Visual Representation of Gender and Class in Changing China

Wang Zheng, Associate Professor Women’s Studies and History at the University of Michigan, will present a lecture as part of the China Remixed: Arts and Humanities in Contemporary Chinese Culture festival hosted by the IUB Arts & Humanities Council. This lecture is held in conjunction with the “Above Ground: 40 Moments of Transformation” photography exhibition of young feminist activism in China held at the Herman B Wells Library Lobby from January 9 to March 10.

 

Analyzing visual representation of Chinese women in the popular media over a span of 60 years, this talk explores the concealed and erased history of socialist state feminist endeavors in socialist revolution and demonstrates drastic changes in gender norms and practices in the state’s embracing of global capitalism. Given the widespread notions about “CCP propaganda” or “Maoist gender discourse” that always assume an authorship of a faceless patriarchal Party state authority, this talk will bring feminist producers of gendered “propaganda” back to the historical process to highlight socialist feminist transformation of a patriarchal culture. Changes in visual representation signify changed power relations of gender and class, changed constitution of gender and class subjectivities, as well as changed nature of the state. The talk is based on Prof. Wang’s new book Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1964 (UC Press, 2016), which presents the first investigation of high politics in the CCP from a gender perspective.