{"id":219,"date":"2019-10-18T12:23:05","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T12:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/?p=219"},"modified":"2019-10-18T12:26:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T12:26:37","slug":"chinas-rousseau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/2019\/10\/chinas-rousseau\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s Rousseau"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jin Tianhe, author of The Women\u2019s Bell<\/em>, is mostly remembered for being not only a revolutionary nationalist in late Qing China, but also one of the primary advocates for gender equality in that period. Presumably his tendency to approach the issue from a Western perspective led other feminists of his time to favourably call him \u201ctruly China\u2019s Rousseau\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> or \u201cour women\u2019s Rousseau.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup>
\nHowever, this comparison may seem rather bizarre, if not sarcastic, to readers who are familiar with some of Rousseau\u2019s writing beyond the famous Social Contract<\/em>, as the Swiss 18th<\/sup>-century philosopher was anything but progressive when it comes to the propagation of women\u2019s rights. In fact, Rousseau\u2019s views become especially obvious when looking at Emile, or On Education.<\/em> Here, he claims that women were \u201cmade specially to please men\u201d and are supposed to be \u201cpassive and week.\u201d3<\/a><\/sup> The nature of women therefore, according to him, requires a special type of education:<\/p>\n

Thus all women’s education must be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to be loved and honoured by them, to bring them up young, to care for them as adults, to counsel them, to console them, to make their lives pleasant and sweet: these are the duties of women in all times, and what they must be taught from their childhood.<\/em>4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Were then Chinese feminists comparing Jin Tianhe to Rousseau simply not aware of this rather conservative position? Not according to Wenxuan Peng, who claims that Emile, or On Education<\/em> was rather popular among Chinese intellectuals in the late Qing period and even inspired a new trend of using novels for education.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Els van Dongen and Yuan Chang present a solution to this paradox: They argue that Rousseau and his work in late Qing China became symbolic for a wider trend of selectively using elements of Western (political) philosophy in support of already existing theories with Chinese origin. For this purpose, two elements of Rousseau\u2019s thought were particularly interesting: First, his advocacy for a utopian revolution, and second his proclamation that all men are equal. Especially the latter was also appropriated by anarchists like Liu Shipei when arguing for gender equality.6<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 We can therefore see that China\u2019s Rousseau was a very versatile figure as, rather than there being only one canonical interpretation of his philosophy, his theories were adapted to multiple different and individual causes.<\/p>\n

Thus, when the comparison is drawn between Jin Tianhe and Rousseau, we can assume that the feminism of the former was thought to be largely based on the latter\u2019s call for equality of all men, broadened in Chinese interpretation to equality of all humans.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, scholars like Lydia Liu, co-author of The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory<\/em>, think that at the same time \u201cthe linkage between Jin and Rousseau sarcastically pointed at the misogynous, androcentric nature of nationalist feminism\u201d7<\/a><\/sup> promoted by Jin Tianhe, among others. This nationalist feminism was already severely criticized in late Qing China by women like He-Yin Zhen who stated that, rather than having the women\u2019s benefit in mind, the feminism of nationalist-progressive Chinese men was mostly born out of their own desire to imitate Western nations and receive international appreciation for their efforts.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Lastly, He-Yin Zhen also argued that the realization of nationalist feminism would only lead to a new systematic way in which men would claim women as property.9<\/a><\/sup> Surprisingly, this resonates with yet another aspect of Rousseau\u2019s opinion on women and their education. In a passage already attacked by Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Women<\/em>, Rousseau makes the following statement: \u201cEducate women like men, [\u2026] and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us.\u201d10<\/a><\/sup>
\nBased on this quote alone, the comparison between Jin Tianhe\u2019s nationalist feminism and Jean-Jacques Rousseau maybe no longer seems so far-fetched at all.<\/p>\n

  1. Ono, Kazuko and Fogel, Joshua A. Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850-1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989, p. 59. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. Ibid., p. 58. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, or On Education. New York: Basic Books, 1979, p. 358. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. Translated from\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. \u00c9mile, ou de l\u2019\u00c9ducation.<\/em> https:\/\/gallica.bnf.fr\/essentiels\/anthologie\/education-femmes<\/a>. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  5. Cf. Penx, Wenxuan. Rousseau and His Chinese \u2018Apprentices\u2019: Interpretation, Adaption and Internalisation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Thoughts in Late Qing China in the Realm of Literature and Social Concepts through Intellectual Elites<\/em>, 2017. https:\/\/openaccess.leidenuniv.nl\/handle\/1887\/52052<\/a>. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  6. Cf. Van Dongen, Els and Chang, Yuan. \u201cAfter Revolution: Reading Rousseau in 1990s China.\u201d Contemporary Chinese Thought<\/em> 48, no.1 (2017): 1-13. https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/10971467.2017.1383805<\/a>. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  7. Liu quoted in Neubauer, Daene E. and Kaur, Surinderpal. Gender and the Changing Face of Higher Education in Asia Pacific. Berlin: Springer, 2019, p. 92. https:\/\/books.google.co.uk\/books?id=npaDDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA92&lpg=PA92&dq=jin+tianhe+china%27s+rousseau&source=bl&ots=Qs-kash_3z&sig=ACfU3U11oA6Lp5kiwSabip6BUIE8Hp8wpA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizprqGyqPlAhVxTxUIHX65D7gQ6AEwBHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=jin%20tianhe%20china’s%20rousseau&f=false<\/a>. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  8. Cf. Liu, Lydia et al. The Birth of Chinese Feminism : Essential Texts in Transnational Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013, p. 2. https:\/\/ebookcentral.proquest.com\/lib\/st-andrews\/reader.action?docID=1103412&ppg=150<\/a>. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  9. Cf. ibid. p. 2 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  10. Rousseau, quoted in Wollstonecraft, quoted in Darling, John and Van De Pijpekamp, Maaike. \u201cRousseau on the Education, Domination and Violation of Women.\u201d British Journal of Educational Studies <\/em>42, no. 2 (1994), 115-132. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3122332?seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents<\/a>. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jin Tianhe, author of The Women\u2019s Bell, is mostly remembered for being not only a revolutionary nationalist in late Qing China, but also one of the primary advocates for gender equality in that period. Presumably his tendency to approach the issue from a Western perspective led other feminists of his time to favourably call him … Continue reading “China’s Rousseau”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}