Research On Body Image Of New Women In Modern China In "Women’s Times"

Women’s Times was first published in May 1911(May 3,the third year of the Xuantong Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty),and the final issue was published in April 1917(April 6,the sixth year of the Republic of China),with a total of 21 issues.It was founded by Di Chuqing and edited by Bao Tianxiao.Its columns include introduction,biography,travel notes,Chinese and foreign women’s customs,readers’ club,etc.Most of its main contributors are women,and some women send their own photos for publication.It is the first commercial publication in modern times to publish a large number of female photographs.The magazine has more than 30 distribution offices in more than 10 provinces and cities,including Beijing,Shanghai,Sichuan,Zhejiang,Guangdong,etc.,with a circulation of up to6,000 copies.Its target readers are "Boudoir of understanding and lady of patriotism when her husband is worried",namely the opening of traditional women,professional women,female students and so on.From its founding at the last moment of the Qing Dynasty to its final publication at the rise of the New culture movement,although only a few years,it experienced the critical moment of drastic changes in Chinese politics and culture and the transition between the old and the new.In this paper,Women’s Times is taken as the research object,and a total of 485 female photographic images in its 21 issues are taken as the research text.Panofsky’s image research theory and Roland Barthes’ s semiotics theory are mainly adopted.The text analysis method is used to examine visual images and interpret visual texts according to the unique rules and characteristics of visual language.The study found that Women’s Times actually built a public space for modern new women through solicitation,editing and typesetting of modern new women’s photo materials.In this space,new women formed a consensus on visual body image and the enlightenment of new women’s visual image.This paper is composed of three parts: introduction,text and conclusion,among which the text part includes four chapters.The first chapter explains the background of the establishment of Women’s Times and introduces the situation from its establishment to its final issue.As a representative commercial women’s publication in the early 20th century,this publication provides a comprehensive insight into the social,political and scientific knowledge state of modern Chinese female intellectual elites.Its rich visual texts include cover art and portrait photos with prominent symbolic features,and visually capture the style of early modern new women,which is unable to do in written texts.In the second chapter,using Panofsky’s iconography research method,this paper analyzes the new female images presented by Women’s Times under the background of social transformation,trying to dig out the social consciousness and concept behind the visual images.This paper presents the new female images in Women’s Times in categories.The first part is the image of female students,including the female students in the cover,the female students in the group photo of the female school,and the female students studying abroad.The second part is the professional image of modern women,including teachers,poetists(earning royalties),artists,writers,doctors and so on.The third part is the family visual image of "good wife and good mother" advocated by Women’s Times as a popular commercial women’s publication.The third chapter mainly discusses how Women’s Times constructs the new female image through the body symbol.In this chapter,semiotic analysis is adopted,and the object of study is placed in the specific social culture and historical context of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China,and the visual materials are analyzed by the organic unity of visual form,meaning and symbolic symbol representation.First of all,the paper disassembled and analyzed the new female image from the three prominent visual symbols of dress,posture and hairstyle,and then further explored how the meaning of new women was generated in the visual world through the self-representation of the female group in Women’s Times.The fourth chapter demonstrates how the women’s public space built by Women’s Times achieves visual enlightenment and image interaction for modern new women.When Scott introduced gender into his research as an important and effective analytical category,he pointed out that national politics itself is actually a socially gendered concept.Behind the image construction and presentation of female professional groups in Women’s Times is the attempt of female writers to write about themselves and the appeal of women to the new modern country and the new society.In this process,women’s visual and practical experience is valuable and enlightening.The emergence and diversification of the new female images in Women’s Times provided a new way for researchers to understand that era of vicissitude.The conclusion mainly discusses that Women’s Times,as a window for researchers to perspective the society in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China,built a public space for new women to communicate with each other.This space was directly expressed by the mutual learning and imitation of new women’s body images,and the body was not only the most intuitive carrier of culture,but also a way to restore history.At the same time,new women began to participate in social activities and show their strength in various fields,including home,newspaper,and political circles.