New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty

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.

Introduction, Ya-chen Chen Part I: New Modern Women in China 1. The Idea of Human Equality and the Early Republican Era, Daniel C. Palm 2. Fashion and Freedom: A Textual Analysis of Chinese Women from 1911 to 2011, Garrick Harden and Chiung-fang Chang 3. Revolutionary Femininity in Performance: Female Characters in Beijing Opera Model Plays during China’s Cultural Revolution, Xing Fan 4. Pygmalion in China, Valerie Levan 5. The White Snake in Modern China, Liang Luo 6. Gendering of Historiography: the Pregnant Nude and Photographic Representation, Shuqin Cui Part II: New Modern Chinese Women with Overseas Experience 7. Forges for Change: Overseas Education for Chinese Women at the Turn of the Republican Period in China, Linda H. Chiang 8. Taiwan’s First Female Overseas Student as an American Attorney: My Career Stories and Fighting Spirit, Marian S. K Ming 9. The Image of the Traveling Mother in Eileen Chang’s The Fall of the Pagoda and The Book of Change, Jie Guo 10. New Modern Chinese Women in the United States, Ya-chen Chen Part III: Queer Issues in New Modern Chinese Gender Politics 11. Demystifying Heteronormality: Homosexuality from China’s Past and Beyond, Tiantian Zheng 12. Chinese GBT Socio-culturally Situated in Confucian Gender Ethics: Farewell My Concubine since the Late Qing Dynasty, Ya-chen Chen 13. Cinematic Visualization of Spiritual Lesbianism in Monika Treut’s Ghosted: Countering the Essentialist Concerns about Li Ang’s Literary Works, Ya-chen Chen

Chen Ya-chen iscurrently a Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Studies Institute, Columbia University, USA.