Chinese Woman In Medium And Modernity

Taking the medium of China in a century (from 1900 to 1999) as the social fact ,and the modernity as the back ground, the thesis approaches how Chinese woman faced and encountered the so called " modernity " from angle of gender and explains how the woman of China was moulded as social gender in the process of modernization of China ,in other words ,how the idea modernity which was dominated by man moulded woman, so as to reveal the male culture character and inquire into the inner link between women and modernism . The whole thesis includes the following five parts:The first part: IntroductionThis part is about the background , the aim and the method of the chosen subject. It also offers a general survey of the related academic situation and the achievement of the study so as to show the theoretical and practical value of the chosen subject. The second part: The section of bodyThis section is about how the press of China explained women's body .The history of Chinese modernization in twentieth century, is also the process that all kind of power continuously moulded women's body. In the course that the advanced Chinese pursued the modernization,the woman' body which was considered as a piece of matter was sublated at the very beginning as the symbol of the nation's weakness. The modernization of the nation required the women's body must be liberated from the state in which the women's body was considered as a piece of matter under the autocracy of feudalistic society. So the liberation of Chinese woman began with the liberation of the body.The movement of the body liberation was focused on the expression of surpassing the body which was considered as a piece of matter during the Revolution of 1911 and the May Fourth Movement. Woman's body was used as weapons to turn over the traditional standard of the society by the advanced Chinese. After the May Fourth Movement, Chinese woman's body was mainly moulded by tow social powers, One is the power from the government, the control from the ideology of the government, for example, the conteraction to modern body during the New Life Movement of Koumintang, the producing body moulded by the Communist during the times of planned economy and the political body during the Culture Revolution; The other is the infiltration from the commercial capital and the culture of consumption ,for example the modern body of 1920s and 1930s,the body of consumption after the Reform Opening the tow powers function on women's body in turn. in the whole process of the modernization ,with the result that the process of the historical changing of women's body became a microhistory of the modernization of China.Women's body is not only the weapon to turn over the established social standard it is also the tool to establish a new social gender order. The main object that this section studies is the press of women. It aims to analyse the process that all kinds of powers functioned on woman' s body and tries to reveal internal relation between modernity and woman: It is the new change caused by the modernity that leaded to the collapse of the order of traditional value ,created multiple life world of limitless possibility librated the body of women ,which used to be the mark of traditional value :it is also because the modernity lacked in ideal of ultimate value and pursuit of metaphysics, that the crisis of social self-acceptance appeared and the culture of consumption comes into being and women' body became the slave for the culture of consumption as the first victim. The third section: The historic dilemma of sublating the doctrine of worthy wife and caring mother and being trapped in the doctrine of being worthy wife and caring mother.The historic process of the modernization of China in a century is also the process of continuously reshaping the role of woman. In order to create a modern country ,any advanced class or any political party must construct a woman role first which can match the idea of the modernization. So as a result the role of woman in the construction of modernization and the fate of the country's modernization is closely interweaved. The standard of traditional idea of dutiful wife and loving mother sets the role of woman in the family. With the development of the modernization in China, by the role naming dominated by man and the role which woman herself wish to be, the name of women's role changed from New worthy wife and caring mother to New woman, to Half the sky and woman expanded the role from family person to social person continuously and step by step woman get rid of the fence of the doctrine of worthy wife and caring mother. At the same time ,the doctrine of worthy wife and caring mother ,like a unchangeable role for woman,, followed the process of the role moulding dominated by man close. Woman never get rid of the doctrine of worthy wife and loving mother completely, nether during the early period of the modernization change , or in the later years of revolution war and time of the peacefulconstruction .----------Chinese woman had to both shouldered the task of modernization togetherwith man and at the same time play the role given to them by the society dominated by manaccording to sex role. --------the worthy wife and caring mother who had to served manpassively.The role of Chinese woman and the action of the role was essentially the process of the dilemma in which Chinese woman was trying to get out of the limit of the doctrine of worthy wife and caring mother but at the same time was trapped in it .The his historic dilemma shows that though the modernization offered the chance and condition for women to be librated from their rooms ,neither the construction of subjective idea nor the process of the objective development had made a clear distinction with partriarchate of traditional society essentially, neither would certainly bring the liberation of woman .The fourth section :the cities and the countries in Chinese films, the people in the cities and the people in the countries .The change of the status of farmer is a key link in the social change of modernization. The pictures of cities and countries and the described status showed in Chinese film clearly showed how Chinese understood and experienced modernity .So woman directly became the coordinates of the modernism experience for the change during the status transform from country to city.--------woman is the sense of the modernism.The thesis takes the status theory of Weber(status is more related with the way to live ,the distribution of honor .education ect, not same as class and position that close related with economic system ),and makes use of the achievement of the studies on social flowing., in the pass, mainly to approaches the status change from country to city which were showed by Chinese film and the fact that during the change woman was in inferior position compared with man., so as to prove that woman is in a subordinate position when participating in the process of modernization.. In addition, the thesis also tries to reveal the inner link between modernization and woman through the show of Chinese films which was about women's role and spiritual temperament constructed by the society during the change of status : Woman is the sensitive center of modernization change in China. The fifth part : The conclusionThis part is the summary of the thesis and the conclusion of the study.( it is also the critique of modernism from feminism) The contribution of the study:The study methodologies which have been used are carefully avoided in the thesis.(e.g.the methodology of historical linear ,and the practical and specific study of women's position in economic ,political ,family field. in the process of modernization change .) Taking the economic and political change as background and choosing the typical sociology category of body , role, status as topic, the thesis mainly approaches what role Chinese woman has played ,what have happen to their body ,status, spirit temperament in the process of modernization .so as to contribute the voice of women them self to the topic of modernism of Chinese.The international academic circle of sociology generally believes that the change of modernism is a total change .It not only includes the structural change on material level but also includes the structural change on people's spiritual level. Modernization means the increasing and expanding of modernism on the level of material and spiritual level. Most internal studies of modernization lay particular emphasis on the former and make little effort on the latter .The woman and modernism study of this thesis not only sets woman in the certain historic process ofmodernization , but also sees from the level of spiritual experience of modernization--------Inother words ,not only observes the shaping of woman in the process of China' modernization, but also observes the reflection of the construction of Chinese 's modernism experience from woman.; the study of this thesis on women's body , break the limit of the related studies which only described the phenomena. It explores the inner relations between the shaping of women's body and modernism .It not only observes the historic facts how women's body had been constructed ,but also observed the historic reasons why it had been constructed this way;The study on the role of woman in this thesis breaks old historic linear model of the study It not only observes the changing process of the role of woman in the modernization history from the historic time order, but also observe it from the historic space and lays particular emphasis on analyzing the specific process of the mutual influence between the role of woman and the society in that time.; Film had brought the imagination space of modernity to Chinese and at the same time it is also the experimental field of modernity in the city of China (mainly in Shanghai).The study of this thesis on women's body is mainly based on films. It offers new angle of study and medium materials for related studies.Generally speaking , compared with foreign academic circles ,the studies of internal academic circles on the inner relations among modernity ,women ,medium lacks of theoretical consciousness. So far ,no one has studied woman in the context of modernity nor studied by taking the Chinese medium in century as social fact neither there is the academic works on modernity of China from the angle of woman .We may say that it is a flaw that there is no the study of modernity from the angle of gender or the study of woman supported by the theory of modernity. Taking the medium of China in a century as social fact, studying the woman problem of China by modernity and the modernity problem of China from the angle of woman, surely the study of the chosen topic will propels the studies on the modernity of China ,woman and medium, offer new angle and materials for the expanding and deepening of these fields ,offer a new mould for the further constructing of the native theories of China related with modernity and woman.