He Zhen (or He-Yin Zhen, as signed in her published writings- to make a case for the preservation of matrilineality in names) was a noted feminist thinker in early twentieth century China.1 Her ideas are characterised by an iconoclastic flair, contrasting majorly from the feminist thoughts of her contemporaries: especially in her unabashed critique of the writings of her peers (predominantly men), and her innovative study of women and womanhood in China using the conceptual category of nannü (untranslatable due to the extent and versatility of its usage in her analysis).2 The 1910s, which constitute the latter half of the period during which Zhen published her writings, also witnessed the birth and rise of what came to be known as the New Culture Movement- a near decade-long effort of young Chinese intellectuals to push for reform in China.
Given the close proximity (spatial and temporal) of these two, it is natural to ask the following question: was this overlap of the New Culture movement and He-Yin Zhen’s feminist theory merely chronological? or was there an ideological synergy between the two?
I will briefly examine some key features of He-Yin Zhen’s feminist theory, and assess whether they played a part in shaping the ideas that emerged from the New Culture Movement. There are two motivations for this: the first is to analyse the popularity of Zhen’s ideas at the time of publishing. Were they an instant hit? Second, and related, is to explore the relationship between ideas and practice- I question the extent to which Zhen’s theory actually led to reform.
Zhen’s feminism and the New Culture Movement share a vehement anti-Confucian flavour. He-Yin’s ideas were rooted in critiquing Confucianism: in her conception of nannü, a gendered human experience is presented as a counter to the theories of human experience in Confucianism.3 The New Culture Movement, too, in its push for reevaluating Chinese culture, was sharply critical of Confucianism.4 Here, it should be noted that Zhen’s attack on Confucianism is amongst the first of its kind- and thus, it paved the way for later condemnation- the New Culture Movement’s critique, then, being one such instance of it.5
Further, the New Culture Movement’s call for reform, as well as its emphasis on women’s liberation, can also, in sentiment, be attributed to Zhen’s ideas. But beyond these general similarities, there exist some key divergences.
First, and most notably, is vastly differing attitudes towards the West. Persistent in Zhen’s writing is a disapproving outlook of the West. She believed that the idea that women are free in the West is flawed- and therefore, the West is by no means an appropriate model for China to adopt. Further, she claims that Chinese men that look to the West through eyes of envy, and express a desire for emulation (even if this involves suffrage, and women’s education) are implicitly motivated by a desire to continue the subordination of women.6
The New Culturalists, on the other hand, looked to the West as a source of inspiration, especially in their reevaluation of the institution of family in China. They pushed for xiao jiating (‘small family’) as a new way of looking at families, in the vein of the nuclear family model of the West.7 While the motivations for this model- the sexual freedom and economic independence of women- are in line with Zhen’s feminist theory, Zhen would disagree with this model; not only because of its imitation of the West, but also because of her view that family as an institution, in any form, is flawed. She argued that the economic dependence of women was not because of family, but rather, due to the belief that there are specific jobs for women and men.8 Insofar as this belief persisted, any model of family could not guarantee economic independence for women- this could only take place when women are free to choose their jobs.
Finally, Zhen continuously emphasised in her writings that women’s issues were not subordinate to those of the nation- and China’s progress was necessarily tied to women’s liberation.9 Here, again, the New Culturalists diverge-towards the end of the 1910s and the beginning of the 1920s, they had to shed their individualism and eventually show support for national interests.10
Evident in this recurring divide is what has been described as an ‘asymmetry between her [Zhen’s] theory and her history’- we see that this asymmetry persists in the events that followed her theory too.11 Peter Zarrow is more optimistic on this account, and argues that Zhen’s influence shouldn’t be measured in the short term; rather, in the long term we see that the freshness of Zhen’s ideas widened the scope of later discourse on women’s issues.12
It can be concluded that the absence of immediate influence and popularity reflects, counterintuitively, the significance of Zhen’s writings- her analyses being ahead of their time and innovative. Nevertheless, it is also worth noting that there is a distance between her ideas of reform, and the actuality of it.
- ‘Introduction’ in Liu, Lydia He, Rebecca E. Karl and Dorothy Ko (eds.), The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, pp. 2-3 [↩]
- Ibid., p. 10 [↩]
- ‘Introduction’ in Liu et. al, Chinese Feminism, p. 15 [↩]
- Glosser, Susan L., Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915-1953, p. 6 [↩]
- ‘The Historical Context’ in Liu et. al, Chinese Feminism, p. 36 [↩]
- Ibid., pp. 1-4 [↩]
- Linda K. Kerber, ‘Foreword’, in Glosser, Chinese Visions, pp. x-xii [↩]
- Zarrow, Peter, ‘He Zhen and Anarcho-feminism in China’, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 47, no.4 (1988), pp. 806-807 [↩]
- Ibid. p. 796 [↩]
- Glosser, Chinese Visions, p. 220 [↩]
- ‘The Historical Context’ in Liu et. al, Chinese Feminism, p. 28 [↩]
- Zarrow, ‘He Zhen and Anarcho-feminism’, p. 810-811 [↩]