Modern Women In China And Japan

At the dawn of the 1930s a new empowered and liberated image of the female was taking root in popular culture in the West. This 'modern woman' archetype was also penetrating into Eastern cultures, however, challenging the Chinese and Japanese historical norm of the woman as homemaker, servant or geisha. Through a focus on the writings of the Western women who engaged with the Far East, and the Eastern writers and personalities who reacted to this new global gender communication by forming their own separate identities, Katrina Gulliver reveals the complex redefining of the self taking place in a crucial time of political and economic upheaval. Including an analysis of the work of Nobel Prize laureate Pearl S. Buck, The Modern Woman in China and Japan is an important contribution to gender studies and will appeal to historians and scholars of China and East Asia as well as to those studying Asian and American literature.

In examining the links between gender and the media, this volume asks questions involving the relationship between global media flows, gender and modernity in the region.

Gender in Modern East Asia explores the history of women and gender in China, Korea, and Japan from the seventeenth century to the present. This unique volume treats the three countries separately within each time period while also placing them in global and regional contexts. Its transnational and integrated approach connects the cultural, economic, and social developments in East Asia to what is happening across the wider world. The text focuses specifically on the dynamic histories of sexuality; gender ideology, discourse, and legal construction; marriage and the family; and the gendering of work, society, culture, and power. Important themes and topics woven through the text include Confucianism, writing and language, the role of the state in gender construction, nationalism, sexuality and prostitution, New Women and Modern Girls, feminisms, "comfort" women, and imperialism. Accessibly written and comprehensive, Gender in Modern East Asia is a much-needed contribution to the study of the region.

Barbara N. Ramusack writes on South and Southeast Asia, surveying both the prescriptive roles and the lived experiences of women, as well as the construction of gender from early states to the 1990s. Although both regions are home to Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim religious traditions and had extended trade relations, they reveal striking differences in the status and roles of women and the processes of cultural adaptation. Sharon Sievers presents an verview of women's participation in the histories of China, Japan, and Korea from prehistory to the modern period that provides a framework for incorporating women into world history classrooms. It offers analyses on major issues derived from recent research and discusses such stereotypical cultural practices as footbinding (long seen as "exotic" in the West) in the context of women's lives. Book jacket.

The special focus of this book is the lives and experiences of women in China in the first half of the 20th century. Part One - Historical Interpretations - presents essays by Western-educated Chinese women and men, on the historical role of women in a time of great social and economic upheaval. Part Two - Self-Portraits of Women in Modern China - presents the views of women who experienced life in this period through essays and autobiographies that range from women as concubines to women as factory workers, from women suffering footbinding to women serving as nurses, from women in traditional role in a traditional family to women as scientists and teachers.

The past century witnessed dramatic changes in the lives of modern Chinese women and gender politics. Whilst some revolutionary actions to rectify the feudalist patriarchy, such as foot-binding and polygyny were first seen in the late Qing period; the termination of the Qing Dynasty and establishment of Republican China in 1911-1912 initiated truly nation-wide constitutional reform alongside increasing gender egalitarianism. This book traces the radical changes in gender politics in China, and the way in which the lives, roles and status of Chinese women have been transformed over the last one hundred years. In doing so, it highlights three distinctive areas of development for modern Chinese women and gender politics: first, women’s equal rights, freedom, careers, and images about their modernized femininity; second, Chinese women’s overseas experiences and accomplishments; and third, advances in Chinese gender politics of non-heterosexuality and same-sex concerns. This book takes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on film, history, literature, and personal experience. As such, it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Chinese culture and society, women's studies, gender studies and gender politics.

Spanning the century from the Taiping Rebellion through the establishment of the People's Republic of China, this is the first comprehensive history of women in modern China. Its scope is broad, encompassing political, economic, military, and cultural history, and drawing upon Chinese and Japanese sources untapped by Western scholars. The book presents new information on a wide range of topics: the impact of Western ideas on women, especially in education; the importance of women in the labor force; the relative independence enjoyed by some women textile workers; the struggle against footbinding; the influence of anarchism; the participation of a women's brigade in the Revolution of 1911; the role of women in the May Fourth Movement; the differences between the more assertive women of South China and the 'traditional' women of the North in organizing for political action; the involvement of peasant women in insurgency and anti-Japanese struggles in the countryside; and the effects of the Marriage Law of 1950. The author has contributed a new preface to this English edition, and Joshua A. Fogel and Susan Mann have written an introduction that places the book in the context of studies of Chinese women, Japanese sinology, and women's history in general. The book has extensive notes, a bibliography, and, as an appendix, a chronology of the history of women in modern China.

Margaret Ernestine Burton (1885-1969) was an American missionary who travelled to China and Japan in 1909. She wrote several books based on her experiences and research while there. Her books include: The Education of Women in China (1911), Notable Women of Modern China (1912) and The Education of Women in Japan (1914). "During a stay of some months in China in the year of 1909, I had an opportunity to see something of the educational work for women, and to meet several of the educated women of that interesting country. I was greatly impressed, both by the excellent work done by the students in the schools, and by the useful, efficient lives of those who had completed their course of study. When I returned to America, and spoke of some of the things which the educated women of China were doing, I found that many people were greatly surprised to learn that Chinese women were capable of such achievements."