A Woman Should Develop Her Capacity To Its Full Potential As A Human Being

By Author: Porter Black
Total Articles: 54
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Among various issues related to the woman question, women's education and professions became a fiercely debated issue. At the turn of the twentieth century, some late Qing reformers, such as Zheng Guanying and Liang Qichao, promoted women's education for the specific purpose of cultivating "xiannu, xianqi, xianmu" (virtuous women, virtuous wives, virtuous mothers. In "Women's Education," a widely known article published in 1897, Liang Qichao suggests that educated women would be morally and physically prepared to bear fitter children, forge future citizens, and help strengthen the nation and preserve the race. He claims that education would provide women with a trade so that they would cease being parasitic spenders. For Zheng and Liang, women's education was justified in terms of coping with the pernicious influence of women within the home. Women were viewed as not only Calvin Klein Jeans ignorant of and uninterested in public affairs, but also vain and unintelligent; therefore, from Zheng and Liang's point of view, women became a harmful influence on children ...
... and a heavy burden for husbands. Women, in effect, were blamed for all the evils that affected Chinese society. Views such as these not only portrayed women as dependent, submissive, and incompetent, but also prescribed a role that confines women to the household.

These "submissive ideals" were even assumed by some radical publications on women's rights. In Niijiezhong [Women's Bell] (1903), a pamphlet considered by many as the declaration of women's rights, Jin Tianhe designs an image of the new woman in modern Chinese society. Although Jin advocates gender equality and women's rights to education and profession, he still believes that women's education should focus on training women to become chimjie (pure),jianzhen (chaste), andjilie (strong) individuals with male-like characters to prepare them to be guomin zhi mu. Paradoxically, in Jin's conception ofniiquan, the new woman should possess male-like characters to become an ideal woman, and women's "liberation" can be achieved on True Religion Jeans the condition that it reinforces paternalistic values. Similarly, in the early Republican era, some reformers called for the revival of women's traditional virtues. Seemingly reformist, such discourse reinscribed the gender-biased values by informing women that their position was within the household and their only role was to assist husbands and instruct children. In essence, these publications about women's education and professions were defining women's identity as mothers of the nation within the framework of nation building. Although some contained feminist consciousness, the message would certainly limit women's choices and impact their views about whether they could and should participate in pubic affairs.

This debate about women's roles continued throughout the May Fourth period. In urban areas, many male intellectuals launched new forums for discussions about women's issues in progressive periodicals such asXin qingnian [New Youth], Dongfang zazhi [Eastern Miscellany], and Xin niixing [New Woman]. The woman question took on heuristic value in the larger theoretical framework within which new intellectuals searched for solutions to various social problems. Numerous articles regarding a variety of topics, such as free-choice marriage, female chastity, social interaction between men and women, women's education, women's professional opportunities and economic independence, and labor issues, appeared in the progressive newspapers and periodicals widely circulated in large cities. Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, and other leading new culturists contributed articles about various aspects of the woman question. For instance, in an article titled "The Question of Women's Character" published in 1919, Ye Shaojun argued that "a woman should know that she is a human being and should develop her capacity to its full potential as a human being".