He-Yin Zhen 何殷震
Biography
Born to wealthy parents in Jiangsu in 1884
Context
Accelerated modernisation in China in the shape of modern capitalism and imperialism.
Circulation of ideas of liberalism, Christian evangelism, evolutionism, socialism, anarchism, feminism, Marxism
1903: the Women's Bell published by Jin Tianhe, emerging from progressive male circles. Proposed women's rights to education, suffrage, employment, livelihood and human dignity
1850s to 1907, feminist struggles subordinate to national development. Women's emancipation was a means to the goal of national development and sovereignty
Anarchists link feminism to complete social revolution - oppression of women linked to class divisions and exploitation as well as traditional culture
Anarchists criticised militarism and nationalism, condemning superstition and traditional morality. Anarchism would lead to the end of hirarchical social systems like the family
Anarcha-feminism separates feminism from nationalism: women's liberation for moral necessity not for the sake of the nation
Marries Liu Shipei, an influential intellectual, in 1904 and moves to Tokyo in 1907. Meets revolutionaries and anarchists
Pre-eminent feminist theorist and founding editor of an anarcha-feminist journal Natural Justice under the aegis of the "society for the restoration of women's rights"
Broad awareness of women's suffrage movements in Europe and N America
Targets oppression of women in China, in the past and preset, in industralising Japan, and around the world
Early feminist critic of Chinese political economy, modern state, and patriarchy
Philosophy
Key themes:
systematic global critique of the political, economic, moral, ideological bases of patriarchal society
liberation of one oppressed element in society (women) depends on the liberation of all
criticises progressive male intellectuals who subordinated women's interests to nationalist agendas.
Liberalism and capitalism as incompatible with women's emancipation
Self-reinforcing relationship between patriarchy and capitalism
Total revolution to abolish property, family and the state
Nannü and feminism
Woman as a transhistorical global category. Individual identity and a structure, constituted through scholarship, ritual, law, social and labour practices
Womanhood not biological, something constructed socially
Man and woman, categories based on difference. Mutually constitutive, hierarchical relationship between genders
Women's bodily subjection through commodification (in private and public). Not a modern capitalist phenomenon - ontological
男女 social world is already gendered timespace of life
Distinction is rendered ontological as it is institutionalised by patriarchal discourse and the material world
No separation between 男女 and class. They work together to determine lives and prosperity
男女 category of ontological difference must be eliminated
Critique of tradition
Controlling women through taboos and traditions of subservience
Confucian relegation of married women to the private sphere
Natalism and the cult of fertility associated with wealth - women are mandated to have children
Criticises chastity rules and the sexual hypocrisy of men
Chinese women had internalised patriarchal values - creating superficiality and idleness
Misery of arranged marriages and domination in the family
Children must be raised communally to emancipate women
Sexual liberation is necessary but not full liberation
Domination has much deeper roots in capitalism
Shengji and the critique of capitalism
生计 (livelihood) broader than the European concept of class
Institution of private property is the main root of inequality
Male dominance operates through an unequal distribution of wealth. Relationships of dependent and master within the family
Everyone in the capitalist system is dominated. So integrating women into the economy will exchange one form of oppression for another
Distinction between labour as a vital autonomous aspect of individual and communal freedom, and the commodified and enslaved labour of capitalism
Women's participation in traditional handicrafts used to be free and is now commodified
The state is nothing but the enabler of capitalist exploitation
Pacifism
Link between nation building and militarism
Armies are made of working class people who protect the socio-political elites
Military budgets take up money that could be used to alleviate poverty
militarism expresses gender dominance and violent masculinity - women are excluded from the armies
We must adopt a pacifist perspective, refuse conscription and refuse war in passive resistance
Women experience gender based violence in wars and bear a heavy burden: they should be natural pacifists
Liberation
Why does He-Yin Zhen argue that women’s freedom must involve freedom from the state?
Women had to free themselves and affirm their agency
Criticises western feminist achievements as limited: monogamy, divorce, civil marriage, co-education
Against reformism. Integration into existing institutions reproduce injustices
Men are equally oppressed by other men