Chang Yinting and Yang Xia on Feminist Discourse

Chang Yinting and Yang Xia, “Feminist Discourse:  Its Chinese Context and Contemporary Value”[1]

Introduction and Translation by Selena Orly
 
Introduction
 
Chinese Women’s Studies and Chinese Feminism are thriving and well-established fields in both China and the West. [2]  We make no pretense to follow these fields closely, nor do we see any need to duplicate their findings, but for a project like “Women’s Voices in China,” it is might be helpful for readers to get a taste of what these fields are like in China. 

The text translated here is a recent (2020) article by two feminist/Women’s Studies scholars from Shanxi Normal University in Linfen, Shanxi—Chang Yinting 畅引婷 (b. 1957) and Yang Xia 杨 霞 (b. 1980).  It is an academic article (in fact, one of the most downloaded recent papers on feminism on CNKI—Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure—a major database for research in Chinese scholarship about…anything), but accessible enough for interested non-academic readers.   It provides a useful overview of the field over the period of reform and opening, and even more helpfully traces the evolution of basic terms and concepts over time, providing the authors the opportunity to discuss divergences between the fields in China and West.
 
The text is interesting both for what it says and for what it can’t say, revealing tensions that are fairly obvious within Chinese feminism (to say nothing of the tensions between Chinese feminism and Western feminism) at the present moment. The most significant tension that strikes the reader is the understandable need to defend the particularity of Chinese women’s experiences and/or Chinese feminism in contrast with the Western “other” (however sisterly they may be).   This theme has surely been accentuated by the general celebration of all things Chinese that has accompanied China’s rise.  Indeed, Chang and Yang finish their survey of the field with a mention of China’s harmonious social order—not a major theme in Western feminism—highlighting the constraints under which Chinese feminists work. 
 
Our warmest thanks to Louise Edwards for her close reading of the text and valuable suggestions.
 
We chose not to translate the many footnotes provided by the authors.  Chinese speaking specialists can consult the original paper here.
 
Translation
 
The widespread dissemination of Western feminism in Chinese academia can be said to be the product of the reform and opening of Chinese society. In other words, without the policies of reform and opening, there would not have been such extensive exchanges and dialogues between China and the West, nor would the various problems and differences , including many aspects of the nature of academic theory and the value of particular research orientations, have emerged .
 
Taking the 1980s as the point at which Western feminism started to spread as an academic trend in China, the field was limited to a small number of intellectuals with particular language abilities or international exchange experience. Beginning in 1993 with the preparations for the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in China, followed by a series of exchanges with various countries around the world, opportunities for the spread of feminism in China increased. As some researchers have rightly noted, during the Fourth World Conference on Women "The government took the initiative and awakened the gender consciousness of the Chinese people in a systematic way, propelling China’s gender research to ‘new heights’ and ‘greater diversity.”
 
Western Scholarship and its Focus on Chinese Women
 
Western academic interest in Chinese women has been mainly manifested in the following aspects:
 
First, Western Sinologists applied feminist theory to the study of Chinese women. As an ancient country with a prominent place in world history, China has been a constant object of study for the West, both from a historical and a political point of view. However, it is worth noting that in the past 40 years, the study of Chinese women has been a very active field in Chinese studies abroad, attracting the attention of scholars in history, anthropology, and political science, and resulting in many new publications.
 
According to statistics, in the 110 years between 1869 and 1979, Western scholars published 96 works on Chinese women; 94 monographs in the 14 years between 1980 and 1994; and 155 in the 10 years between 1995 and 2005. The number of academic papers has also continued to grow:  22 articles in the 1980s, 191 between 1991 and 1995, 393 between 1996 and 2000, and 737 between 2001 and 2006—making a total of 1343 pieces. The spread of disciplines that research women has also expanded; the predominant fields are sociology, history, literature, economics, political science, ethnology, law, demography, culture, philosophy, art, education, psychology, and journalism and communication. But, the sociology of women ranks first in terms of disciplinary development in both monographs and academic articles, followed by women’s history, and then women and economics.
 
It is clear from these data that the study of Chinese women in the West, and the resulting publications, are closely related to the significant economic development that China has achieved since the implementation of the reform and opening policies, and reflects the increasing role of Chinese women in the economic life of the country. The significant increase in sociological research on women in Western academia is also clearly linked to the increased opportunities for foreign scholars to conduct fieldwork in China from the 1980s, and the shift in research focus from unravelling historical shifts to focusing on real-life problems.

It is especially worth noting that the Collected Translations of Foreign Works in Chinese Studies--Women’s Series along with the publication of other works on Chinese women translated into Chinese in mainland China, have not only allowed Chinese scholars to test the findings of Western sinologists, but also had definite impacts on Chinese women's studies and academic research in general.
 
Surveying Western research on Chinese women, its limitations are also obvious. On the one hand, the guiding hand of “theory” is particularly obvious, as is the influence of ideology. In particular, their depiction of the history of Chinese women's emancipation under socialism has produced particular stereotypes. As the US-based scholar Wang Lingzhen summarizes it, the argument is that that the socialist revolution was patriarchal in nature and failed to fundamentally liberate women, which leads Western scholars to advocate for greater autonomy and independence in terms of both the sex/gender (xing/bie) system and feminist practice (including movements and research).

This is evident in a number of works published in the 1980s, such as Judith Stacey's Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China (1983), Phyllis Anders' The Unfinished Liberation of Chinese Women, 1949-1980 (1983), Kay Ann Johnson's Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China (1983), and Margery Wolfe's Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China (1985), among others.

These writings, appearing in the 1980s, almost uniformly took "Western" women's emancipation as the standard, or employed the patriarchal theoretical framework derived from the West to explain the situation of women's emancipation in China, and under the cover of such research and reflection, to a certain extent denied women’s liberation in socialist China. The complex historical process of Chinese women's liberation, the multidimensional subjectivity that emerged in the practice of this liberation, and the multiple tensions between the socialist revolution and gender, are all completely subsumed in the theoretical framework of "patriarchy."
 
In the 1990s, new developments occurred in Western sinologists’ study of Chinese women, in particular, Joan Scott's essay on the importance of cultural symbols, normative concepts, political and social institutions, and subjective identities--"Gender: A Useful Category for Historical Analysis"--spawned many influential new publications in the English-speaking Chinese Studies community. Specifically, it led to a new look at the state of gender in China's longer history. Rather than portraying pre-twentieth-century China as a period of constant oppression of women, scholars started to explore the role of bodily practices and spatial arrangements in constructing gender, analyzing the centrality of  "virtue" in women's subjectivity and state governance, and illustrating how women's labor ensured the survival of the family and the longevity of the cultural elite.
 
Second, foreign scholars took advantage of gender-based participatory training in underdeveloped areas through various development projects. Following the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, “because social gender and development were the areas of feminist action that received the most attention from international donor agencies,” these themes also become the focus of feminist activism and scholarship. Consistent with this, various foundations in developed Western countries further increased their funding for women's development projects in China, in terms of both quantity and impact.
 
As some researchers have concluded, in Yunnan province alone, in the years before and after the turn of the 21st century, the province held three large-scale gender training courses , the provincial Women's Federation was involved in nearly 300 projects  on women and development, and "gender mainstreaming" has become the consensus discourse of Women's Federation cadres at all levels in areas where they have received gender training or participated in development projects. At the same time, in the name of "linking up with the rest of the world", the concept of gender as a social construction (社会性别 shehui xingbie) was disseminated in China through various channels, in an attempt to "subvert the private sphere and revolutionize daily life".
 
Ethnic minority women in western China, in particular, received more funding support from Western countries in the late 1990s because of their multiple marginal identities. For example, in the areas of poverty alleviation, AIDS prevention, reproductive health, drug intervention, ethnic minority development, multicultural preservation, and environmental optimization, international funds were not only the first to invest in these areas, but almost all of them were related to "gender". Some researchers pointed out that “In terms of development programs, Women’s Studies in Yunnan is not weak, but strong." Compared with other disciplines, Women's Studies "connected up” with the world more rapidly after reform and opening.
 
Generally speaking, the projects funded by Western foundations in China around the turn of the 21st century were implemented in the name of "concern for the disadvantaged", such as geographically "remote mountainous areas", "minority" ethnic status, and "women" in terms of gender. In particular, girls’ education, rural women’s land distribution rights, gender justice in village elections, and community-based public services etc., were the focus of women’s development projects at that time.
 
The operation of women's development projects in China are mainly characterized by the following features. First is the concept of empowerment and women—that is, by undergoing training as individuals or in groups, to instill in women a sense of power and rights (妇女充权或赋权). Specifically, through participation in certain groups or activities, while simultaneously organizing women, the gender consciousness and social activism of women (and men) are continuously enhanced, thus laying the foundation for women's entry into the mainstream and self-development.
 
Second is a focus on scholars, meaning that, through the application and approval of projects, certain university and Academy of Social Sciences scholars and Women's Federation cadres (mainly women) act as the hosts and participants of projects—on the one hand building bridges between the project funder and the funded target, and on the other hand, increasing capacity and insight in the coordination and interaction of various social relations.
 
Third, even as we acknowledge the desirability of the reliance on foreign aid in expanding the space for women's development, such aid nonetheless has also been to a certain extent under the control of foreign capital, and the affirmation of agency has always been an important problem for Chinese scholars.
 
On the third point, the promotion of gender knowledge production through building the discipline of Women’s Studies (妇女学 或 女性学). To avoid replacing discipline-building with "development projects," foreign funds have gradually increased their funding for discipline-building in Women's Studies since the beginning of the 21st century. According to researchers’ statistics, from January 2000 to April 2006, as many as 22 Chinese Women's Studies courses were funded by the U.S. Ford Foundation alone. In fact, starting in 2002, the foreign-funded institutions for the development of China’s Women's Studies programs were no longer limited to the Ford Foundation.
 
Representative examples include:  the "Post-Baccalaureate Women's Studies Program" supported by the Ruth Foundation of the United States in cooperation with the University of Michigan, Hong Kong and Mainland China; the Gender Program at Guangxi University supported by Oxfam Hong Kong; the "Gender and Education Forum" at Sun Yat-sen University, funded by the Lingnan Foundation of the United States.
 
In these years the general situation was one in which the forces promoting Women’s Studies in China—outside of student demand and the initiatives of the Women’s Federation—were derived mainly from cooperation between local women scholars and Chinese scholars abroad, and the strong support of foreign funds. From the early 1990s the Ford Foundation was especially notable for supporting the pioneers of Chinese Women's Studies on international exchanges, and for focusing on funding the activities of the four earliest Women's Studies centers (Zhengzhou University, Beijing University, Tianjin Normal University, and Nankai University).
 
On the topic of the contributions of foreign foundations to building the disciplines of Women’s Studies and Gender Studies in China, we cannot overlook the "Women and Gender Studies in Developing China" (2000-2005) and "Women/Gender Studies Disciplinary Development Network" (2006-2010). Over the course of about a decade these two Ford-funded programs not only promoted China’s Women's and Gender Studies research and curriculum development, but they also trained a large cohort of researchers who comprise the mainstay of Women’s and Gender Studies. It can be said that many of the experts and scholars currently active in the field of Chinese Women's Studies developed through, or were tempered by, exchanges and contestations with Western feminist scholarship, in which there were both acceptance and resistance.
 
It should be pointed out that the goal of Western funding for building the disciplines of Women’s Studies and Gender Studies was not solely an "academic” exploration. Its broader aim was to build skills in interventionist social action through the transmission of feminist knowledge. In terms of disciplinary funding, the focus has been on disciplines that are closely linked to social action, such as sociology, anthropology, and ethnology, while disciplines that are more fundamental and theoretical, such as philosophy, political science, and economics, are rarely funded. Some researchers have criticized this, saying that such a distinction between “privileged fields” and “underprivileged fields” makes no sense in the development and promotion of the Women's Studies/Gender Studies courses and their teaching, nor is it conducive to the overall improvement of such courses and teaching in universities.
 
Moreover, for the universities that offer these courses, it is short-sighted to neglect the “action” inherent in the process of changing people’s thinking and cultural concepts. At the same time, Gender Studies has evolved from being one academic research method among many, to become “the only” method. This has meant that the deep meanings of China’s gender culture and the complex diversity of its historical development have been eclipsed by this simple and mechanistic critical device—which to a certain extent hinders dialogue between Women's Studies and other mainstream disciplines.
 
In any event, the significance and utility of Western feminism’s spread in China is clear and undeniable. Especially after reform and opening, it was refreshing for people so long isolated to face a torrent of feminist theories from the West. It has not only broken the monopoly of the once dogmatic method of class analysis and breathed fresh air into academic research, but it has also satisfied many of the aspirations people harbored for ideological and cultural concepts. It simultaneously inspired enthusiasm and courage, and even a fighting spirit, among people seeking to change the reality of their society and its many problems, as revealed by Women’s and Gender Studies.
 
In recent years, Women's/Gender Studies have accounted for a significant proportion of many different national and local projects, and this has enabled Women’s Studies to gradually enter the mainstream academic world. More notably, many male scholars have also begun to pay attention to Women’s and Gender Studies, or have identified problems through a feminist analytic perspective. The shift in research methods has brought about an expansion of research topics and scope, and the interaction of these multiple factors has led to an intense collision between Western feminist theory and local Chinese social practices.
 
The Reconstruction of Western Feminist Theory by Chinese Scholars
 
In the discursive system of Western feminism, "feminism" and "gender" are two concepts with great explanatory power. They run throughout research on women’s and social change and have played or are playing important roles in the historical process of women's emancipation. Following the post 1970s third wave of world feminism, "feminism" and "gender" have been endowed with rich cultural connotations in the Chinese historical context.
 
(1) The Application of Feminist Theory in China
 
Anyone paying attention has noted that, in the 30 years since the originally Western term "feminism" arrived to China, several different expressions have emerged in the Chinese language: “nüzhuyi 女主义,” “nüxing zhuyi女性主义,” and “nüquan/nüxing zhuyi女权／女性主义.” To a large degree, the qualifier in front of the “ism zhuyi” indicates the direction and goal of the social change envisioned by those using the term and this has given rise to a variety of different academic and political connotations for the words in the Chinese context.
 
Let’s start with nüquan zhuyi 女权主义. Throughout history and up to the present day, the core meaning of nüquan zhuyi女权主义 as feminism lies in the word "rights quan 权"—that is, the unequal hierarchy of rights between men and women—and which is the fundamental starting point for understanding and solving myriad problems. Whether it is an "assumption" in academic research or an objective "fact" in real life, "gender inequality" is a basic feminist judgment concerning society as it exists. Consequently, using "action" to change the gender inequalities that exist in every corner of society has become a distinctive feature of feminism and the women's movement.
 
Specifically, in addition to actions undertaken by women themselves, a very important aspect of feminism is to urge all sectors of society to transform many structural social inequalities through re-building institutions and procedures so that everyday women can benefit from them, and not only elite women who possess particular social resources that put them on an equal footing with men. The goal of this way of thinking is to overthrow patriarchy or “androcentrism男性中心”. Its target is women's subordination and subservient status relative to men, and its core principle is equality between women and men or gender equality.
 
This approach to gender equality (i.e., equality between men and women), takes men as the basic reference point. In actual social practice this mostly means striving to achieve rights equal to those held by men in society—such as, equal rights to education, the right to participate in politics, the right to inherit property, the right to marital autonomy, and so on. In daily life, "taking the father's name," "single-mother parenting," "sexual abuse," "domestic violence," "playboys," "male chauvinists直男癌," etc., are all products of patriarchy and are the main targets for feminist attack. In the eyes of feminists, “women’s rights are human rights” and “men’s rights are special privileges”, therefore if we do not make every effort to defend the various rights and interests of women through social action, it will be difficult to prioritize and focus on women's emancipation and development among the myriad other "national issues.”
 
Therefore, "equality" is a key term in feminist discourse. It not only targets intra-gender and inter-gender inequalities, and on that basis includes inequalities that exist in all areas of society, including ethnicity, geography, age, class, etc. This feminist ideal of fighting for equality is not only an important ideological weapon for social change, but for many people it has also become a spiritual belief and worthy pursuit. On the one hand, through exposing and criticizing the various difficulties women face in society, they seek women's emancipation; on the other hand, through social action (by individuals, groups and the state), they try to change the unfavorable environment for women and open new paths for women's development; and, through various grass-roots 民间social networks, they awaken people's gender consciousness from the bottom up, so that people’s inner strength can be tapped to transform society.
 
“Action" and "movement" are the distinctive features of feminism. In China today, many feminist activists have taken it upon themselves to subvert and change the patriarchy and androcentrism of everyday life. They repeatedly speak out from women’s perspective, so that more people hear and understand the disadvantages women face compared to men, and then unite all sectors of the society to make a concerted effort to effect change. Although in the West, feminism is divided into any number of theories or schools, in China it is often associated with "radicalism”, and this is the main reason why many people (including some women researchers) refuse to recognize themselves as feminists, even though they (both women and men) have made significant contributions to women's liberation and development.
 
Now let’s turn to nüxing zhuyi 女性主义. In most cases, nüxing zhuyi is synonymous with nüquan zhuyi, and many researchers use them interchangeably. For example, in Li Yinhe's Feminism (Nüxing zhuyi, Shandong People's Press, 2005 edition), the author places the gender inequalities that we find historically and in the present day at the foundation, regardless of whether she is offering a systematic introduction to Western schools of feminism, engaging in a comprehensive review of debates in gender studies throughout the world (including China), or fashioning a rational analysis of the future development trends of the women's liberation movement. 
 
Either of the two terms for feminism will work here. It is undeniable, however, that one very important reason for the widespread use of the term nüxing zhuyi女性主义in Chinese academia is that nüxing女性 (woman or female) is more euphemistic or neutral than nüquan女权 (women’s power). That is, the former is not as sharp or “offensive” as the latter, and it is more broadly accepted. Here, using nüxing zhuyi instead of nüquan zhuyi is a measure of expedience, but it is undeniable that this "strategic" switch itself captures a particular aspect of women’s life lessons learned in the process of social change. In concrete terms, in Chinese, the two terms have distinct meanings, and are not entirely interchangeable.
 
For this reason, feminism as nüxing zhuyi女性主义has taken on a richer cultural connotation in the Chinese context. In respect of the goal for which the "ism" is struggling, nüxing zhuyi女性主义 necessarily includes all the elements of nüquan zhuyi女权主义, but also has a more expansive connotation. First, in terms of “practical” political significance, it emphasizes the active role of  "women"女性 as a gendered group or as group engaged in social change, rather than  passive "objects" who are constantly "speaking bitterness" in the hope that some “other” will give them the gift of eliminating their fundamental dependence on men. Second, in the academic sense of "seeking truth," the colocation of “women’s” objective existence alongside that of “men” emphasizes the unity or complementarity between the sexes that exists within their mutual opposition.
 
This in turn illustrates the "naturalness" of human social development, and not just an extension of gender issues within a framework of power. It emphasizes that in the pursuit of equality between men and women, the differences between the sexes should be treated correctly, and the cost of women's emancipation that comes from ignoring the biological differences between the sexes, and calls into question the "woman who acts like a man." On the one hand, it pursues equality in a humanistic sense, and at the same time, it acknowledges women’s differences, and then finds an appropriate balance between equality and difference.

Now let’s look at nüquan/nüxing zhuyi 女权/女性主义.  This concept is not widely used in academia due to its cumbersome formulation, but in essence, it emphasizes the irreplaceability of women’s power nüquan女权 and women’s gender nüxing女性 as "ism." Nüquan zhuyi女权主义has a more political connotation, and nüxing zhuyi女性主义 contains both an academic and a political signification. But the two are not diametrically opposed, and academia itself will lose its existential value if it sets aside its awareness of history and the need to change reality.
 
The disagreement here is over what is the main force that will enable us to obtain rights, and what is the approach by which women’s disadvantage or inequality compared to men can be changed. Nüquan zhuyi女权主义 takes the subversion or transformation of patriarchy as the breakthrough point, targeting the privileged position of men in social and family life and the social mechanisms that generate male privilege. By contrast, the nüxing zhuyi女性主义approach has quietly shifted in its social practice, and now focuses not only on opposing or subverting patriarchy, but also on women's own social responsibility, i.e., women's transformation of society through social action, including extensive participation in all areas of society.
 
In the Chinese context, nüquan zhuyi女权主义 is more commonly used in reference to the West, and nüxing zhuyi女性主义 in reference to China. This is no accident, and one of the major reasons for this is that Chinese women living in the second half of the twentieth century have experienced very significant changes in their living environment compared with that of the oppression experienced by women in feudal society.  Not only have they gained autonomy in many areas, but they are also able to be effective in their social lives.
 
(2) The Use of Gender Theory in China
 
Along with “feminism”, another word travelled into China and faced similar circumstances on its arrival. “Gender” is a core concept in Western feminism and also has two Chinese equivalents in translation—"xingbie 性别” [lit. sex distinctions] and "shehui xingbie社会性别” [lit. social sex distinctions]. The ways these two concepts are deployed in Chinese academia reveals that there are clear distinctions between the two.
 
Let’s first look at the use of term “xingbie.” In people's daily lives, xingbie generally refers to "male and female." Xingbie has an objective existence but is also a marker of one’s status, as well as being a cultural construct and institutional ordering. The existence and interaction of men and women is an essential aspect of the development of human society. Therefore, when talking about xingbie, the first thing that comes to people’s minds is the handling of the relationship between men and women, including gender division of labor, gender norms, and gender role positioning. Looking back on history, we can clearly see that "differentiation" is a very important concept in the cultural and institutional construction of gender in China and even throughout the world.
 
In other words, in family and social life, both men and women need to go their own way, perform their own duties, embodying the value of their respective existences in ways that are mutually complementary and mutually constraining. In these understandings of xingbie, there are no distinctions of rank or worthiness (as is the case with the Chinese historical notions of yin and yang, qian 乾and kun 坤). Rather, men and women are interdependent, defined by each other, and thus propel social history forward. Even though in the patriarchal system, where the xingbie structure and culture made harsher demands on women than on men, the tenacious vitality of women and their intelligence and wisdom still shines through the cracks.  Even though under the binary distinction between "family and state," women's activities were limited to the family sphere, they nonetheless avoided the unnecessary sacrifices men made in wars when answering the call to be "loyal and patriotic."  
 
Although restrictive conditions and contexts meant that there were only a handful of outstanding women in history, their very existence foreshadowed the possibility of social participation (for example, even under the rigid patriarchal system of feudal China Empress Wu Zetian was able to exist). So, those persisting on translating "gender" as “xingbie 性别" largely emphasize the compatibility of Western concepts with Chinese historical and cultural traditions, and hope to use Chinese historical and cultural traditions to enrich Western gender theory, rather than rewriting Chinese history in light of Western gender theory or using Chinese history as a footnote to Western theory.
 
At the same time, the Chinese characteristics of xingbie culture and institutions shape the character of the citizens as well as the actions emerging as society develops. Regardless of whether it is a resource or a burden, it needs to be taken seriously and either ignoring or overemphasizing any of these aspects is harmful to the future construction of history. In fact, in Chinese traditional culture, "male and female" (nan nü) have historically been important parts of Confucian social organization and ethics, as we see frequently in the works of the literati. But the fatal flaw therein lies in the loss of women’s collective voice.
 
If a woman’s voice did appear it was so feeble that it was difficult to attract anyone’s attention, much less effect any change. With the rise and awakening of the women intellectuals in modern times, as well as the changes in the balance of power between the genders, the reconstruction of gender culture and systems has led to strong calls for equality between men and women; the founding of New China has opened up an infinitely broad road for women to move out from the household into society; and especially since the 1990s, having “women's theories with Chinese characteristics” together with Western feminist theories allows each to shine and offers broader perspectives of advanced gender culture constructs. Therefore, using the term xingbie性别 to refer to "gender" not only does not create ambiguity, but it also enriches the theoretical meanings of "gender" by enlarging it with Chinese characteristics.
 
Let us now look at the use of term “social gender shehui xingbie.” Adding the word "social" in front of gender as a qualifier implies the opposite of "natural." In a methodological sense, the idea is to challenge the rationality or legitimacy of the traditional gender culture and system constructed on the basis of “natural” gender differences, to emphasize the role of social factors in the construction of gendered cultures and systems, and thus to provide a theoretical basis to change the culture and system of gender inequality. At the same time, gender is treated as a relational state of existence, and on the one hand, its role in social development is placed on an equal footing with that of politics, economics, culture, the military, science and technology, etc.
 
On the other hand, gender is combined with various other social factors in an attempt to explore the different impacts on human society in the interaction, including positive and negative aspects. It is certain that looking at the history and future of human society from the perspective of “shehui xingbie” can reveal many issues that are not visible from other approaches. But at the same time, it is undeniable that the emphasis on the social factors in the construction of gender culture and institutions has consciously or unconsciously neglected the fundamental position of natural gender (ziran xingbie) in the construction of social gender (shehui xingbie).  
 
Shehui xingbie, as a construct, becomes like a river without a source or a tree without roots. In this regard, Li Xiaojiang has astutely pointed out that "feminism follows postmodernism's radical deconstruction of categories such as rationality, objectivity, essence, and truth, as well as its negation of stable categories of subjective identity, gender, and even woman女性, which actually fundamentally undoes the premise of feminism's existence." Like a house built on sand, this is fundamentally unstable.

Therefore, in the view of many researchers, the social construction of gender is obvious, and there is no need to emphasize it in the Chinese discursive context, otherwise natural gender and social gender will be dichotomized and set against one another. And, at the level of social practice, making men and women equal will result in making men and women identical, and the richness of the world and its diversity will be lost. Judging from the current use of the term "gender" (in English in the original text) in Chinese academia, there is a phenomenon worth pondering.
 
That is, most people use the more concise term “xingbie,” but under the influence of gender theory, its specific connotation refers more to the social attributes of gender, and the fundamental position of natural gender (ziran xingbie 自然性别) within the construct of social gender (shehui xingbie) has been greatly weakened. The issue of "differentiated equality" (chayixing pingdeng 差异性平等) has been noted in the academic community, but not really discussed. In recent years, some sexology researchers in Taiwan have borrowed the theoretical framework of “xing/bie yanjiu” [lit. sex/distinction research] and tried to explore the complex relationship between natural "sex"(xing) and social "distinctions" (bie). But this work seems to have just begun in mainland China.
 
As to the application of the concept of shehui xing in China today, there are two trends: first, at the level of methodology, it is used as a tool for understanding and analyzing problems, to explore the historical context and future direction of the development of human society; second, at the level of practice, it is used as a weapon for social transformation, to criticize and deconstruct the long-existing patriarchy that oppresses half of the human race - women - in order to lay the foundation for future reconstruction. It is undeniable that the popularization of the concept of shehui xing in Chinese women's studies has energized the women's liberation movement in China, and many researchers are convinced that the past unequal gender culture and system was "constructed" and therefore can be changed. Many women researchers are also social activists and, guided by shehui xing theory, strive to contribute to the construction of a gender-equal society.
 
(3) The World Historical Significance of Feminist Scholarship
 
Nüxing女性 as a type of "ism" in both the political and academic senses. In the political sense, its goal is to work tirelessly to change the myriad disadvantages women face in real life; at the academic level, it seeks to explore various possible paths to improve women's lives and change the social environment by revealing women and problems. In the more than two centuries since Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published in England in 1792, the significance of feminism in world history has become increasingly evident.
 
First, it reconstructs the knowledge production system. Looking at the history that exists in the form of words or texts, there is no doubt of the “silence” or “absence” of women in ancient history. At the same time, there has been no shortage of narratives about women in the textual history, but the masculinized nature of the narrative core is evident. Consciously or unconsciously, the presentation of women as the "other" in written history not only further reproduces the androcentrism of history and culture, but also leaves women's voices forever submerged in a wave of men who are speaking for them.
 
If it is true that the "uneducated" or "illiterate" status of women in ancient societies served as a natural barrier keeping women out of written history, then, the rise and awakening of women intellectuals in modern times has provided the preconditions for the reconstruction of the system of knowledge production. Once women could share their thoughts and actions in the form of texts, or once women's life experiences and life perceptions were transmitted as a form of knowledge in society, the dominance of male literati (such as Chinese scholars) in the world of "knowledge production" began to crumble. In other words, when women truly “own their own room,” in Virginia Woolf’s words, where they can write and work, they not only can change their own destinies, but can also remake the way history is written.
 
No matter how they speak or what they say, they are "women" and not "men”. Although their words may not always be exactly in tune with the times, the experience and correction of social practice will lead them constantly change their strategies, ideas, methods and paths to try to keep pace with the development of the era. Therefore, feminist scholarship is, to a large extent, a summary, generalization, and distillation of the life and work experiences of women with different identities in different life cycles and different time periods. On the one hand, through the portrayal of gender differences, it reveals the richness of the world and the complex diversity of history, and on the other hand, by highlighting gender inequalities, it explores the diverse paths of women's emancipation and development.
 
The close integration of nüxing 女性 and "ism" in academic research has not only given rise to numerous feminist schools and trends of thought, raising various concrete proposals for women's emancipation and social change, but has also brought about a revolution in the field of knowledge production, in which much of the “received wisdom” found in books has come into question.

For example, it is no longer considered natural for a woman to be submissive or tolerant for the sake of family harmony; women's talent and social responsibility are no longer associated with "virtue" or "immorality"; women's "long hair" is no longer seen as “short-wittedness” (头发长见识短); now, when women make their marks at home and abroad, they are no longer belittled as " being unwomanly", etc. Replacing this, women’s experiences (including painful lessons) are turned into theories that speak for women; represented by women intellectuals, they write books in the name of the masses of women; and through social practice, they redefine women through academic discussion.
 
The intellectualization of women’s experience is not merely a supplement to male experience, but it is also a critique, subversion, or correction of androcentrism. The complementarity and interaction of the mutually antagonistic gender experiences and gender positions has changed the shape of knowledge production and formed a unique academic paradigm and discourse of feminism. By looking at issues or understanding issues from a female perspective, people can not only see many "truths" that are invisible or hidden from a male-centered perspective but can also change many gender stereotypes through the production and circulation of knowledge, thereby laying the ideological and cognitive foundations for social change.
 
Secondly, feminism reconstructs the subjective identity of women. The history of the development of feminism in the world (including in China) tells us that feminism was founded in a fierce attack on patriarchal gender systems and cultures. Or, to put it another way, one of the basic premises of feminist "theory" or " criticism" is that women are a vulnerable group that suffers under patriarchal oppression. Although the status of women has changed significantly in comparison with the past, they are still in various disadvantaged positions compared to men in general. Therefore, the point most emphasized in the discussion is that social resources should be allocated in favor of women, or that women's interests should be prioritized in governmental decision-making.
 
We might say that that one of the basic starting points of feminism has been to reveal the gender inequalities that exist in all corners of society through the recounting of women's various hardships in history and reality, so as to draw more attention to the situation women face and to create conditions for changing the phenomenon of inequality. Once people realize that if we start putting women in the category of those "who are to be protected" as a vulnerable group, women would never be able to escape from being in a passive position where they rely on men or the state for liberation.
 
Thus, over the past half century, the expanding participation of women in various fields of society, the advent of "Her Century" or "Her Era", along with the construction of women’s subjective identity are among the more important aspects of feminist research. One of the most important manifestations of this is the shift from exposing and criticizing androcentrism or state patriarchy to a comprehensive reflection on women themselves, including the repeated emphasis on "female consciousness" in gender enlightenment. That is, shifting from asking men or the state to do something for women to questioning how women should assume responsibility for society.
 
This shift reflects not only a significant increase in women's gender awareness, but also an overall increase in women's capabilities. Not only can women liberate themselves, but they have the ability to transform the men who oppress women and the social environment in which patriarchy thrives. In this way, the "otherness" of women is expected to be completely changed, and the construction of a new gender system and culture can be truly realized.
 
Finally, feminism reconstructs the shehui xingbie order. With the unstinting advancement of feminist research, "xingbie" has become a very important category of analysis in academic research. It is not only changing people's way of thinking and cultural perceptions through the production and dissemination of knowledge, but more importantly and more fundamentally, it is also revealing and explaining the unequal gender power relations in the process of historical development and showing how the power mechanisms that create the categories of gender inequality are produced or reproduced. Specifically, by exposing and critiquing the patriarchal shehui xingbie system that has persisted throughout history, we provide a theoretical basis for the establishment of a more equal and just gender system in the future. It is undeniable that since the modern industrial revolution, with the extensive participation of women in social life, the "man outside/women inside" division of labor that has existed for thousands of years has been broken.
 
As for the direction and goal of development of both genders, or what kind of a gender system should be constructed, different schools of feminism have proposed different solutions according to different visions of social development. Although there are still many differences in the conception of gender models within feminism, equality, freedom, and justice are central to the reconstruction of the gender system, regardless of where the perspective of the proposal originates. And when people construct gender theory with gender equality and gender justice as the basic premise, they will inevitably face the problem of subverting or transforming the system and culture of gender inequality and gender injustice in real life.
 
As far as the specific situation in China is concerned, it is necessary to focus on solving the many gender issues that have not yet been resolved. For example, the problem of under-representation of women in government administration, the problem of unequal opportunities for men and women in the labor force, the serious problem of girls missing out on schooling because of unequal distribution of educational resources, the problem of female unpaid labor and preference for boys in childbirth, the problem of the legislation concerning sexual assault and harassment in daily life, the problem of reproduction of gender stereotypes in media communication, etc.
 
In a certain sense, feminist research is itself a different kind of social activism. On the one hand,  by exposing and criticizing gender inequalities in history and reality, it draws more people's attention to gender issues and incorporates them into new institutional and cultural designs; on the other hand, through the researcher's discoveries and writings, the concept of equal and fair social development is conveyed, thus creating a public opinion environment in which  the various disadvantages women face can change; moreover, by taking gender as a starting point, feminism can address all the inequalities and injustices in human society, not only the inequalities between genders, but also the various situations of "oppression" and "oppressed" between communities, countries, regions, classes, and ages, as well as the lack of freedom and autonomy this oppression brings to people’s lives. 

​In short, feminist research is in a sense a comprehensive practice of social change, that is, through research on gender and gender knowledge production, it creates conditions and lays the foundation for the reconstruction of an equal and harmonious social order.
 
In summary, the widespread dissemination of feminism in the world is inseparable from the development of human society. Nüxing女性 and “ism” are an integral part of world history, they are not only about women, but also about all gender groups; this is not only about one country or one region, but it  concerns all the peoples on earth; this is not only about scholarship or culture, but it is also concerns the common destiny of human development. Regardless of country, gender, class, ethnic group, age, the pursuit of ideals and beliefs such as freedom, equality, justice, harmony/peace, and development are not only the goals of feminism, but they are also even more timely topics of common concern for all human beings. 
 
Notes

[1] 畅引婷, 杨 霞, “女性主义话语体系的中国语境和时代价值,” published in 河南师范大学学报, 2020.6.

​[2] For a far from comprensive list, see:   Tani Barlow ed. The Question of Woman in Chinese Feminism, Durham: Duke University Press, 2004; Wendy Larson, Women and Writing in Modern China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998; Louise Edwards, Gender, Politics, and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage in China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008; Gail Hershatter, “State of the Field: Women in China's Long Twentieth Century”, The Journal of Asian Studies 63:4 (2004): 991-1065; Joan Judge, The Precious Raft of History: The Past, the West, and the Woman Question in China, Stanford:  Stanford University Press, 2008.
Leta Hong Fincher, Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China, Verso, 2018; Harriet Zurndorfer, “Women in Chinese Learned Culture: Complexities, Exclusivities and Connecting Narratives”, Gender and History 26:1 (2014): 23-35; and Zheng Wang, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories, University of California Press, 1999. For English-language translations of writings by Chinese feminists, see Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko, eds., The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, New York:  Columbia, 2013; and Dai Jinhua, After the Post–Cold War: The Future of Chinese History, edited and with an introduction by Lisa Rofel, Chapel Hill:  Duke, 2018.