Feminism: An organic or an extremist position? On Tien Yee as represented by He Zhen

Positions

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 779-800

  Liu, Huiying ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949187256     PISSN: 10679847     EISSN: 15278271     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10679847-11-3-779     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. Translator's note: Interestingly, the term jieji, which later came to mean "class" in the Marxist sense, was used by He Zhen to include unequal relations between classes and between men and women.
2. "Tian Yee xunbao qi" [Tien Yee's publication announcement], Fubao, 15 June 1907.
3. Qu Feizi, "Pohuai shehui lun" [On destroying the society], Tien Yee, no. 1 (10 June 1907): 12.
4. Translator's note: Nü Wa is a goddess in Chinese genesis mythology who is known for mending the leaking heaven.
5. Da Hong, "Nü Wa wei nu jie" [Nü Wa is a woman hero]
6. and Shou Min, "Lun nüzi shou zhi zhi yuanying" [The reasons why women are constrained], both in Tien Yee, no. 1 (10 June 1907): 34-35.
7. "Zhen zhi liu ri nüxuesheng shu" [A letter from He Zhen addressed to women students studying in Japan], Tien Yee, no. 1 (10 June 1907): 39.
8. Translator's note: This is a reference to Liu Shipei and He Zhen.
9. See Liu Yazi, "Shenzhou nübao xu" [Foreword for China's Woman's Newspaper] (1907), collected in Liu Yazi xuanji [Selected works of Liu Yazi] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1989), 1:90.
10. Gong Quan, "Shehuizhuyi jiangxihui diyici kaihui jishi" [The proceedings of the first conference of the Socialist Lecture Series], Tien Yee, no. 6 (1 September 1907): 30-31.
11. Jiang Jun and Li Xingzhi, Zhongguo jindai de wuzhengfu zhuyi sichao [The anarchist trend in near-modern China] (Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1991), 39-41.
12. Shi Fu, "Zhi wuzhengfudang wanguo dahui shu" [A presentation to the international conference on anarchism], Min Sheng, no. 16 (27 June 1914).
13. Jiang Jun and Li Xingzhi, Zhongguo jindai de wuzhengfu zhuyi sichao, 38.
14. See Peter Zarrow, "Women's Liberation and Anarcho-feminism," in Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), chap. 6.
15. See "Bianxuan zhe xu" [Editor's foreword], in Liu Shipei wenxuan [Selected works of Liu Shipei], ed. Li Miaogen (Shanghai: Yuandong chubanshe, 1996), 2.
16. Tao Chengzhang, Zhe An Ji Lüe [A brief documentation of the Zhejiang case] (1916), 56. The version I have seen has no information on the publisher and the place of publication.
17. Feng Ziyou, "Ji Liu Guanghan bianjie shimo" [The beginning and the end of Liu Guanghan's defection], in Geming Yishi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 2:214.
18. "Manshu de sixiang wenti" [Issues about Manshu's thoughts], in Liu Yazi xuanji, 1:305-306.
19. Zhen Shu [He Zhen], "Nüzi xuanbu shu" [Women's declaration], Tien Yee, no. 1 (10 June 1907): 3-5; emphasis is mine to highlight that at least He Zhen did not advocate the idea of gong fu gong qi in those words.
20. As far as I know, He Zhen in her "Jingji geming yu nüzi geming" [Economic revolution and women's revolution] made the following statement: "At the beginning of time, apart from the communist system of property, people also practiced a communist system of husbands and wives and did not yet treat women as private property" (Tien Yee, no. 13-14 [30 December 1907]: 9). If such a description of an ancient regime inspired by a critique of the marriage system in reality could be accused of advocating gong fu gong qi then such an accusation can only be false.
21. For example, Jü Pu's "Nannü zajiao shuo" [A discussion on crossbreeding of men and women], New Century, no. 42 (11 April 1908): 3, discussed how in ancient times there was no strict restriction on crossbreeding between men and women and hence a fast evolution of the human species. This article had an appreciation for crossbreeding, even including copulation between women and animals. But this was not the position or attitude shared by all anarchists, and there is no way to attribute this view to He Zhen.
22. Zhen Shu, "Nüzi jiefang wenti" [On the question of women's liberation], Tien Yee, no. 7 (15 September 1907);
23. see also "Zhen zhi liu ri nüxuesheng shu," 39-40;
24. "Dongjing laihan" [A letter from Tokyo by a Chinese student studying in Japan], Tien Yee, no. 2 (25 June 1907): 41. All the above criticized some "progressive" or "radical" intellectual women who indulged themselves in the name of freedom and liberation.
25. Zhen Shu, "Nüzi jiefang wenti."
26. Tien Yee, no. 3 (10 July 1907): 2; emphasis in original.
27. Zhen Shu, "Nüzi xuanbu shu," 6.
28. Zhen, "Sangang geming," New Century, no. 11 (31 August 1907).
29. Zhen Shu, "Nannü zhi geming," New Century, no. 7 (3 August 1907).
30. Jü Pu, "Nannü zajiao shuo," 42.
31. This passage was cited in "Nü de pian" [On women's virtue] by the same author published in New Century, no. 48 (23 May 1908).
32. Peter Zarrow speculated that Jü Pu might be a pen name of Cai Yuanpei. See Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, 291 n. 47.
33. Jü Pu, "Hui jia tan," New Century, no. 49 (30 May 1908).
34. Although Tien Yee published articles arguing points similar to those in New Century, such as Han Yi's "Hui jia lun" [On destroying the family]) (no. 4) and Gao Yabin's "Fei gang pian" [On abolishing the principles] (no. 11-12), there is no solid evidence that these articles were written by He Zhen. At best we can allow that He Zhen might have identified with these arguments as an editor.
35. Zhen Shu, "Nüzi fuchou lun," Tien Yee, no. 3 (10 July 1907): 1.
36. Jü Pu, "Hui jia tan."
37. See Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, 293 n. 76. The view that He Zhen considered men to be the natural enemy probably was inferred from a sentence in "Nuzi xuanbu shu" that "men are women's big enemy." But this is not sufficient evidence that He Zhen saw men as the primary enemy. According to the context in which this sentence was situated, He Zhen was crying out ear-shattering words against a history of thousands of years of inequality between men and women.