Orliski, "Reimagining the domestic sphere: Bourgeois nationalism and gender in Shanghai, 1904-1918," 1998

Constance Ilene Orliski, Ph.D.

Abstract (Summary)
This study uses the early twentieth century female periodical press to examine the subject of Chinese domesticity and the "new woman" in Shanghai. Earlier scholarship claimed that the new journalism offered a means of rallying women for revolutionary purposes in the political arena, or that the female press was merely a didactic device of male reformers seeking to project their own nationalist ideals. Instead of concentrating on the politics of revolution and emancipation, articles that primarily women wrote related to the social life of the family reveal a consistent set of concerns tracing back to the mid-nineteenth century as well as forward to the first decades of the Guomindang period.

Modernizing issues of professionalism, science, productive labor, philanthropy and public life were written about as reshaping the home. These articles encouraged the housewife to incorporate foreign models of time management, financial administration, and labor relations into her domestic routine. They instructed her in germ theory and contemporary nutritional guidelines. They insisted that the only way for her to be patriotic and public-minded was to earn an income and to lead social reform campaigns.

Domestic discourse also remained connected to more traditional understandings of women's activities as household managers. Ancient texts, such as the "Great Learning" (Da xue), classical conceptions of the family model of the state, and the construction of separate spheres around the "inner" realm (nei) and the "outer" domain (wai) were all Confucian resources for some modern housewives. Even the slogan, "good wife, wise mother" (liangqi xianmu), a modern translation of the Confucian ideal, was embraced positively by many women as they endeavored to claim relevance for themselves in the emerging new social order of the early Republican era.

The woman-centered reading recovered in this research shows how domestic life was variously conceived in Shanghai women's periodicals. Moreover, it suggests that the relationship between domestic and public feminism in early twentieth century China gave private space new public meanings that resonated with global patterns while retaining indigenous specificity.

Advisor: Furth, Charlotte