officials to visit Taiwan. He also institutionalized the san tong (direct transport link, direct postal link, and direct trade link on both sides of the Taiwan Strait) on December 15, 2008. Soong Mei-ling also led some women’s activities for the KMT. As the first lady, she organized the KMT’s alliance of women, which evolved from Zhonghua funü fangong kange lianhehui (Anti- Communist and Anti-Russian Women’s Association). In the name of the KMT’s alliance of women, Soong planned to build juancun (military compound/houses for Nationalist troops’ family dependents). Due to post-WWII economic predicaments, most Taiwanese people could not afford to have any women’s organizations, but Soong Meiling seemingly appeared to be the only influential feminist activist before Taiwan’s rapid economic boost and the rise of non-KMT feminists. However, these women’s activities were subordinate to the KMT’s political goals. For instance, Zhonghua funü fangong kange lianhehui led people to suspect that Soong organized women not purely because of feminist concerns but rather because of her husband’s political party. In addition, participants were mainly wives of high-ranking governmental officers, who were usually both wai-sheng-ren (Mainlanders: people who had moved from other provinces in China to Taiwan) and wealthy. Indigenous Taiwanese women were actually alienated. For instance, Li Chien-huan, in the Department of Chinese Literature at National Taiwan Normal University, raped a female college student, and Lei Chia-chi at the Department of History in National Chung Cheng University, sexually harassed a female student. Also see Wang Ya-ko’s Taiwan funü yundong jiefang shi (Movements of Taiwanese Women’s Liberation: A History). In addition to the cases of campus sexual harassment in colleges and universities, there were disputes about public prostitutes in Taipei City in 1998. For details, consult Ririchun (Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters/ COSWAS)’s Yu chang tongxing, fanchiang yuejie: gongchang kangzheng yundong wenji (To Walk with Prostitutes, To Move across the Wall and the Boundary: A Collection of Public Prostitutes’ Protests). Usually, these cases in the north of Taiwan tended to be better treated than those in southern Taiwan for various reasons: first, they were located closer to the major women’s organizations. Second, cases in the north are usually more noted and receive more media coverage than those in southern Taiwan. Third, social trends and gender ideology in the north of Taiwan are usually not so conservative, patriarchal, or male-centered as those in the south of Taiwan. Fourth, because of the more liberal and more open-minded social atmosphere and gender ideology in the north of Taiwan, students in northern Taiwan had more resources and assistance from people surrounding them than those in the south of Taiwan. Josephine C. Ho’s standpoint about public prostitutes was different from other feminists in the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars’ Association. For more details about public prostitutes in Taipei City, please see Ririchun’s Yu chang tongxing, fanchiang yuejie (To Walk with Prostitutes, To Move across the Wall and the Boundary: A Collection of Public Prostitutes’ Protests). A number of young activists stood by Ho’s side and thought that senior feminist scholars oppressed them. Later on, Ho exiled herself from the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars’ Association.

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76. Peng Wan-ju used to be the director of the DPP’s women’s social movements. She was also a lecturer at Providence University, Tai-chung, Taiwan. Her death was well-known in all of Taiwan. 77. Two female master’s students, Hung Hsiao-hui and Hsü Chia-chen, fell in love with the same male doctoral student at National Tsing Hua University, Hsin-chu, Taiwan. On March 7, 1998, Hung murdered Hsü on campus. She also used aqua regia, a sort of chemical that can dissolve almost everything in the world, to destroy Hsü’s face after Hsü’s death. This was one of the bestknown homicide cases in Taiwan in the 1990s. According to news reports, Hung and Hsü, jealous of each other, unconsciously applied traditional Chinese gender ideology about wife-concubine differences in ancient polygamous heterosexuality. Television news reports exposed that Hung and Hsü had discussed the possibility of being the “wife” and the “concubine” of the same male doctoral student in their communication with each other before this homicide took place. This showed that both Hung and Hsü were terribly uneducated about gender egalitarianism. In their personal lives, these two modern Taiwanese women seemed to be still haunted by the old-fashioned polygamous marital system and traditional gender ideology. After this homicide, Hung was put in jail for years. The male doctoral student quit his studies in Taiwan. He left Taiwan for the United States to restart his pursuit of the doctoral degree. 78. For example, National Taiwan University established its program of gender studies exactly in 1997—the year the case of campus sexual harassment happened in National Chung Cheng University. See Lin Wei-hung’s “Funü yanjiu de kecheng sheji: yi taida de ‘funü yu xingbie yanjiu daolun’ de jiaoxue weili de tantao,” (“Women’s Studies Curriculum: Experience and Appraisal”) 27–43. 79. For academic publications about child brides in Taiwan, consult Tzeng Chiumei’s Taiwan sifuzai de shenghuo shijie (The Life and the World of Child Brides in Taiwan). Also see the following publications: You Chien-hui’s master’s thesis entitled “Yijiuwuling niandai Taiwan de ‘baohu yangnu yundong’: yangnu, funu gongzuo, yu guo/jia” (“ ‘Movements to Protect Adopted Daughters’ in Taiwan of the 1950s: Adopted Daughters, Women’s Work, and Nation/Family”); and Yu Chien-ming’s dissertation entitled “Riju shiqi Taiwan de nüzi jiaoyu” (“Taiwanese Girls’ Education in the Era of Japanese Colonization”); and Yu Chien-ming’s Qingting tamen de shengyin (Listening to Their Voices). 80. For research about adopted daughters in Taiwan, see You, “Yijiuwuling niandai Taiwan de ‘baohu yangnu yundong.’ ” (“The Movement to Protect Adopted Daughters” in Taiwan of the 1950s”). 81. Consult Hu Tai-li’s My Mother-in-Law’s Village. In 2003, National Central University established the first college of Hakka Studies in Taiwanese academia. In 2004, National Kaohsiung Normal University founded its graduate institute of Hakka Cultural Studies. 82. Taiwanese businessmen’s investments as well as Taiwanese Mainlanders’ visits paid to relatives in the PRC turned out to be an overture for Taiwanese gender problems related to “Mainland brides.” Mainland brides obviously highlighted problems of China-Taiwan marriages. Taiwanese merchants’ investments in China actually resulted in gender problems, too. Why? Some married Taiwanese men bao er nai (have love affairs or illegally have another wife) in the PRC, enjoying a secret type of polygamous patriarchal privilege.

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83. In the year 2000, Taiwan had almost twenty thousand foreign brides. 84. For more details about the establishment of this center, see Wang Ya-ko’s third chapter in Taiwan funü yundong jiefang shi (Movements of Taiwanese Women’s Liberation: A History). Also consult Lin Wei-hung’s “Funü yanjiu de kecheng sheji: yi taida de ‘funü yu xingbie yanjiu daolun’ de jiaoxue weili de tantao” (“Women’s Studies Curriculum: Experience and Appraisal”) in Tongshi jiaoyu jikan (General Education Quarterly). 85. The website of the Graduate Institute of Gender Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University: http://www.nknu.edu.tw/~gender. 86. The website of the Graduate Institute of Gender Studies at Kaohsiung Medical University: http://www.kmu.edu.tw/~gigs. 87. The website of the Graduate School of Human Sexuality at Shu-Te Technological University: http://www.hsi.stu.edu.tw. 88. The website of the Graduate Institute for Gender Studies at Shih-Hsin University: http://cc.shu.edu.tw/~gndrshu. 89. The name of this association is abbreviated to be Nü xue hui in Mandarin Chinese. This organization is not governmental and has nothing to do with any political party in Taiwan. For details, consult the organization’s website: http://www.feminist.sinica.edu.tw. For research about the establishment of the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association, see chapter 7 of Wang Ya-ko’s Taiwan funü yundong jiefang shi (Movements of Taiwanese Women’s Liberation: A History). 90. I have avoided using scholars’ names, trying not to be involved in any of the professional rivalry.

C  T A’ R  F S  A F: I    1. In the 1990s, Taiwanese academic environments still had patriarchal problems in accepting and treating women scholars and students appropriately— not to mention feminist scholars. In academic job interviews, it was common for women to be required to answer unreasonable questions or to respond to male-centered statements. For instance, Liu Chung-tung mentions some of these questions and statements: “Do you have any boyfriend?” “Will you continue teaching here if your husband works elsewhere?” “You are still unmarried, then it will be our male faculty members’ good luck,” and “Some of our female faculty members gave birth to babies right after their arrivals; they did nothing but zuo ren (creating human beings—namely, delivering newborns) in our department” (my romanization and explanation of zuo ren in this context). For details, see Liu Chung-tung’s “Luxian zhi zheng yu xingdong zhuanzhe” (“The Fights for the Way to Take and the TurningPoints of Movements”). My anonymous interviewee, TWL13, disclosed her friend’s dramatic experience. Organizers of an academic conference required TWL13’s friend to name some possible discussants after they accepted her paper. TWL13’s friend, therefore, suggested organizers of the conference to directly contact the possible discussants. One of the possible male discussants misinterpreted TWL13’s friend’s recommendation to be her secret admiration and love for him. Instead of a clear yes or no answer to organizers’ question about

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2. 3.

4.

5.

whether this male scholar was willing to be a discussant in the conference, this male nominee spread his misinterpretation to almost all the people surrounding TWL13’s friend in her academic environment. Organizers of the conference and TWL13’s friend could not help but choose another nominee to be the discussant. However, after the conference, people in TWL13’s friend’s academic environment kept asking TWL13’s friend many inappropriate questions, such as “whether [TWL13’s friend] had a boyfriend,” and “whether [TWL13’s friend’s boyfriend] was more suitable and better than other men.” They also dramatized this male nominee’s misinterpretation and made impolite and frivolous remarks not only in front of TWL13’s friend but also behind her back. The fallout from the male nominee’s misinterpretation and other people’s exaggeration lasted for more than two years. They gradually became a topic of gossip and then almost a sexually scandalous rumor. TWL13’s friend tactfully asked a feminist literary scholar’s help because this feminist scholar was also in the same academic environment. Unfortunately, even this feminist literary scholar offered no help. TWL13’s friend shed tears in this feminist literary scholar’s presence and decided to leave her academic environment in order to have a break. For details about the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, consult www.edu.tw (website information retrieved in March 2011). In “China’s Official English: The Curriculum for Junior Secondary Schools since 1949,” Bob Adamson’s translation is “to study China to extract the cultural essence; to study the West for practical techniques.” See the website of Humanising Language Teaching (May 2003): http://www.hltmag. co.uk/may03 (website information retrieved in March 2011). My own shortened translation is “Western theories but Chinese research subjects.” Wendy Larson’s shortened translation is “Western knowledge for application, Chinese knowledge for substance.” In the summer of 2002, I was a visiting scholar at Academia Sinica and National Central University in Taiwan. I had these two academic institutions as my base, participated in the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars’ Association (TFSA), and attended academic conferences in a number of universities. In addition, I frequently visited Fem Bookstore as well as the Women’s Research Program (WRP) at National Taiwan University. I interviewed Taiwanese feminist scholars in research offices, bookstores, cafés, restaurants, or over the phone with their consent beforehand. For the sake of anonymity, I did not take any pictures of them. Some of them let me tape-record them. Some of them let me take notes of their talks. Some of them gave me various kinds of help and collaborated academically with me. Some of them, later on, also knew my own personal experiences. The old way for historians, anthropologists, sociologists, or ethnographers to deal with interviews was to keep distance from interviewees’ opinions by being silent and objective recorders only; however, recent academics realized that nobody can be absolutely objective and that even silent recorders cannot be free from bias. More and more historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and ethnographers stopped avoiding inserting themselves into records of interviewees’ opinions, therefore. I insert my interactions with interviewees into the main text because some established scholars do insert themselves into their publications based on anthropological fieldwork, history, or oral history. For instance, Gail Lee Bernstein allows herself “to appear in the pages” of the

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7.

8.

9.

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book about her observation of Haruko, a Japanese farm woman. For details, see Gail Lee Bernstein’s Haruko’s World: A Japanese Farm Woman and Her Community, xv. Evelyn Blackwood apologizes “many times over for not always representing relations in the village as [her Indonesian interviewee] preferred to portray it” (Blackwood, xii). Lisa Rofel also included her question for her research subject, a female Communist cadre, in her publication about the history of women in the PRC. Not believing in the Communist political propaganda, she asked her research subject, “If women and men are equal . . . how is it that there are so many competent women in [the] factory who don’t get promoted to be managers? . . . [M]en are stronger than women . . . [in terms of] physical strength . . . [However] that strength does not lead to intelligence. Didn’t people in China have a popular saying, anyway, to the effect that those who have brawn do not have brains?” (Rofel, 228). The following interviews are guides or models for my own interviews: Yu Chien-ming’s Listening to Their Voices, Wang Ya-ko’s Movements of Taiwanese Women’s Liberation: A History, Sang Tze-lan’s The Emerging Lesbian, Wang Zheng’s Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories, Chiang Wen-yu’s Grandmothers’ Stories and Disappearing Grandmothers in Taiwan, and Emily Honig and Gail Hershatter’s Personal Voices. Chang Hsiao-hung also mentioned similar things. For details, consult Chang Hsiao-hung’s “Nüran douzhen kuailexing” (“A Happy Journey in Which Women Are United”), 88. I am not the first person to point out internal conflicts within the Taiwanese feminist sisterhood. For instance, Lee Yuan-chen wrote about quarrels among aboriginal feminists and Han feminists, heterosexual feminists and lesbian feminists, and so on. For details, consult Lee Yuan-chen’s “Nüxuehui shinian, fuyün wanshui qianshan” (“Ten Years for Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association, an Arduous Journey for Feminist Activism”), 82–83. I have tried my best to avoid repeating whatever other scholars have already written— except for what my Taiwanese interviewees put great stock in. Similar is the case with Western academia’s unbalanced acceptance of male Chinese scholars and female Chinese scholars, PRC scholars and Taiwanese scholars, and traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters. TWL12’s Taiwanese peer was rejected when seeking a chance to teach Chinese language in the West. The first excuse was that her former employer’s letter of recommendation had not arrived yet. So she tried to make sure the letter of recommendation had not been sent to an incorrect address. Finally she found letters from not only her former employer but also her former colleague. Unfortunately, she was still rejected. The second excuse was that they did not have money to hire anyone new. However, TWL12’s Taiwanese peer discovered that a man without any teaching experience was hired. In other words, it was probably untrue that they did not have money to hire anyone. Therefore, TWL12’s Taiwanese peer spoke directly to the interviewer. This time, the excuse was, “You came from Taiwan; do you know simplified characters?” When TWL12’s Taiwanese peer was asked whether she knew simplified characters, Mainland Chinese instructors, whom the school hired, were barely required to answer whether they knew traditional characters because TWL12’s Taiwanese peer witnessed a middle-aged Mainland Chinese instructor had difficulty in smoothly reading Shijie ribao (World Journal), which was written in traditional Chinese characters. TWL12’s Taiwanese

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10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

NOTES

peer explained, “I used to teach Chinese language in the [Western] university where I was. If my Chinese is good enough to teach there, how could it be possible that suddenly my Chinese is not good enough to teach here? In addition, the man without any teaching experience was also from Taiwan. Why was he not rejected because he came from Taiwan?” Not being able to answer these questions, the employer, who is a scholar from the PRC, deliberately ignored TWL12’s Taiwanese peer’s undeniable qualification by denying the academic value of the university where TWL12’s Taiwanese peer used to teach. Regardless of the fact that the university TWL12’s peer taught at was actually much more famous than the university where this employer was located, this employer sneered, “The university which you taught in? What school is it? Where is it? I never heard about the name of that university.” This feminist anthology, Hu Yu-hui’s Zhixing yenjiu: lilun, fangfa ji bentu nüxing yenjiu shili (Qualitative Studies: Theories, Methodologies, and Case Studies of Local Women), included gender scholars in psychological counseling, linguistics, sociology, and public health—not any literary scholars at all. See its table of contents. Except for my Taiwanese feminist interviews, Liu Chung-tung also pointed this out. For details, consult her “Luxian zhi zheng yu xingdong zhuanzhe” (“The Fights for the Way to Take and the Turning-Points of Movements”), 101–102. To some extent, “the dominant culture cannot allow too much residual experience and practice outside itself, at least without risk. It is in the incorporation of the actively residual—by reinterpretation, dilution, projection, discriminating inclusion and exclusion—that the work of the selective tradition is especially evident. This is very notable in the case of versions of ‘the literary tradition,’ passing through selective versions of the character of literature to connecting and incorporated definitions of what literature now is and should be. This is one among several crucial areas, since it is in some alternative or even oppositional versions of what literature is (has been) and what literary experience (and in one common derivation, other significant experience) is and must be, that, against the pressures of incorporation, actively residual meanings and values are sustained.” (Williams, 123). It was exciting for me to read Deborah Cameron’s interview with Luce Irigaray. However, it would be more interesting if the publisher or Deborah Cameron had explained why the second edition of the same book did not include her interview with Luce Irigaray and Irigaray’s complaints about her tragic experiences in the French academic hierarchal system. Gayatri C. Spivak talked about this when I took her class at Columbia University. I thank her for mentioning this in class. The defense mechanisms are regression, repression, reaction formation, isolation, undoing, projection, turning against the self, reversal, and sublimation or displacement of instinctual aims. For details, see Anna Freud and Joseph Sandler’s The Analysis of Defense: The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense Revisited, 108. Harold Bloom relates Sigmund Freud’s terminology of defense mechanisms to the “anxiety of influence” in critical research. For details, see the final part of my fifth chapter. This slogan was also the name of the best-known feminist parade in Taiwan in 1994.

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18. See also Liu Chung-tung’s delineation in “Luxian zhi zheng yu xingdong zhuanzhe” (“The Fights for the Way to Take and the Turning-Points of Movements”), 99–101. 19. Frequent media exposure and subsequent fame might incite other scholars’ jealousy. It would be difficult to predict how much this sort of jealousy would affect survival, working relations, and promotion in Taiwanese academia. It might have a great effect or only a slight impact. It might not have any influence at all. But it would not be unreasonable to take this type of jealousy into consideration even in Taiwanese feminist scholars’ own minds. For example, TW2 confessed that she had ever been afraid that her exposure to the media would result in other Taiwanese feminist scholars’ jealousy and then rejection of her promotion. 20. TW13 felt uncomfortable that I might expose Taiwanese feminist scholars’ inner battles to non-Taiwanese feminists as if they were Taiwanese feminist scandals or ill fame. Actually, what TW13 worried about would never be the case because I do not mean to attack, criticize, or denigrate Taiwanese feminist scholars in the least. I do not attempt to be a reporter of how Taiwanese feminist scholars fought against one another for my non-Taiwanese audience. 21. For details, consult http://www.indiana.edu/~gender (website information retrieved in March 2011). 22. For details, consult http://www.nd.edu/~gender (website information retrieved in March 2011). 23. For details, consult http://www.womstd.uiuc.edu (website information retrieved in March 2011). 24. For details, consult http://www.dartmouth.edu/~reg/courses/desc/wgst. html (website information retrieved in March 2011). 25. Xie was coincidentally an undergraduate student while Li was an instructor on the same campus at that time. He did not take Li’s class. 26. In the national joint entrance examination of universities and colleges all over Taiwan, every Department of Women’s/Gender Studies, just like all other departments, will admit at least thirty to fifty students each year. In other words, every Department of Women’s/Gender Studies should have at least one hundred twenty to two hundred undergraduate students. If almost every university or college has its own Department of Women’s/Gender Studies, then there will be thousands of students. 27. See Rey Chow’s Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies, 120–143. In April 2005, I had an opportunity to talk with Rey Chow face to face. I asked her whether she still felt the same thing that she mentioned in Writing Diaspora. She confirmed her feeling about Western Asianists’ preference for ancient or traditional China at that time. 28. Since the late 1990s, the PRC has been getting involved in more and more investments by international enterprises, such as McDonald’s, Intel, and IBM. 29. The Nationalist Party terminated the martial law in 1987. 30. A large number of Taiwanese feminist scholars wrote down their confrontations with authorities or their interactions with the dominant political party. I have tried not to repeat what they have already published. In order to know what they mentioned in the past, I suggest my readers examine the following articles in the special feminist issue of Lishi yuekan (Historical Monthly) in

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September 2003: Lee Yuan-chen’s “Nüxuehui shinian, fuyun wanshui qianshan” (“Ten Years for Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association, an Arduous Journey for Feminist Activism),” Chang Hsiao-hung’s “Nüran douzhen kuailexing” (“A Happy Journey in Which Women Are United”), Liu Yuhsiu’s “Nüxing zhuyi guojia / shehui lantu de huizhi” (“To Map Out the Blueprint of a Feminist Nation/Society”), Lin Fang-mei’s “Caise yu wuse: nüxing zhuyizhe duochong shenfan de chongtu yu duihua” (“The Colorful and the Colorless: Conflicts and Dialogues of Feminists’ Multi-Identity”), Liu Chung-tung’s “Luxian zhi zheng yu xingdong zhuanzhe” (“The Fights for the Way to Take and the Turning-Points of Movements”), Chen Huihsin’s “Kuai kuai le le zuo fuyun” (“To Happily Have Women’s Movements”), Juan Juo-chueh’s “ ‘Biantian’ de na yi nian” (“The Year to ‘Change Our Sky/ President’), Huang Li-li’s “Da tong nüran de randu er mai zhi hou” (“After Smoothing Women’s Two Main Points for Acupuncture”), Chang Chinfen’s “Zhiduhua zhixia de nüxing zhuyi shijian” (“Feminist Practice under Institutionalization”), and Hsieh Hsiao-chin’s “Nüxue Jinxingshi: xingbie zhuliuhua” (“The Ongoing Stage of Women’s Studies: Gender Concerns as the Dominant”).

C  T A’ R  F S  A F   PRC: I    This chapter is derived from my chapter “Toward a More Complete Understanding of Chinese Academic Feminism” in Ethnographies of the Professoriate in East Asia: Faculty Tradition in the Face of Globalizing Reforms. By permission, I include this chapter in this book. 1. In the interview, CNL14 took Dai Jinhua for an example of these feminist scholars and Zhang Kangkang and Wang Anyi as examples of these women writers. 2. In Taiwan, “feminism” is translated as nüxing zhuyi. 3. According to CNL3, Zhang Jie did not regard herself as a feminist writer at all in the 1980s. However, CNL4 said she thought that Zhang Jie is a good example of the women writers in the first stage. 4. I do not dare to claim that CNL11, a well-educated female elite, has absolutely no academic or class prejudice of feminist intellectuals toward uneducated countrywomen like the wife in this story. But I am sure that she was not hostile to the wife in this story when she insisted that the wife is also a human being. 5. For details, consult Li Zhengrong’s interview of Chi Li: “Chi, Li: Zhongguo meiyou nüquan zhuyi zhi you muquan” (“China Has Only Mothers’ Rights, Not Women’s Rights”) in Beijing wanbao (Beijing Evening News), April 5, 2007. 6. Some of my PRC feminist interviewees refused to talk about or to show their awareness of the conflicts between Chinese Communism and Chinese feminism when I asked them questions about the conflicts. Maybe some feminists in the PRC did think about the conflicts; however, the CCP’s political control might be the reason why they never discussed the conflicts.

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7. This part of my argument derives from my chapter, “Toward a More Complete Understanding of Chinese Academic Feminism: Interviews with P. R.C. and Taiwanese Feminist Faculty Members,” in Higher Education in East Asia: Neoliberalism and the Professoriate. Used with permission of Sense Publishers. 8. See Dai Jinhua’s Youzai jingzhong (Still Remaining in the Mirror), 137. 9. When I chatted with my interviewees, I added Zhou Huashan, a Hong Kong male gender scholar, to their lists of well- established male gender scholars. 10. In Youzai jingzhong, Dai Jinhua also mentions this law. See Youzai jingzhong, 138. 11. I am aware of the nuance between Communist feminism and PRC feminism; however, it is difficult for my interviewees and me to determine what percent of PRC feminism was Communist feminism in the 1990s. 12. See Dai Jinhua’s Youzai jingzhong, 152–153. 13. When I chatted with my interviewees, I told them that Wang Ya-ko mentions his wife in the preface to his monograph about Taiwan’s feminist social movements and that Ka Weibo’s wife is Josephine C. Ho. In any case, I did not share CN6’s and CN11’s suspicion because male gender scholars’ sexual orientation was not my concern at all. 14. This part of my argument derives from my chapter, “Toward a More Complete Understanding of Chinese Academic Feminism: Interviews with P. R.C. and Taiwanese Feminist Faculty Members,” in Higher Education in East Asia: Neoliberalism and the Professoriate. Used with permission of Sense Publishers. 15. See China Daily issued on November 9, 1992. 16. Grace C. L. Mak’s diagram includes the percentage of female faculty members at regular institutions of higher education in the PRC. See Grace C. L. Mak’s “Higher Education in the People’s Republic of China,” 52–53. Also see China Daily issued on February 25, 1991. 17. See Zhongguo qingnian bao (News of Chinese Youth) issued on September 27, 2004. 18. See Zhongguo qingnian bao (News of Chinese Youth) issued on September 27, 2004. 19. Ruth Hayhoe’s diagrams include the percentage of female faculty members’ international academic activities. For details, consult Ruth Hayhoe’s China’s Universities 1895–1995: A Century of Cultural Conflict, 187 and 233. 20. One of the non-feminist and male scholars in the PRC told me that he thought Dai was not promoted earlier because Dai did not work in just one department but moved around. It is correct that Dai’s research could belong to the departments of Chinese Comparative Literature, Women’s/Gender Studies, and Film Studies. Even if this interpretation is correct, I find it unconvincing that Dai’s interdisciplinary research was an obstacle in the development of her academic career, however. 21. See the seventh edition of Zhongguo jiaoyu bao (News of Chinese Education) on August 7, 2004. 22. Some scholarly rivalry and academic gossip, like what my interviewees described, did begin in the PRC according to my interviewees, but I am just honestly recording what concerned my interviewees. I do not mean to repeat or broadcast any gossip among academics.

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C  F F T  Z HONGWAI W ENXUE    1. Chi Hsien was one of the most influential establishers of Xiandai shi (Modernist Poetry), a monumental Taiwanese literary journal in the 1960s. 2. This literary journal was established by a Taiwanese literary club called Yinlinghui (Club of Silver Bells). Lin Heng-tai was a member of this literary club. The title of this journal was changed to Chaoliu in 1948 in order to emphasize the Taiwanese youth’s or the new blood’s determination to struggle for Taiwanese literature after the socio-political damage caused by the February 28 incident. 3. I do not choose to analyze academic conferences focusing upon Western feminist theories because a number of Taiwanese academic conferences in the early 1990s were not very widely known or advertised online. I found difficulties in collecting and surveying data about Taiwanese academic conferences focusing upon Western feminist theories. For instance, National Central University claimed that its first international LesBiGay conference in June 1996 was the first Taiwanese academic conference in the field of gender studies. However, I cannot prove that this claim is trustworthy because the Taiwan’s Comparative Literature Association had its twentieth annual conference in May 1996. In this annual conference, there were many presentations about feminism and gender studies. In addition, other Taiwanese feminist scholars have told me that there was at least one internal conference about French feminist theories at National Taiwan University either before or in 1992. I once asked some Taiwanese feminists about the possibility of collecting data about this internal conference at National Taiwan University. But they did not still have any data. 4. Before the lifting of martial law in 1987, developments in Taiwanese literary history were sometimes considered to be a literary extension of taidu (Taiwanese independence). At that time, some men of letters who worked on Taiwanese literature, such as Chang Liang-tze, had to escape to Japan or other countries in order to guarantee their safety. However, Taiwanese literary developments still prospered. Early in the Japanese colonial era and World War II, Taiwanese literature already had its own shining moments: for example, publication of works by Lai Ho, Yang Kui, Lü Ho-jo, Chung Li-ho, Tu-Pan Fang-ko, and Yang Chien-he. The Nationalist Party’s defeat in the civil war and retrocession to Taiwan from Mainland China began anti- Communist literature in Taiwan of the 1950s. Mainlanders who had military backgrounds or homesickness at that time wrote either antiCommunist works or literary pieces of their nostalgia. Representatives of these writers are Chu Hsi-ning, Si-ma Chung-yuan, Lin Hai-yin, Su Hsueh-lin, Kuan Kuan, and so forth. Leftist literary trends were completely banned because of the anti- Communist political atmosphere during this period of time. Gradually, the anti- Communist literary genre died down. In the 1960s, writers educated in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Taiwan University, started a new Taiwanese literary style: application of Western literary notions, criticism, and writing skills to creative writing, such as poetry and fiction. Chi Chien, Yu Kwangchung, Ou-yang Tzi, Jung Tzi, and Luo Fu are well-known representatives of this literary group. From the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s, there

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5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

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were serious literary debates between two literary camps: the Taiwanese indigenous literary beliefs and the transfer of Western literary thought. People with different literary conceptions struggled for power. After the lifting of martial law, Taiwanese literature became diversified. Aboriginal literature, homosexual literature, women’s literature, eco- environmental literature, nostalgic literature, online literature, and so on f lourished and enriched literature in Taiwan. Similarly, it is the case with literary journals in Mainland China since the May Fourth Movement. For details, consult Hu Yao-heng’s “Zhongwai biandu ershi nian” (“Twenty Years of Chinese and Foreign Editing and Reading”), 12. Literary journals in Mainland China were also important highlighters of major literary trends. Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly), which began in 1910, is an excellent example. Wu Cho-liu (1900–1976) insisted upon Taiwanese localism and bravely pointed out the non-Taiwanese political hegemony since the era of Japanese colonization. In the Japanese colonial era, Wu showed strong anti-Japanese determination. During World War II, he risked his own safety by publishing a novel entitled Yaxiya de gu’er (The Orphan of Asia). This novel embodies Wu’s complaint that Taiwan was actually merely an orphan deserted and tortured by the Asian empires of China and Japan. Even under the influence of the February 28 Incident and baise kungbu (“the white terror”: the Nationalist Party’s political witch hunt), Wu wrote stories like Liming qian de Taiwan (The Taiwan before Sunrise) and Wuhuaguo (A Fig) to demonstrate how pathological the socio-political conditions were under Chinese Mainlanders’ dominion of Taiwan at that time. Yeh Shih-tao established this journal to fight against Japanized literature in Wenyi Taiwan (Literary and Artistic Taiwan/Literary Taiwan), established by Nishikawa Mitsuru (1908–1999). See Yvonne Chang’s “Taiwanese New Literature and the Colonial Context,” 272. Hsia Chi-an (1916–1965) established this journal— a short-lived but meaningful literary journal totally opposed to Wu Cho-liu and Yeh Shi-tao’s indigenous literary trend. Hsia Chi-an was a talented man of letters. He started to teach at Xinan Lianda (a united campus of almost all the Mainland Chinese top universities in the southwestern area of Mainland China during the Sino-Japanese War) before the age of thirty. After moving to Taiwan, he taught in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University. A lot of well-known Taiwanese writers, such as Pai Hsienyung, Wang Wen-hsing, and Chen Jo-hsi, were all his students. He died in 1965. Hsia Chi-an is a brother of C. T. Hsia, an emeritus professor in the Department of East Asian Literature and Cultures at Columbia University, and is one of the most influential figures in modern Chinese literary studies in US academia. This is not a special chapter purely focusing upon either Taiwanese literary history or the history of literary journals in Taiwan. Therefore, I am not able to include every detail about different Taiwanese literary movements, branches, slogans, and practices. For example, there were at least two opposing literary groups in the 1920s and 1930s. Some Taiwanese elites took anti-colonial standpoints and wrote anti-Japanese literary works. But some Taiwanese writers were Japanized. Other Taiwanese elites tried to balance between these two different literary beliefs. Recently there are more and

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10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

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more publications about these details as well as other details. However, I am not able to include all these details here. Well-known Taiwanese writers whose creative writing appeared in Zhongwai wenxue include Wang Wen-hsing, Li Ang, Yang Mu, Yu Kwang-chung, Lin Yao-te, Chi Ta-wei, and Hung Ling. For details, consult Hu Yao-heng’s “Fakanci” (“The Opening Statement of the New Journal”) and “Zhongwai biandu ershi nian” (“Twenty Years of Chinese and Foreign Editing and Reading”), 13–14. Japanese colonizers established this university in 1928. Before the end of World War II, its Japanese founders named it Taihoku Imperial University. The first four presidents in the history of this university were Japanese. In 1945, Japan returned Taiwan to the Chinese government. Since then, this university has been called “National Taiwan University.” It has not had any Japanese president since then. National Taiwan University claims to be the best and most prominent university in Taiwan. It is not true, however, that all the best Taiwanese scholars come from National Taiwan University. It is not correct, either, that researchers at other universities are less scholarly than those at National Taiwan University. However, it is true that most non-Taiwanese scholars, generally speaking, tend to think of National Taiwan University whenever they need to name a university in Taiwan. Therefore, National Taiwan University, in this sense, does represent universities in Taiwan. In contemporary Taiwan, most colleges’ and universities’ own academic journals—whose titles usually consist of the name of the school followed by the phrase xuebao (scholarly report/academic journal) —seem to reserve a large portion of the publication for their faculty members’ own works. The percentage of works by people who do not teach at the school is often small. This lack of diversity inevitably causes problems of academic inbreeding. For this reason, the quality of most academic journals hosted by research institutions in Taiwan is problematic. See my explanation in chapter 2. I would like to briefly mention the first academic journal of women’s studies in Chinese-speaking areas. This journal is entitled Nüxue xuezhi (Journal of Women’s and Gender Studies). It did not begin until the 1990s. Similar to Zhongwai wenxue, this academic journal of women’s and gender studies is also hosted by National Taiwan University. Among the sixty-eight articles from the first issue to the ninth issue in this journal, seven articles are literary textual analyses, and two articles focus purely on Western feminist theories— one article on Judith Butler, and the other on post-modernist feminism. The rest of this journal focuses upon practical concerns about women: child care, women’s climacteric, education systems, gender issues in politics, and so forth. These practical problems belong to various non-literary fields, such as medicine, politics, biology, sociology, and psychology. On the one hand, they reflect Taiwanese feminism’s inclination toward practicality. They proved that the practical tendency that I point out in the section entitled “Taiwanese Feminism’s Long History in Prestigious Journals and Media” is correct. On the other hand, to step into various non-literary fields is too extensive for my present feminist literary theoretical discourse. Hence I did not fully explore this journal because there are not many articles purely on Western feminist literary theories in this journal of the 1990s.

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16. Zhongwai wenxue is not particularly known for creative writing. However, in the 1990s it included more than 644 pieces of creative writing, including non-translated and translated works. As for translation from foreign languages to Mandarin Chinese, there are around 228 pieces in the 1990s, including translated critical essays, translated articles about literary theories, and translated pieces of creative writing. 17. For instance, Lin Fang-mei wrote an article on the feminist activism related to public prostitutes. 18. My own reading responses to this journal article include three parts. First, one of Huang I-min’s merits is to pay cross-lingual attention to translation of French feminist theoretical terms. For instance, Huang I-min differentiates between English translations of the same French feminist term. The crosslingual attention assures the reader that Huang is aware of the danger to depend on English translation from French texts as well as Chinese secondary translation derived from the English translation. However, this is also the jeopardy hidden in Huang’s own research. Also, Huang does not specify whether he himself also depends upon the English translation of the original French texts. Huang does not specify what impacts English and Chinese translation of the original French theoretical texts have. Second, Huang I-min aims to explore all the contributions and oversights of French feminism by investigating Cixous and Irigaray. However, I would like to highlight how dangerous it is to use only two feminists to represent the whole of French feminism. Third, to list contributions and oversights of French feminism runs the risk of implying the completion of French feminism’s developments—unless Huang clearly specifies that the French feminism he discusses is the French feminism of a certain period of time. Unfortunately, Huang does not specify anything. Instead, he simply generalizes all the French feminism with no clarification. This is problematic because feminism, including French feminism, hardly stops developing. That is to say, the ideal time to conclude what and how French feminism is, as a matter of fact, is in the future and never “final.” In addition, it is perilous for Huang I-min to label his conclusion as acceptable conclusion of “all the contributions and oversights of French feminism.” Usually, similar wordings, such as “( lifelong) contributions,” are not adopted until the commenter can completely make sure the person or the thing to be commented on is dead or past and hence not able to make any more contributions. My suggestion is that perhaps the original title can be replaced with a more specific and less irresponsible one: for instance, “Theoretical Values and Oversights of Irigaray and Cixous of the 1980s and 1990s.” 19. Huang I-min says that Elaine Showalter’s replacement of gynocriticism with gender theory is affected/motivated by this shift of Cixous’s. I hesitate to comment on this argument of Huang’s for the following reasons. First, Huang uses only three to four lines to articulate this. I do not think three to four lines are elaborative enough to make this argument convincing. Second, Huang does not include any concrete evidence or citation to support this argument. Nor does Huang have any footnote for this argument. For details, consult Huang I-min’s “Faguo nüxing zhuyi de gongxian yü mangdian” (“Contributions and Oversights of French Feminism”), 5.

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20. Gayatri C. Spivak has long commented on the relationship between essentialism and Luce Irigaray’s theory. In Ellen Rooney’s “In a Word: Interview,” Spivak says, “[i]t is [essentialist] if she is read as the pure rhetorical prose of truth—whatever that might be—that [Irigaray] may seem essentialist when she talks about women” (Rooney, 369). Also see Huang I-min’s “Faguo nüxing zhuyi de gongxian yü mangdian” (“Contributions and Oversights of French Feminism”), 10. 21. I myself do not totally agree with this accusation about sexual orientation. At least in the third chapter of This Sex Which Is Not One, Irigaray does take lesbians into consideration according to my understanding. 22. In Chinese language, this phrase is a philosophical phrase with a Buddhist background. This phrase means that through deep philosophical cultivation and religious meditation, one can experience an awakening about the ultimate meaning of life and experience an authentic life. 23. What I myself will criticize is not Hsiao Yen-yen’s arguments in this article. My focus lies on Hsiao Yen-yen’s repetition of Anglo-American and French feminist camps. In her article in the same journal in 1992, Hsiao Yen-yen discusses Anglo-American and French feminist camps. Anglo-American feminism is compared to “the mirror”, while French feminism is compared to “the vamp.” Anglo-American feminists, such as Sandra Gilbert, talk about negative sides of French feminism. All these are already in Hsiao Yen-yen’s previous article in the same journal. I hesitate to agree that Hsiao Yen-yen cites and repeats this part of her own old publication without any obvious quotations and without any justification for why it is legitimate to do so. Academically speaking, it is against the rule of copyright to cite what is already published without any mark about the bibliographical source. Ethically speaking, it is dishonest to extend this article simply by cutting a part of an old publication and pasting it into a new article. If Hsiao hopes to extend this article, she should have written up something new and suitable for the final section of this article. Even if she really cannot avoid repeating a part of her own old publication, she should provide readers reasons for why she does so. For details, consult Hsiao Yen-yen’s “Lun faguo nüxing zhuyi de wenhua kongjian” (“On The Cultural Space of French Feminism”), 32. 24. What I, as Tsai Chen-hsing’s reader, intend to criticize is mainly Tsai Chenhsing’s summary of Luce Irigaray. Actually, it is fine for Tsai Chen-hsing to categorize how women are interpreted: women as the other, women as a lack, and women as a trope. It is also fine for Tsai to mention the remedies that Luce Irigaray suggests: écriture féminine, the f luid, and sexual differences. But it is inappropriate for Tsai Chen-hsing to have “French Feminism” as the main title of this journal article and “Irigaray on the Other” as the subtitle. Luce Irigaray cannot represent the whole of French feminism. Even though Tsai Chen-hsing brief ly introduces Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva at the beginning of his article, these three French feminists do not represent all of French feminism. They are simply three famous French feminists in recent time. Tsai Chen-hsing makes a big mistake by having either Irigaray or these three French feminists representatives of the whole of French feminism. This mistake, as a matter of fact, is almost the same as that of Huang I-min’s in the same journal. My comments on Tsai Chen-hsing’s oversight are almost the same as my criticism about Huang I-min’s. Therefore, I would like

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to apply my critique about Huang I-min onto Tsai Chen-hsing in the following paragraphs. Tsai Chen-hsing claims to explore French feminism by “focusing [only] on” Luce Irigaray (Tsai, 49). However, I would like to highlight how hazardous it is for Tsai to use only one feminist to represent the whole of French feminism. What is French feminism? What sorts of French feminism does Tsai Chenhsing mean? How does Tsai Chen-hsing define French feminism? Of which era is the French feminism in Tsai Chen-hsing’s mind? Why and how can one choose only one French feminist theorist to fully represent the whole of French feminism? Do all the other French feminists feel included in the French feminism that Tsai Chen-hsing refers to? Is it possible that there may be some other French feminists, who are not included by Tsai Chen-hsing? French feminism encompasses a wide range of women’s studies, full of complexity and variety. Luce Irigaray is just one of many famous French feminist theorists in recent decades. Besides Luce Irigaray, Simone de Beauvoir, Catherine Clément, Sarah Kofman, Monique Wittig, and Toril Moi, for example, are also French feminist theorists. Tsai does not clearly explain why or how Luce Irigaray represents all the above-mentioned theorists and all the other activists, such as Olympe de Gougues, Jeanne Deroin, Hubertine Auclert, and Madeleine Pelletier, to name a few. Tsai does not explain clearly enough the large gap between Luce Irigaray, the whole of French academic feminism, and the whole of activist feminism in France. Actually, Tsai Chen-hsing himself does clearly notice his tendency to omit Julia Kristeva when he summarizes Irigaray’s and Cixous’s thoughts. But Tsai does not offer any defense about his omission of Julia Kristeva and all the other French feminist theorists and activists. That is to say, the gap between Irigaray, Cixous, and the whole of French feminism remains unbridged. In addition to Tsai Chen-hsing’s own anticipation of criticism from his readers, there are other problems. For instance, French academic feminism and activist feminism should both be a part of French feminism. None of them should be devalued. Yet to have Irigaray represent the whole of French feminism, in Tsai’s argument, seems to more or less negate the existence and importance of French feminist activists. Tsai does not elucidate what it might imply to ignore other feminist social movements and activists in France. 25. Sometimes this term appears as l’ecricure féminine. 26. Babies’ earliest erogenous zone lies in the oral cavity. Their earliest sexual satisfaction comes from the action of sucking milk. Around two years old, children’s erogenous zone moves to the anus. Between two years old and six years old, children’s phallic phase starts. In the phallic phase, baby boys have desire for their mother and unconsciously hope to replace their father. This is called “Oedipus complex.” But “castration fears” would reconfirm the paternal authority and ethics about the incest taboo between sons and mothers. “Castration fears” would make little boys become scornful of females, who are “castrated,” and feel relieved because their sexual organs are still with them. But boys are simultaneously worried that their genitals might be removed one day. When little boys feel relieved because of the existence of their sexual organs, they switch from identifying with their mother to identifying with their father. When little boys feel pejorative about women, the male-centered concept that men, “uncastrated” creatures, are of superior

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27.

28.

29.

30.

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status is already established in little boys’ minds. When little boys feel worried that they might be castrated one day, they gradually learn how to control their sexual impulse and start to develop their superego. Their superego and ego will be stronger than women’s and therefore they will be more active. They, for this reason, will also be better at applying the reality principle and the pleasure principle in order to fight against or change the outer environment and to carry out their own dreams. For details, consult Liu Yu-hsiu’s “Zouchu ‘wei yi,’ liuxiang ‘fei yi’: cong Fo Luo Yi De dao Yi Rui Ge Lai” (“Stepping Out of ‘The Only One’, Flowing toward “Not the Only One’: From Freud to Irigaray”), 10. As for little girls, according to Liu’s article “penis envy” leads them to feel that women, “castrated” creatures, are of inferior status. Little girls gradually decrease their original admiration for their mother because they realize that their mother is “castrated.” A lot of their sexual desires will be suppressed, and then they react by being passive and feminine. Their erogenous zone will be changed to the vagina. “Penis envy” will also drive girls, when they grow up to be adult women, to desire giving birth to baby boys because baby boys have male sexual organs that they do not have. “Castration fears” do not work in little girls’ cases because they are already “castrated” creatures. But “castration fears” will undermine little girls’ superego, independence, sense of justice and ethics, and so on. In Liu’s article, she summarizes Freud’s theory about the narcissist mirror relation of baby boys. Babies around six months old are in the mirror stage. They see themselves in mirrors and form their own ego. Because the relationship between their ego and other people is a narcissist mirror relation or an imaginary relation, they require others’ affirmation. If they cannot receive others’ affirmative attitude toward them, they will grow up to psychologically attack others and defend themselves in order to affirm themselves. As for the father-son relationship, Liu thinks that Julia Kristeva amends Freud’s and Lacan’s theory. According to Liu, Kristeva declares that narcissism is not innate. It derives from the autoeroticism of mothers and sons. The rise of narcissism depends on the imaginary father. Because of mothers’ desire for fathers’ male genitals, this pre- Oedipus image of fathers is a loving one, different from the harsh one in the Oedipus stage. Therefore, baby boys are willing to step out of the limited relationship with mothers only and accept this type of kind fathers, who are the third party for baby boys. For details, consult Liu Yu-hsiu’s “Zouchu ‘wei yi,’ liuxiang ‘fei yi’: cong Fo Luo Yi De dao Yi Rui Ge Lai” (“Stepping Out of ‘The Only One’, Flowing toward “Not the Only One’: From Freud to Irigaray”), 18–19. Daughters’ separation from the maternal bodies is usually less complete because daughters themselves are also maternal-bodies-to-be. Under the pressure of the patriarchal socio-symbolic contract that regulates men how to exchange women through marital relationships in order to produce offspring, women turn out to be willing to suffer for men. Women’s willingness of suffering or even being abused is a sort of père-ver-sion, which worships patriarchy. For details, see Liu Yu-hsiu’s “Zouchu ‘wei yi,’ liuxiang ‘fei yi’: cong Fo Luo Yi De dao Yi Rui Ge Lai” (“Stepping Out of ‘The Only One’, Flowing toward “Not the Only One’: From Freud to Irigaray”), 19–20. For Freud and Lacan, according to Liu’s article, the reason for sons to abject mothers is the sons’ discovery that mothers have no penis. On the other hand,

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the reason for daughters to separate from mothers depends upon daughters’ recognition that they, like mothers, belong to the “castrated” sex and therefore the inferior sex. For this reason, daughters debase their own sex and venerate the male sex. 31. In addition, the Irigarian theory of “two lips” also indicates the plurality of women’s jouissance. Women’s sexual pleasure is multiple. It permeates almost everywhere. The multiplicity of women’s sexual pleasure and sexual organs ironically contrasts the only location of men’s sexual pleasure: penis. For details, see page 30 in this journal article written by Liu Yuhsiu. With reference to relations among women, Irigaray advocates that women should create their own language. She proposes that women can use women’s own language and then speak as women. Women should produce their own system, in which women love women. For details, consult Luce Irigaray’s This Sex Which Is Not One, 135. Also see Margaret Whitford’s Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine, 81. 32. In Chu Chung-i’s article, what matches my own academic research is not exactly the above-mentioned summary of Irigaray’s theories. What interests me, instead, is actually Chu Chung-i’s evaluation of American and Taiwanese reading strategies. Chu Chung-i assesses the feasibility of Irigaray’s suggestions that readers master French, English, and Western philosophy. The revolutionary strategies of reading do not work for Taiwanese readers. English is already a foreign language for most Taiwanese readers. To master French, the second or the third foreign language, is too much for Taiwanese readers. As for the request to master traditional Western philosophy, Irigaray does not understand that the Taiwanese educational system does not attach much importance to philosophy. The Taiwanese environment does not value philosophy as much as Irigaray’s French climate. Even Chinese traditional philology is already hard for most Taiwanese people—not to mention Western philosophy. It is not practical for Irigaray to anticipate Taiwanese readers’ mastery of traditional Western philosophy. What Chu Chung-i implies to be possible is not Taiwanese readers’ grasp of Western philosophical interactions with Irigarian French feminist theories but Taiwanese readers’ rumination of interrelations between philosophy and feminism. In addition, Taiwanese digests of Luce Irigaray strongly depend upon American reception of French feminist theories. What Taiwanese readers know about Irigaray is generally the parts of Irigaray that American academia agrees to translate, accept, and interpret. How American researchers regard Irigaray more or less influences Taiwanese understanding of Irigaray. For instance, in the 1980s American feminists held debates on whether French feminism is a sort of essentialism. Under the circumstances, Taiwanese readers should not blindly follow American feminists and fall into the impasse of the debate only. Otherwise, Taiwanese reading strategies will be too Americanized and, therefore, ignorant to other interpretations of Irigaray’s French feminist theory. For details, consult Chu Chung-i’s “Yi Xi Jia Hei yu tade xin wenti: lingyi zhong (linian) shuxie/shijian” (Irigaray and Her New Genre: The Other (Theoretical) Writing/Practice), 52. 33. Hsiao Yen-yen mentions that the French word “voler” also indicates “larceny.”

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34. To introduce Hélène Cixous as a French feminist theorist to the AngloAmerican academia is not only a cross-lingual transfer of Cixous but also a cross-cultural transfer of Cixous. Therefore, cross-cultural concerns are inevitable. Hsiao Yen-yen’s concerns about cultural differences can be divided into two: general socio-cultural differences and academic cultural differences. The popular quality of a striptease performance in general French socioculture does not exist in general Anglo-American socio-cultures. Such a performance is deemed regular quintessence of French culture in France. In general French culture, strippers’ performance is meant to demonstrate that nudity is the natural dress of women and the purity of the body. However, American traditions tend to regard strippers’ performance as a special performance. Such a general socio-cultural difference, according to Hsiao Yen-yen, would probably result in Anglo-American feminists’ negative readings about Cixous’s and Irigaray’s emphases on women’s bodies and sexual organs. Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert, for example, tease Cixous by stating that Cixous eventually exposes her nudism. For details, consult Roland Barthes’s A Roland Barthes Reader, 86–88. Also consult Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s “The Mirror and the Vamp: Reflections on Feminist Criticism,” 156. In addition to general socio-cultural differences, Hsiao Yen-yen senses academic cultural differences among French feminist scholars and AngloAmerican feminist scholars. Hélène Cixous does not make enemies of male writers. She appreciates male writers who can successfully feminize themselves in their writing processes, such as James Joyce and Franz Kafka. She also praises the combination of masculinity and femininity, believing that writing should be a presentation of bisexuality. However, a number of American feminists do not agree with Cixous’s attitude toward men. Men are not so welcome in the research field of women’s studies in the United States. This academic cultural difference, in Hsiao Yen-yen’s analysis, is probably one of the reasons some American feminist scholars disagree with Hélène Cixous. For details, consult Hélène Cixous’s “The Laugh of Medusa,” 253–254. Also see Hsiao Yen-yen’s “Woshu gu wozai—lun Xi Su de yinxing shuxie” (“I Write Therefore I Am—On Cixous’ Écriture Féminine”), 57. 35. Yen Yuan-shu wrote an article criticizing Taiwanese scholars’ blind reception of the West. The following is a part of my translation about how Yen dislikes Taiwan’s sucking only of the Western academic milk. “To identify with the West, to follow the West, and to have the West as a teacher—these will absolutely not help strengthen our own country at all. Because [Taiwan] will be a student and the West will be a teacher since [Taiwan] learns new things from the West. The teacher always holds a superior status, while the student will always hold a lower status. See India as an example. See the Philippines as an example. See Malaysia as an example. See South Korea as an example. (It is not necessary to see Taiwan as an example.) They have always located themselves under the Western influences. Now none of them stepped out of the Western shadows” (Yen, “Yiqie cung fanxifang kaishi,” 9 [“Everything Starts with Being against the West”]). 36. Yen Yuan-shu points out that the reason why Taiwanese academia is colonized by Western value systems is related to the historical fact that China was defeated in the Opium Wars. Taiwan “has been still at the same position of the colonized: Westerners inherit the position of triumphant con-

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37.

38. 39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46. 47.

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quers, while [Taiwan] plays the role of the humiliated conquered. In other words, the West defeated China, and China submitted to the West . . . generations of Chinese elites . . . become agents of the West that conquered China: Westerners colonized Chinese people’s territory [after the Opium Wars], but Chinese elites, who were Westernized, helped Westerners colonize Chinese people’s hearts.” Actually, even in the early and mid-1990s, some Taiwanese scholars did express their worries about being academically colonized by Western theories. For details, consult Yen Yuan-hsu’s “Yiqie cung fanxifang kaishi” (Everything Starts with Being against the West), 8. TW6 compared Taiwanese psychologists’ attitude toward French feminist theorists and Taiwanese feminist literary scholars’ acceptance of French feminism. She contended that most Taiwanese psychologists marginalized Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Hélène Cixous as much as French psychologists—no matter how energetically Taiwanese feminist literary scholars canonized these three French feminist psychoanalysts in Zhongwai wenxue of the 1990s. Taiwanese psychologists who learned Western psychology absorbed only the mainstream of Western psychology. They were as male-centered as mainstream psychologists in France. Feminism hardly existed in mainstream Taiwanese psychological studies. Seldom did Taiwanese women psychologists feel comfortable enough carrying the feminist label. Even most French female psychologists, like Anna Freud, seldom claimed the feminist label. This journal, edited by Yang Yun-ping, ceased after the second issue. Chang Wen-huan, born in Chia-i in 1909, studied at Toyo University, Japan. He was one of the most important Taiwanese writers during the Japanese colonial era. Wu Yung-fu, born in Nan-tou in 1913, studied at Meiji University, Japan. In the 1930s, he helped establish a leftist literary journal entitled Fuermosha (Formosa). Because of the leftist literary beliefs, Wu got in a lot of political trouble and was even arrested and jailed by Japanese colonizers. Lung Ying-tsung, born in Hsin-chu in 1911, served as a member of the editorial board of a literary journal entitled Wenyi Taiwan (Literary and Artistic Taiwan). Liu has a master’s degree in foreign languages and literatures from National Taiwan University. She has near-native fluency in English. She is one of the first professors to begin teaching French feminist theories at National Taiwan University. Chu has a PhD in East Asian studies from the University of Leeds. She is now a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Chung Hsing University. Tsai Hsiu-chih finished her doctoral degree in foreign languages and literatures at National Taiwan University. She used to be Liu Yu-hsiu’s student. She teaches in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University. Hsiao completed her doctorate in foreign languages and literature at National Taiwan University. She teaches in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Tsing Hua University. Huang has a PhD in foreign languages and literatures from National Taiwan University. He teaches in the English Department at Tamkang University. Chang finished her doctoral degree in comparative literature at Southern California University. After working experience in National Sun Yat-

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sen University, she teaches in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Cheng Kung University. 48. Tsai Chen-hsing completed his PhD in foreign languages and literatures at National Taiwan University. He teaches in the English Department at Tamkang University. 49. Consult Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. 50. For details about my analysis of Su’s article on Taiwanese theoretical transfer of French feminist theories, consult my article: “Luce Irigaray across the Ocean to Taiwan: A Refreshing Greco-Roman Mythological Strategy of Theoretical Acculturation.” Other academic publications about Luce Irigaray include the following: Luce Irigaray and Mary Green’s Luce Irigaray: Teaching, Alison Stone’s Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference, Luce Irigaray’s Luce Irigaray: Key Writings, Ann J. Cahill and Jennifer L. Hansen’s Luce Irigaray, Ingeborg W. Ovesen’s Luce Irigaray, Maria Climitile and Elaine P. Miller’s Returning to Irigaray: Feminist Philosophy, Politics and the Question of Unity, and Luce Irigaray and Sylvere Lotringer’s Why Different? A Culture of Two Subjects: Interviews with Luce Irigaray.

C  F F T  W EN Y I LILU N    1. In this chapter, the words “China” and “Chinese” refer to the PRC only, not including Taiwan and greater China. 2. Western feminism is a part of the Western theoretical influx, which almost all the non-Western nations have to contend with in the modern era. For details, consult Kumari Jayawardena’s Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, ix–x; 1–24. 3. Among all the departments in Chinese academies, departments of foreign languages and literature contained the most qualified scholars to cope with theoretical texts written in Western languages. Thanks to their proficiency in Western languages, upon which their Western literary studies were based, members of these departments can professionally engage with Western feminist theories—including Western literary feminist theories—more than scholars in other fields. In addition to these people, Chinese sociologists who possess a good command of Western languages are also important for the perception of Western feminism in the PRC. 4. With regard to a rough historical outline about feminist activism and academic feminism in China, see Western scholarly research by Phyllis Anders, Tani Barlow, Susan Brownell, Christina Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, Emily Honig, Kay Johnson, Susan Jolly, Ellen Judd, Wendy Larson, Lisa Rofel, Judith Stacey, Joseph Stalin, etc. (in alphabetical order of surnames). 5. Initial feminist publications in China had almost no problems in being accepted by important presses, prestigious journals, or even mainstream mass media. This was because most East Asian feminist ideology was a tool for whole nations to modernize themselves around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. It is questionable, however, whether male modernizers in East Asia were truly sincere and honest

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feminists. However, a lot of the earliest East Asian feminist publications did not suffer from the same tragic destiny as early American feminist writers who were kicked out of the prestigious journals. The initial feminist publications in China are no exception among other early East Asian feminist publications. While the earliest Chinese feminist publications might not be very mature feminist theoretical publications, they are basic feminist notions published in major magazines, newspapers, or books. 6. I will discuss articles focusing purely on Western feminist theories, not feminist textual criticism or other topics. Take Wenyi lilun of 1991 for instance. Out of a total of about 382 articles, there were approximately 103 pieces about Marxism, socialism, Leninism, and Maoism as well as the CCP propaganda concerning literary thought. There were approximately 30 papers on comparative literature. As for articles about non-feminist literary theories and textual criticism, such as narratology, realism, rhetoric, and aesthetics, there were more than 190 articles. Forty-seven papers were about Chinese literary thought and textual criticism. Two articles were about Taiwanese literature, and two pieces were feminist textual criticism. 7. Its founder was Renmin daxue xubao ziliao she (Data Center of Publications and News at Renmin University). 8. Other journals, such as Waiguo wenxue (Foreign Literature), published at Beijing University, are also prestigious. However, most American university libraries do not own them. Therefore, these journals do not have as many American academic readers as Wenyi lilun. Because of difficulties in accessing all the journal issues of Waiguo wenxue of the 1990s, I was not able to survey and analyze Waiguo wenxue while in the United States. In the summer of 2004, however, I took a research trip to Beijing and accessed Waiguo wenxue of the 1990s in the National Library. Although Waiguo wenxue includes some applications of Western feminist theoretical concepts in literary textual analyses, it did not have as many journal articles devoted purely to feminist theories as Wenyi lilun in the 1990s. In the same summer, I also surveyed Wenxue pinglun (Literary Criticism) published at the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Science with the help of Wu Zilin, a member of the editorial board of Wenxue pinglun. Wu surveyed for me all the articles in this journal published during the 1990s. But he did not think that Wenxue pinglun had as many articles focusing purely on feminist theories as Wenyi lilun in the 1990s. I also surveyed Shanghai wenlun (Shanghai Literary Criticism) at the National Library in the summer of 2004. This journal had a special issue on feminism in 1989, the Chinese translation of Karri Lokke’s reading of Women as Mythmakers in 1986, the Chinese translation of Mary Poovey’s “Feminism and Deconstruction” in 1988, the introduction to Julia Kristeva’s Desire in Language in the 1990s, and the Chinese translation of Toril Moi’s exploration of Julia Kristeva. Unfortunately, this journal did not have many articles devoted purely to Western feminist theories in the 1990s. To be precise, it was terminated after the mid-1990s because of financial difficulties. For details, consult the following publications: Karri Lokke’s “Women as Mythmakers” (Book Review), 76–77; He Peichun’s “Zhu li ye ke li si di wa yu nüxing zhuyi” (“Julia Kristeva and Feminism”), 69–70; Toril Moi’s “Bianji yu dianfu: zhu li ye ke li si di wa” (“Borderlines and Subversion: Julia Kristeva”), 71–80; and Mary Poovy’s “Nüxing zhuyi yu jiegou zhuyi” (“Feminism and Deconstruction”), 69–73.

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9. Gorbachev’s visit coincided with the Tiananmen Square Incident. International journalists and photographers had already arrived in the Beijing area to record Gorbachev’s visit. Of course, they would not miss the Tiananmen Square Incident. In other words, the Chinese government was impotent to hide the existence of this social movement due to the presence and the pressure of the international media. Otherwise, it is likely that this social movement would have been silenced and misrepresented by the CCP. Consult other publications about this incident: Zhang Ling, Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link’s The Tiananmen Papers, Tong Shen and Marianne Yen’s Almost a Revolution, Joseph Fewsmith’s China Since Tiananmen, Robert Suettinger’s Beyond Tiananmen, Zheng Zhuyuan’s Beyond the Tiananmen Massacre, James A. R. Miles’s The Legacy of Tiananmen, Roderick MacFarquhar nad Michael Schoenhals’s Mao’s Last Revolution, Timothy Brook’s Quelling the People, Zhang Boli’s Escape from China, Zhao Suisheng’s Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior, Kelly Barth’s The Tiananmen Square Massacre, Jian Ding, Elaine Yee-man Chan, and Leslie Evans’s The China Democracy Movement and Tiananmen Incident, Antony Thomas’s The Tank Man (video), Lan Wilson’s Power, the Gun and Foreign Policy in China since the Tiananmen Incident, Wang Lingyun’s Suiyue cangcang: wo yu erzi Wang Dan (The Time Is Grey: My Son, Wang Dan, and Me) (video), etc. 10. For example, in 1991 Qian Qichen went to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Spain, and Greece. In the same year the PRC invited the British and Italian premiers to Beijing. Li Peng in 1992 visited Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and Portugal. 11. I consider the authors of these articles as researchers in the field of feminist and gender studies regardless of their gender or the field in which they hold terminal degrees. Men’s participation in East Asian feminism has been quite common because much of the earliest East Asian feminist thought was directed not at fighting male-centeredness but to help male elites modernize and reform their nations. Even on activist levels or in the academy, East Asian feminism has been unable to remove male participants or expel men. Chinese feminists are no exception. Regardless of their sincerity or motivation as male feminists, men have actively participated in Chinese academic feminism by publishing these journal articles. 12. I simply summarize these journal papers in order to show how Western feminist thought was represented in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s. My summary does not attempt to explore or comment on the depth of any feminist theorization; rather, this brief overview aims only to facilitate my comments on these Chinese feminist theoretical appropriators’ choice of French feminist theories as well as their cross-lingual and cross-cultural survival strategies in regard to the socio-political trends of the 1990s. 13. Lin Shuming highlights three key points. First, androgyny does not exclude all the differences of sexes and gender. Second, androgyny cannot respond to the challenge from the practical creative writing. In Lin’s opinion, the theme or manner of writing cannot be considered factors that help identify whether or not a literary work is a piece of écriture féminine. Nor can the first-person narrative perspective, which is frequently adopted by women writers, determine whether a work belongs to écriture féminine. Third, androgyny cannot be a requirement for literary pieces.

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14. This part of Lin Shuming’s opinions was shown in “Nüxing zhuyi piping yü makesi zhuyi ji xianshi zhuyi shixue” (“Feminist Criticism, Marxism, and Poetics of Realism”) and “Nüxing zhuyi wenxue piping yü hou jieguo zhuyi” (“Feminist Literary Criticism and Post- Structuralism”). 15. Zhang Jingyuan’s journal article was entitled “Cong xünzhao ziwuo dao dianfu zhuti: dangdai nüxing zhui wenxue piping de fazhan qüshi” (“From a Quest for Self toward a Subversion of Subjectivity: The Development of Contemporary Feminist Literary Criticism”). In this paper, Zhang believes that French feminism aims to deconstruct the whole Western cultural tradition of logocentrism. In contrast, American feminism is affected by Raymond Williams and takes advantage of mass media, such as movies, to change the traditional social ideology. 16. Ma Xinguo’s paper was entitled “Ping nüquan piping xin lishi piping ji houxiandai zhuyi wenxue de fazhan tezheng qüshi” (“On the Developing Characteristics and Trends of Feminism, New Historicist, and Post-modernist Criticism”). Ma delineates the interactions between feminism and other theories. According to Ma, Simone de Beauvoir and Elaine Showalter adopt psychoanalytical and post-structuralist ideas. Moreover, Marxism, which is based upon post-modernism, represents another methodology employed by feminists. Ma mentions Adorno and points out the large extent to which sociology, linguistics, psychology, and cultural study influenced contemporary literature. 17. Zhang Yanbing’s paper was entitled “Faguo nüxing zhuyi wenxue piping de yüyan lilun” (“The Theory of Language in French Feminist Literary Criticism”). 18. Zhou’s paper was entitled “Huanzhuang: zai bianyüan he zhongxin zhijian (nüxing xiezuo chuangtong he nüxing zhuyi wenxue piping celüe” (“The Change of Garments: Between the Margin and the Center [Women’s Writing Tradition and Strategies of Feminist Literary Criticism”]). Zhou stresses the political strategies of the authentic femininity to subvert the phallocentric convention: a mimesis of male subjectivity as an intervention from the margin toward the center, and androgyny as an ideal to combine both masculinity and femininity. 19. Liu’s article was entitled “Zhongguo nüxing wenxue de xiandaixing” (“The Modernity of Chinese Women Literature”). 20. Putting feminist theories into practice in Chinese literary pieces, in Wang Ning’s opinion, cannot merely question but also has to reconstruct Western feminism. In “Nüquan zhuyi lilun yü zhongkuo dangdai nüxing xianfong wenxue” (“Feminist Theory and Contemporary Chinese Woman’s Avantgarde Literature”), Wang lists the similarities of Chinese and Western écriture féminine: first, the transcendence of the self and previous writers in terms of the artistic style; second, a strong consciousness to create a world of the self; third, an attack on heroic male-centeredness; fourth, a focus on trivial details as a post-modernist exploration of the immediacy of experience; fifth, a deployment of the sensitive psyche; sixth, a metaphysical meditation on the heterosexual interrelationships that tends toward a Chinese version of existentialism. Moreover, Wang emphasizes the significance of an escape from the phallocentric notions of the binary oppositions. 21. Their paper is entitled “Haiwai nü zuojia ji qi wenben de lilun toushi” (“An Investigation to Overseas Chinese Woman Writers and Their Texts”). They

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22. 23.

24.

25.

26.

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use feminism and cultural studies to analyze the overseas Chinese women writers: Chen Jo-hsi, Ou-yang Tzi, Yu Li-hua, Chao Shu-hsia, and Nieh Hualing from Taiwan; Hong Ying and Zha Jianying from the PRC; and Sun Ailing from the Southern East Asia. Li’s paper is entitled “Wenyi xingxue chulun” (“An Introduction to Literary and Artistic Sexology”). Wen Jiehua’s paper is entitled “Xifang nüxing zhuyi meixue: fazhan yü piping” (“The Western Feminist Aesthetics: Development and Criticism”). Wen notes that feminist aesthetic formulas attacked Kant’s stress on rationality and harmony, which results from understanding and imagination, and Kant’s jargon of the ideal observer. In addition, Wen challenges the notions of “estrangeness” and “de-familiarness,” both celebrated by formalism and modernism. Some feminist scholars focusing on the PRC suspect that Zhang Jingyuan’s translation of the three French feminist theorists in Dangdai nüxing zhuyi wenxue piping (Contemporary Feminist Criticism) indirectly initiated the “French flavor” in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s. I do not mean to deny the influence of Zhang’s translation. However, I hesitate to believe that only one book could easily dominate Wenyi lilun of the 1990s. In addition, Zhang’s book introduces not merely Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva but also Anglo-American feminist theorists, such as Mary Jacobus, Adrienne Rich, Elaine Showalter, Susan Gubar, Sandra Gilbert, Juliet Mitchell, Gayatri C. Spivak, Mary Poovey, and Jacqueline Rose. It does not seem convincing that all these Anglo-American feminists introduced in Zhang’s book do not seem to impact the Chinese reception of Western feminist theories very much but that the sections on French theorists in the same book affected Wenyi lilun’s writers so profoundly in the 1990s. The same argument applies to Bao Xiaolan’s, Wang Zheng’s, or Kang Zhengguo’s introduction to Western feminist theories in the 1990s. I do not find enough evidence to prove that these three people managed to influence the whole editorial board of Wenyi lilun so deeply in the 1990s. Other feminist literary critics in the PRC suspected that the preference for French feminist psychoanalysis focusing on women’s bodies in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s was related to the emergence of literary creative writing in the 1990s in which women sketch themselves and their own bodies. I do not mean to invalidate this possibility. However, Chinese feminist literary critics have not clearly outlined the extent to which Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Hélène Cixous directly influenced this writing or which literary masterpieces and which Chinese women writers are representative of their impact. Wenyi lilun has not proved any interrelation among Cixous, Kristeva, Irigaray, and Chinese women writers in the 1990s either. When Toril Moi and I differentiate between American feminists’ practicality and French feminists’ theoreticality, we do not mean that American feminists were unable to deal with theory in the 1990s. Neither do we imply that French feminists were unable to participate in or develop their own activist movements in the 1990s. We also do not aim to generalize any kinds of feminism. Rather, what I want to point out is the fact that this comparative reading of different kinds of feminism did exist in the 1990s. For details, consult the website: http://www.algi.qc.ca/forum/algi-presse /messages/36.html (website information retrieved in March 2011).

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27. Frankly speaking, minorities, foreigners, emigrants, and immigrants are usually used and sacrificed depending upon the Chinese majority’s different political needs in different eras. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, Chinese minorities’ experiences with oppression were gainfully employed by the ROC to convince supporters of the need to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and then construct a new nation, which would never subjugate any minority. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the national father of the ROC, stressed influential emigrants and foreign human resources because he depended upon them to survive calamities in exotic areas, such as Japan and England. As for the early ROC’s attention to immigrants, it probably resulted from Western missionaries who assisted cultural reforms, such as anti-foot-binding, Western educational systems, and new medical networks. In addition, immigrants’ financial backgrounds helped Chinese folks modernize banks, universities, hospitals, and so forth. In the early stages of the PRC, Chinese minorities were used to celebrate the cultural space for racial multiplicity within the overall Communist union. For details, see Cheung Siu-Woo’s “Subject and Representation: Identity Politics in Southeast Guizhou” (PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 1996, pp. 182–281). However, when they were no longer useful and necessary in terms of governmental and political benefits, they were often disregarded. For instance, “from the Anti-Rightist Campaign through the Cultural Revolution, [the original Communist] policy of protecting heterogeneity was dramatically reversed . . . a more uniform socialist culture was . . . to supersede the local differences” (Schein, 387). Later on in the 1980s and 1990s, minorities were increasingly differentiated. For instance, women of aboriginal tribes became a part of the representatives of minority cultures in China. Unfortunately, this minority was habitually eroticized, (self-)objectified, and emphasized only to further Chinese Communism’s multicultural propaganda and used merely as a tool in national image-management. See Louisa Schein’s “Gender and Internal Orientalism in China,” 398–404. Whether there were truly sincere and nonpolitical concerns about minority women, female immigrants, and women emigrants is still a riddle, though the Tibetan women’s association, which I introduce toward the middle of this chapter, may offer important insights. 28. My exploration of PRC feminist theoretical gatekeepers, such as their selective criteria, is in the final section of this chapter. 29. See the earlier endnote about Gorbachev’s visit to the PRC in the summer of 1989. 30. See Sinhuanet News dated September 4, 1995. 31. The Tibetan Women’s Association, which I explore in the following paragraph, is an eloquent illustration of the fact that radical feminist activism, without Communist political permission, can hardly survive in the PRC. 32. For more information about the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, see the following publications: Beijing Women Organizing for Change, Chinese Women Organizing, Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization, etc. Also consult Dorothy O. Helly’s “The Fourth World Conference on Women: Beijing ‘95” and Uwe Hentschel, Gudmund Smith, Wolfram Ehlers, and Juris Draguns’s The Concept of Defense Mechanisms in Contemporary Psychology. 33. For details, consult the website: http://www.tibet.org (website information retrieved in March 2011).

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34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

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The Tibetan Women’s Association is a feminist organization. There are three fundamental concerns of the organization: first, violations of Tibetan women’s rights in Tibet, especially concerning their reproductive rights; second, increasing torture and imprisonment of Tibetan women; third, discrimination against Tibetans in education, health, and employment in Tibet. There are other overseas women’s organizations. For instance, the Chinese Society for Women’s Studies (CSWS) was established in the United States in the 1990s. For details, consult the website: http://csws.org. In the PRC, small women’s organizations, such as Funü chuanmei jiance wangluo (Women’s Media Watch Network) or Shaanxi funü lilun hunyin jiating yanjiuhui (Shaanxi Association for Women and Family), regard themselves as nonprofit organizations without formal support of the central government of the CCP. However, they were still less influential than Fulian in the 1990s. Some researchers wonder whether they “display the same rigid notion of political correctness . . . in negotiations” (Hsiung, Jaschok, Milwertz, and Chan, 11; 193–226). These small women’s organizations in the PRC have seldom organized any radical strikes or street parades. Some of the members of these organizations confessed to me that it would be impossible for the CCP to allow radical feminist social movements without governmental permission. Drapchi Prison is notorious for its poor living conditions. Torture and illtreatment by prison officials are commonplace. Political prisoners are often beaten severely and shocked with electric cattle prods. Nuns and other female prisoners have reportedly been raped. In Tibet, the current Chinese Communist government has been conducting a ruthless crackdown on any form of political dissent. Tibetan politics and religion are very closely linked, so the focus of this crackdown has been on monks and nuns of the Buddhist faith. Also see New York Times dated February 27, 2004. Fulian, the Chinese Communist women’s organization, has been an exception. Although Fulian “claim[ed] NGO status,” it is approved and affirmed by the government (Hsiung, Jaschok, Milwertz, and Chan, 10). Women victims have usually nowhere to turn to except for Fulian or other, smaller women’s organizations, such as hotlines and legal advice centers, which are available in only a few cities. For details, consult Cecilia Milwertz’s Beijing Women Organizing for Change: A New Wave of the Chinese Women’s Movement, 35. Even if these organizations try to help women victims, their assistance is still limited when compared with what crisis centers in the West could offer. For instance, these Chinese women’s organizations usually forced rapists’ or abusers’ bosses to punish or fire the rapists and abusers, according to interviews in Through Chinese Women’s Eyes. However, it remains questionable whether they could provide raped or abused women with 24-hour shelter, protective orders, or sessions of psychological counseling twice a week in exactly the same way that Western feminist activists often supplied to victims in the 1990s. (For the aid American feminist activists provide to victims, please see Andrea B. Rushing’s “Surviving Rape.”) Geremie Barmé commented on the leader cult continually promoted by the party propaganda machine in the 1980s and 1990s in the following terms: “While the Party promoted the great revolutionaries of the past to confirm its present authority, the masses often responded to them as revived deities, bereft of immediate political and historical significance, embodying

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39.

40.

41.

42.

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rather traditional charismatic elements: Mao Zedong, the laconic and brilliant thinker and strategist, Zhou Enlai the loyal minister who works himself to death, Jiang Qing the fickle and crazed woman, Lin Biao an evil genius and a host of other revolutionaries who made history. Compared to the gray bureaucrats of today—Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji, et al.—who rose to power through murky bureaucratic infighting—these are real saints (or devils)” (Barmé, “The Greying of Chinese Culture,” 13.2–13.52). “A realm in which the crude and military style of Stalinist (or Maoist) rule with its attendant purges, denunciations, and struggles [had] finally given way (or was giving way, as was the case in China) to a new dawn of ‘soft,’ civilian government. Technocrats [reformulated] the social contract, one in which consensus [replaced] coercion . . . Censorship [was] no longer the job of a hamfisted apparat, but a partnership involving artists, audiences, and commissars alike. This [was] ‘progressive censorship,’ and it had an aesthetic all of its own. The new dispensation [was] described in various ways: the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel [spoke] of it as ‘invisible violence,’ while Haraszti . . . dubbed it ‘the velvet prison.’ And it [was] a prison with an aesthetic all of its own (self-) repression itself . . . become a form of high art” (Barmé, “The Chinese Velvet Prison, 62–63). “In the extreme case, the People’s Daily not only failed to print full accounts of what was taking place in the streets [during the Tiananmen Square Incident], but published what seemed to be ludicrous and irrelevant reports instead. Looking at the paper on the third day following the military crackdown, one would have no idea that anything had taken place in the streets at all. The front page was full of minor news from outlying areas, most attributed to provincial newspapers . . . This doubtless reflected a ban on coverage of the ‘real’ news; but the lack of substance also suggests a deliberate work slowdown by reporters; and in addition, the ridiculous assortment of mundane stories that editors chose to run conveys a sense of the frustration they must have felt at the time” (Tan, 287). See Yindao dubai (The Vagina Monologues) directed by Ai Xiaoming and Song Sufeng in Zhongshan University in 2004. Also consult Ai Xiaoming, Song Sufeng, and Dai Fan’s Yindao dubai: muhou gushi (The Vagina Monologues: Stories from China) (video). The Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Taiwan University invited Toril Moi to give a speech in 1999. The impact of Toril Moi’s speech was much less than that of Julia Kristeva’s trip to China in the 1970s.

C  F O  O: F T R-T, F L,  “N--” 1. This chapter is an expansion of my article entitled “The Struggles of Taiwanese Feminism,” in Women in Taiwan: Sociocultural Perspectives. 2. The rise of the Democratic Progressive Party is closely related to social movements and feminist activism after the lifting of martial law. It is also closely related to current Taiwanese people’s comprehension, interpretation, and acceptance of all kinds of protests, petitions, parades, and social movements,

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including feminist protests, feminist petitions, feminist parades, and feminist social movements. I mention these details in chapter 2. 3. A part of this chapter derives from my chapter “The Struggles of Taiwanese Feminism,” in Women in Taiwan: Sociocultural Perspectives. I thank the executive director of the university press for permitting my inclusion of this section in this book. 4. Mallika Dutt wrote an article about the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum in Beijing in the same issue. However, her research subject is US women of color, not Chinese women. This is the reason why I do not list her article in this section. For details, see Mallika Dutt’s “Some Reflections on US Women of Color and the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum in Beijing, China.” 5. PRC feminism can be broader than Chinese Communist feminism, especially when feminists in Mainland China cope with gender issues that have less to do with Communism or socialism without Chinese Communist political support. For example, some feminist scholars introduced French feminist psychoanalytical theories into Mainland Chinese academy and research journals. After Mainland Chinese gender researchers’ theoretical transplantation, the sinicized version of French feminist theories can be regarded as a sort of PRC feminism, but not necessarily Communist feminism. For details, consult my journal article entitled “French Feminist Theories in Wenyi lilun of the 1990s” in Feminismo/s 3 (2004): 235–260. This article is also included in Ohio State University’s MCLC online resource center: http:// mclc.osu.edu/rc/studbib3.htm#R (website information retrieved in March 2011). Examples of other research or publications that directly or indirectly touch upon the nuance between Chinese Communist feminism and PRC feminism include Christina Kelley Gilmartin’s “Mobilizing Women, the Early Experiences of the Chinese Communist Party 1920–1927” (PhD Dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania); Peggie Thorn Vannozzi’s “The Evolution of Chinese Womanhood: From Confucian Prohibition to Communist Participation” (MA Thesis at the University of Nevada); Su Hui’s “Womanhood under Chinese Communist Control”; Peter George’s From Mao towards Full Equality; Christina Kelley Gilmartin’s Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics and Mass Movements in the 1920s; Tina Chen’s “Women’s Roles in Churches: Gender Dichotomy in Chinese Churches in North America and Mainland China” (Thesis); Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches; and Ai Xiaoming, Song Sufeng, and Dai Fan’s Yindao dubai: muhou gushi (The Vagina Monologues: Stories from China). Among these publications and research, Christina Kelley Gilmartin’s doctoral dissertation and book unmasks a clear boundary between PRC feminism and Chinese Communist feminism before the establishment of the PRC. Peggie Thorn Vannozzi’s master’s thesis reveals the fact that Chinese Communist feminism is only a part of Chinese feminism, not the whole of Chinese feminism. Tina Chen’s thesis shows that the religious parts of PRC gender dichotomy concern Chinese Mainlanders in churches, though Communists, including Chinese Communists, are supposed to be atheists or anti-theists. The Mainland Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues suffered from difficulties in obtaining the governmental

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6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

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approval in Shanghai; later on Ai Xiaoming and her feminist peers finally made it possible in Guangzhou, Canton. William C. Hunter’s influential books are The Fan Kwae at Canton and Bits of Old China. One of Elijah Coleman Bridgman’s most significant publications is Chinese Chrestomathy in the Canton Dialect. Published in 1841, it was the first book to use romanization to record Chinese pronunciations. The fact that this book was published in Macao supports my argument that even a tiny island is important for the whole Chinese culture. I hesitate to agree with Tsien Tsuen-hsuin. I am not sure whether the University of California established its Agassiz Professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature in 1890; it may have been earlier, in 1872 (see the website of Berkeley’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures: http://ealc.berkeley.edu/about/index.htm; website retrieved in January 2011). The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California in Berkeley, was one of the first academic departments devoted to the study of Asia established in the United States. Its history dates back to 1872 when one of the founders of the University of California, Edward Tompkins—convinced that the future of the state and its citizens lay not in the Atlantic ‘old world’ but in the Pacific—presented the then fouryear old institution with its first endowed chair, the Agassiz Professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature. More than a century later, the Department continues to build upon its distinguished tradition of scholarship and service as an innovative and vibrant center for the teaching and research of East Asian languages, literatures, and cultures. In 1901, the Department began to develop a curriculum in Japanese to complement its initial strengths in Chinese, and in 1942 became the first department in the country to offer instruction in Korean. By the 1960s—in the wake of an unprecedented expansion in the postwar era of Area Studies programs in the American academy—Berkeley and the department cemented its national pre-eminence in the study of East Asia, and played host to many of the most renowned modern scholars of Chinese and Japanese linguistics, literature, and cultural history. See my delineation in chapter 2. For details, see my interviews with Taiwanese feminist scholars. In the 1980s and 1990s, what Taiwanese feminist scholars found was funü yanjiu zhongxin (women’s studies centers or programs) that do not offer any undergraduate or graduate degrees in women’s studies. In the early 2000s, all the graduate institutes in this research field were prevented from being Funü yanjiu suo (Graduate Institute of Women’s Studies). They had to be named Xingbie yanjiu suo (Graduate Institute of Gender Studies). This kind of “witch hunt,” in Taiwanese history, is called baise kongbu (white terror). Chang Liang-tze returned to Taiwan after the lifting of martial law and served as the founding chair of the Department of Taiwanese Language and Language Education at National Hsin-chu Teachers’ College in 1997. Actually, this results in not only the ignorance of the difference between Asian feminism and Asian American feminism or the difference between Chinese American feminism and Chinese feminism. This also results in the ignorance

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of various kinds of non-American feminism. For instance, in American feminist scholars’ books on feminism, seldom can Belgian feminism or women in Hungary be considered popular and important research subjects. Feminist Studies: The Journal has a few articles on feminism or women in African countries. However, most American feminist scholars’ tendency to focus on their own American local gender issues and to have non-American gender studies as “side-dishes” and their “diversity” is still undeniable. 14. The PRC has revised, acculturated, sinicized, and localized Marxism, Stalinism, and Leninism. The Chinese Communist Party has developed Maoism and Chinese people’s own version of Marxism. However, seldom do Marxist scholars or feminist scholars in America or in the West undertake sufficient research on the combination of Chinese Marxism and Chinese feminism. Tani E. Barlow’s New Asian Marxisms is probably one of the few exceptions. This book includes Marxist thought in Japan, India, and South Korea. However, in this book various kinds of Chinese feminism or women in the Chinese cultural realm do not seem to be the main concern. In Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua, Wang Jing and Tani E. Barlow treat Dai Jinhua as a “feminist Marxist.” For details, see the preface to Dai Jinhua’s Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua.

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