Research On Chinese Women's Concept Of Physical Liberation And The Development Of Women's Sports In The 1930s

The 1930s was a period of "conflict" in terms of the development of Chinese women.On the one hand,through the enlightenment and promotion of the May Fourth New Culture Movement,the women' s liberation movement in China made positive progress in the 1930s,and the individual consciousness of Chinese women,especially intellectual women,gradually increased,and compared to their predecessors,they were eager and eager to break out of the prison of the feudal patriarchal rule and constantly pursued individual personality independence and physical "liberation".On the other hand,with the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the "righteousness" of saving the nation from peril,the 1930s,especially from the middle to the end of the 20th century,saw a rise in the national concept of the whole society,and the women' s liberation movement was also "enveloped" by this grand theme of the times."The pursuit of individual independence and "emancipation" gave way to family and national sentiments.These "conflicts" and "tensions" were important elements that influenced the development of women' s sports in China in the 1930s.The thesis crawls through the contents of the popular and influential women' s fashion magazine Lin Loon in the 1930s concerning the emancipation of women' s bodies and the development of women' s sports,in an attempt to reveal the changes in the national view of women' s emancipation and the Chinese view of women' s sports,and the development of women' s sports in that period,in order to present the complex interaction between sports and gender views,sports and the development of the times,so as to reveal the historical development of pluralism.The research mainly adopts the historical documentary method,using the photocopy of two hundred and forty-one issues of Lin Loon magazine from the Chinese Library of Columbia University as the main textual source,and compiling and summarizing more than six hundred related reports,totaling more than seventy thousand words.In addition to the textual data,the thesis also borrowed the "image research method" and collected more than 460 pictures about women' s bodies and women' s sports published in the magazine "Lin Loon".The article discusses in the following aspects.First,it examines the changing view of women' s bodies and their emancipation.The study reveals that influenced by Western and European concepts,as well as the May Fourth New Culture Movement's advocacy of the promotion of human "individuality," in the early 1930s,Chinese women,especially those from the urban and intellectual classes,began to face up to the natural beauty of their bodies,dared to show their legs and feet,displayed their body images in the mass media,and abandoned their previous Weak and morbid beauty was abandoned,and a fit body became the new fashionable aesthetic.The second is the examination of women' s view of sports.From the letters and replies in the "Lingerie Mailbox",we can learn that women participated in sports in the early 1930s mostly out of the pursuit of personal physical beauty,and women wanted to shape themselves through sports activities,mostly choosing less strenuous and elegant sports such as swimming,soft gymnastics,tennis and golf.At this stage,the space for women' s sports activities was expanded,and it became popular for female students to participate in sports games,and going to the playground became one of the symbols of the new era of women.The development of women' s sports in general showed a positive trend.Third,with the outbreak and depth of the war against Japan,the development of women' s sports,starting from the mid to late 1930s,was once again dominated by the political promise of saving the family and the country from peril under the political demand of saving the country through sports and simple living.The restrictions on women' s bodies at this stage contradicted the encouragement of women' s sports development,and the propaganda of sports efficacy was more inclined to the political motive of saving the country and survival,and female athletes were shaped into Female athletes were also portrayed as a model of "sports for national salvation".The space for women' s sporting activities shrank and calls for physical liberation were silenced.The study shows that the changing view of women' s sports and the development of women' s sports in the 1930s were influenced by two forces: the social trend of personality liberation and the political demand for sports to save the country,in which the choice of position of the mass media and the content of communication were powerful propellants.The study concludes that although the individual life experiences of women published in Lin Loon show the pursuit of physical liberation and sports activities of women at that time,it can be found in the overall social structure: the change of women' s sports concept does not necessarily show positive interaction with social changes,and the development of women' s sports is a part of social changes projected on women' s group,but cannot escape from the flood of development of the whole era.