The Feminist Enlightenment Thought In The Late Qing Dynasty Under The Nation-state Discourse System

Before 1840,individual males had denounced the cultural traditions of oppression and discrimination against women over the ages,but had never assembled a social idea or paradox.They were at best seen as the sympathy of some “enlightened” male intellectuals towards women.After the first Opium War in 1840,with the Western ship's cannons breaking the status quo of the retreat of the Qing Dynasty,the situation has undergone a fundamental change.When the style of equality between men and women was introduced into the late Qing Dynasty,the individual identity and rights of women began to enter the vision of male intellectuals.From the Western missionaries to the modern Chinese male intellectuals,all of them are debilitated by the low status of Chinese women.This sentiment gradually converges into an unstoppable and surging social trend that finally evolves into a feminist enlightenment.As the trend of enlightenment in women's rights in the late Qing Dynasty began to intensify,in 1903,the first female monograph on women's rights and interests,“Nv Jie Zhong”,came into being in the modern history of China.Soon it was widely spread in the intellectual world.Since then,its feminist ideas have been frequently quoted.As a systematic monograph on women's rights and interests,“Nv Jie Zhong” is talking about women's issues throughout,but its value orientation and program policies have inherited the discourse construction methods of Western missionaries and Chinese enlightenment thinkers,that is,in the discourse of the nation-state.Within the scope of the discussion of women's issues,and on the basis of "abandonment of footbinding,promoting women's studies",they put forward new ideas that conform to the characteristics of the times,such as advocating "female rights revolution" and shaping "the mother of the people".It can be said that the nation-state discourse contained in the enlightenment of women's rights in the late Qing dynasty was the most concentrated and incisive expression in this book.It is the epitome of late Qing Dynasty and even modern women's enlightenment thoughts,that is,the subject of thinking is the language of the nation-state.In the context of women's issues,the national-state discourse directly dominates the discourse construction of women's rights.From the Western religious figures,Lin Yuezhi and others who advocated theestablishment of women's studies in China to the Reformists who advocated social reform such as Zheng Guanying and Liang Qichao,and to Jin Tianhe who advocated the “female rights revolution”,despite their political views is different,but the attitude toward women's issues is the same thing.The original intention of the enlightenment of women's rights was to give women the role of assisting men in establishing a modern nation-state.This gave women,in a certain degree,the legitimacy of entering political life,and inadvertently gave birth to a group of women with initial consciousness in China.However,because it does not start from the perspective of women's standard,it does not attach importance to the history and status quo of women suffering oppression,discrimination,loss of independent rights and abilities,and even fails to face up to and tackle women's issues fundamentally in the process of revolution.Later women's liberation brought many ills and regrets.Against the background of the nation-state discourse and all the modernization movements,anarchism has openly flagged the banner of the anti-nation nation and has completely negated the national national interest.At that time,it had a certain influence on the enlightening thoughts of women's rights,but more Looking at the vast and far-reaching time and space,the anti-nation-state discourse is,after all,a kind of “weak” discourse.From its occurrence and development so rapidly to its abrupt depletion and disappearance,a powerful nation-state discourse is undoubtedly an important catalyst.With the widespread dissemination of western postmodern feminism in China,its emphasis on criticizing and questioning the power discourse and opposing the characteristics of male hegemony discourse has made it a reflection of the ideological resources for the enlightenment of female rights in the late Qing Dynasty.The purpose of this article is to review the history and the theory of inheritance and to absorb the existing research results of Chinese women's history,for the further explore the Chinese women's issues,and to theoretically address the issue of equality between men and women in the new era.From the standpoint and perspective of women,to make a description that is closer to history—more emphasis on historical processes than results.