The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism (Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies)

The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism is a history of thinking about the subject of women in twentieth-century China. Tani E. Barlow illustrates the theories and conceptual categories that Enlightenment Chinese intellectuals have developed to describe the collectivity of women. Demonstrating how generations of these theorists have engaged with international debates over eugenics, gender, sexuality, and the psyche, Barlow argues that as an Enlightenment project, feminist debate in China is at once Chinese and international. She reads social theory, psychoanalytic thought, literary criticism, ethics, and revolutionary political ideologies to illustrate the range and scope of Chinese feminist theory’s preoccupation with the problem of gender inequality. She reveals how, throughout the cataclysms of colonial modernity, revolutionary modernization, and market socialism, prominent Chinese feminists have gathered up the remainders of the past and formed them into social and ethical arguments, categories, and political positions, ceaselessly reshaping progressive Enlightenment sexual liberation theory. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1 History and Catachresis 2 Theorizing ‘‘Women’’ 3 Foundations of Progressive Chinese Feminism 4 Woman and Colonial Modernity in theEarly Thought of Ding Ling 5 Woman under Maoist Nationalism in theThought of Ding Ling 6 Socialist Modernization and the MarketFeminism of Li Xiaojiang 7 Dai Jinhua, Globalization, and 1990sPoststructuralist Feminism Conclusion Appendix to Chapter 1: Historiographyand Catachresis Notes Works Cited Index History And Catachresis -- Theorizing Women -- Foundations Of Progressive Chinese Feminism -- Woman And Colonial Modernity In The Early Thought Of Ding Ling -- Woman Under Maoist Nationalism In The Thought Of Ding Ling -- Socialist Modernization And The Market Feminism Of Li Xiaojiang -- Dai Jinhua, Globalization And 1990s Poststructuralist Feminism. Tani E. Barlow. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [443]-470) And Index. Barlow documents the history of “woman” as a category in twentieth century Chinese history, tracing the question of gender through various phases in the literary career of Ding Ling, a major modern Chinese writer.