Shaping And Spreading Gender Consciousness In Christians

The Womens Messenger started publication in 1912, it was the first Chinese women's magazine which was published by publishing house, it also was a women religious magazine, had the longest publishing time and the largest circulation in modern times. The Womens Messenger lasted more than forty years, which supplied valuable information for the study of society, culture, women, culture between China and west countries, religious publishing history, and so on. The most valuable part of the Womens Messenger was that it admitted the position of women, made women comprehend afresh the value of politic, family and religion to modern women, and then encouraged them to recognize their self-worth.At present, the research of the magazine is still at an elementary stage, there are only several papers about it. In this text I propose "editorial" as the main content, combines with other sections and historical materials, writings, then analyze the contents, forms, objection of the editorial by Theory of Feminism, in order to know how the magazine constructed women consciousness, and how it influenced the intellectual feminist groups in modern China.Under the auspices of The Christian Literature Society for China, the Womens Messenger's first and ultimate goal was to expand the influence of Christianity in women and their families. On the other hand, it displayed women's awakening and the pursuit of greater decision-making power under that social situation from the various articles of the editors. This paper includes three parts. Part one is a brief analysis of the Womens Messenger. Part two is about family affairs. It presents western modern ideas of marriage and family common sense to women, which was used for against feudal customs in China, and appealed for changing the family and the labor relation structure to shake the foundations of father-right, and spread equal ideas and behaviors in the families, as for the foundation of further rights. Part three is about the guidance on the development of female social roles of the magazine. the Womens Messenger, by analyzing all kinds of people and the modern social status, encouraged women to win economic independence, to undertake responsibilities for the state and society, to make herself a new national, to obtain men's admit of women's value, at last to implement equality between sexes.In short, the Womens Messenger had made a great impact on many sides of female gender consciousness, such as growing science and culture, establishing the modern women's independence, cultivating professional sense, improving women's rights in families and ethic, mastering modern housewifery knowledge, in the transition period of modern society.