University of Nevada, Reno

Sanctioned Self-Immolation: Suicide in the lives of women in China, 17th-21st Century

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History

by

Tiffani L. Thomas

Dr. Hugh Shapiro/Thesis Advisor

December, 2012

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

We recommend that the thesis prepared under our supervision by

TIFFANI L. THOMAS

entitled

Sanctioned Self-Immolation: Suicide in the lives of women in China, 17th- 21st century

be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Hugh Shapiro, Ph.D., Advisor

Greta De Jong, Ph.D., Committee Member

Deborah Boehm, Ph.D., Committee Member

Martha Hildreth, Ph.D., Graduate School Representative

Marsha H. Read, Ph. D., Dean, Graduate School

December, 2012

i

Abstract

Women in China have not always been constrained by Confucianism; women were once able to participate in social and political spheres that were later dominated by men during the

Neo-Confucian period beginning during the Song dynasty. Women found themselves in newly controlled roles that left them with limited agency, mobility, or influence. Coinciding with the rise of Neo-Confucianism, female suicide became an avenue for women to gain honor and agency in a world very much organized by men.

Once heralded by the Chinese Imperial state as prime examples of higher Confucian ideals, female suicides are now deemed an indicator of China’s deeply rooted social problems.

While the problem of female suicide remains, the way in which it is viewed by Chinese society has shifted. Much like a large population was once perceived to be beneficial to the Chinese state and now is seen as encumbering and disastrous, so too is female suicide. To understand the continued persistence of female suicide within Chinese culture we must take into consideration the immense gender inequality that was promulgated through tradition and further instilled through contemporary social, political, and economic gender inequity. Through the ultimate form of self-harm, women have attempted to right societal wrongs, save themselves from public scrutiny, ensure vindication, demonstrate chastity, mourn a husband, resist tyrants, or simply exercise individual agency within a highly regulated society. While their reasons have been varied, women turning to suicide primarily stems from their controlled, second-class status within traditional Chinese society.

The large majority of research done on female suicide in China has been focused primarily on a particular topic such as the faithful maiden cult, chaste widows, or suicide in literature. This paper attempts to combine these different avenues of research to demonstrate the ii depth and breadth of female suicide within both the historical record and memory of China. This paper discusses female suicide in China through the multiple lenses of Confucian morals, Neo-

Confucian ideals, and Western theories of suicide developed by French sociologist Emile

Durkheim. In addition, an attempt to lend an interdisciplinary approach lends a nuanced argument to the continued phenomena of female suicide in China.

1

The Traditional Role of Women in China

When a son is born Let him sleep in the bed, Clothe him in fine robes, And give him a jade scepter to play with. How loudly his cry is And in red greaves shall he flare. May he be the head of the house And the lord of the land.

When a daughter is born Let her sleep on the ground, Wrap her in common clothes, And give her a loom-whorl to play with. May she have no faults and violate no rules, Care about only food and wine, And bring no disgrace to her parents.

Book of Songs, 7th Century BCE1

Within Chinese culture, women’s lives have traditionally been tightly regulated, structured, and controlled. A highly moralized code of conduct set forth through

Confucian ideals is inextricably intertwined with Chinese culture. Paramount within

Confucian thought is a structured set of relationship guidelines where filial piety is greatly emphasized. Children must be respectful to their parents, subjects reverent to their emperor, and wives duty-bound to their husbands. In all of these relationship dynamics, the woman is subservient. Confucianism presents the family as a set of connections among men; therefore, women can only transition through life going from one position of filial subservience to another; first with her father, then with her husband and finally with her son. It is only nearing her twilight years that a woman may hold any

1 Barnstone and Ping 2005 2

influence in her own life with even that contingent upon her giving birth to sons and

becoming the tyrannical mother-in-law, similar to the one who had tortured her as a young bride. These traditional Confucian roles leave a Chinese woman with little to no power over her own life, actions, decisions, or body.2

Confucian ideals, which allowed men extensive social mobility through education

in the classics, effectively limited women’s potential for self-cultivation to marriage, chastity , and obedience. When a young girl was born, she was taught that only her

betrothal to a good family would be able to bring honor to her family. She learned to

exist within her sequestered world, spending her day within the confines of the house and

away from the prying eyes of males outside her family and those with the potential to

tarnish her name or call into question her virtue and chastity. Exemplary women—

marriageable women--were those who existed outside of the public eye, and were

immune to the wagging tongues of the community.

With a society situated in patrilocal terms, China has historically placed great

emphasis on the birth of sons. The ideal household was typified by multiple generations

living under one roof, forming a familial compound of sorts. Sons grew the family line,

while daughters were only within their natal family until the time when they are married

off. Therefore, daughters were less beneficial for the family because they were perceived

as just another mouth to feed—they subtracted from the family, they did not add to it. On

the other hand, sons retained the family name, continued the lineage and brought honor to

the family. Male children therefore, represented potential ties to outside families, outside

wealth, and outside opportunity. Arthur Wolf states that in late imperial China,

2 Ebrey 1993 3

“marriage was early and nearly universal for females.”3 It was a time when women went

from being the property of their fathers to becoming a possession of their husband’s household and thusly under the control and supervision of her new mother-in-law.

Arguably only through childbirth was a woman allowed any level of authority within the

household. Only after having completed her Confucian role as the dutiful wife, daughter,

and daughter-in-law by successfully bringing a healthy child into the world- was she

awarded any position within the household. While this freshly acquired rank allowed the

new mother privilege over peers, it was even more important due to its ability to limit the amount of authority the mother-in-law held over the woman, her husband and the household. By bringing a male child into the household a woman now had a pretense of a voice, and therefore a small, limited stake within society. Thus, women have been pawns in the chess game of life. They have been bargaining tools for social mobility,

breeding instruments, cheap labor, and sexual objects.

Women within Chinese Society

Women from earlier dynasties, especially the Tang (618-907 C.E.) dynasty, were able to participate within traditional male spheres. Women had access to education and enjoyed the typical male pursuits of horseback riding and poetry. In addition, women were players within the political arena, most notably Empress Wu, who founded the Zhou dynasty (690-705 C.E). With the reemergence of Confucian ideals starting around the

Song dynasty (960-1276 C.E), women found themselves increasingly constrained within

3 Wolf and Huang 1980, 134 4

a strict patriarchal society; they found themselves bereft of social, political or familial

power.4 Traditionally, women have been socially marginalized and physically isolated

within Chinese society. As far back as the Han dynasty (206 B.C. - 210 C.E.), the

separation of the sexes has been an integral aspect of classical Chinese thought. The

physical separation of male and female was deemed imperative to maintaining order

within the universe as well as amongst human relationships.5 These gender specific

spheres were almost always mutually exclusive. The homosocial groups allowed for the

protection and continuation of gender specific norms and virtues. In addition, historians

have argued that both genders often “asserted the significance of the inner-outer

distinction as a mental boundary even when its social and spatial realization was

problematic.”6 The physical separation of the sexes, coupled with supposed cultural

gender differences were significant in the preservation of Confucian ideals and the

positioning of the elite within traditional Chinese society.

Women were confined to the stifling inner quarters of the family compound not

only intellectually but also physically through customary practices such as foot-binding.

With this extremely limited role within society, and a woman’s body and identity intimately tied to marriage, sex, and reproduction, it is no wonder that mothers began to disfigure their own daughters to ensure their successful marriageability. The practice of foot-binding not only further sexualized the female body by molding it to conform to male notions of attractiveness; it also limited the mobility of women to traverse outside their isolated female spheres. Footbinding also served as a very poignant reminder to

4 Tian 1988 5 Hinsch 2003 6 Theiss 2004, 158 5 women that their bodies were not their own; their supposed agency was only an extension of male desire.

Women were also oppressed through their lack of access to education and property. Education was all but denied to the large majority of women with only a small percentage of women, typically the socially elite, allowed formal access to classic

Confucian texts, literature, and poetry. In addition, women were not allowed property rights, so the only thing they personally owned was their dowry, which they had been accruing their entire lives. This bridal dowry was what they took with them when their identity shifted after marriage. It became an extension of the marriage settlement between families. A woman’s dowry became her husband’s, her body became her husband’s, and in essence, her life became her husband’s.

Notions of female submissiveness and inferiority, while present within Confucian principles, are central in many other prevailing areas of Chinese culture. Within

Traditional Chinese Medicine there is a clear delineation between what is considered male and what is deemed female; to every female yin there is a complementary male yang. Yin is synonymous with “darkness, cold, moisture, and that which is hidden, latent or passive” and Yang symbolizes “brightness, the sun, fire, warmth and activity.”7 In addition, different organs in the body are governed by either a docile yin or vigorous yang essence. Qi, the overall life-giving force, is considered male, while blood is female. Blood is passive and only infused with life after contact with the active qi.

Dominant Chinese culture, stemming from its medical roots in Traditional Chinese

Medicine, has a history of depicting female menstruation and reproduction as dirty,

7 Furth 1998, 21 6

corruptible forces. During menstruation, women are considered unclean and a source of

pollution. In addition, their menstrual blood and after-birth are superstitiously considered

tainted and dangerous. The feminization of blood and the degradation of female

reproductive forces is an attempt by males to harness the potential social power that

women could exert through reproduction. By manipulating cultural morays surrounding

female reproduction, men have reinforced societal gender hierarchies and effectively

controlled the biologic power of women. Furthermore, by using notions of yin and yang

to not only structure the body but also society and the greater cosmos, the familial and

political frameworks of China were naturalized and normalized first within the body itself.8

The same system that harmonized male action with female passivity while

promoting women’s reproductive secretions as social pollution also effectively

demonized female sexuality. Victoria Cass in her work entitled Dangerous Women

discusses how the folklore in ancient China depicted women as predators that possessed

the most sinister of human desires. She explains how women were seen as something

subhuman, with basal animal characteristics. Not only was women’s sexuality held

responsible for the dissolution of dynasties, but their very presence within politics was

viewed as a form of social rot. If the dynasty fell, it was due to the Emperor becoming

ensnared and preyed upon by a conniving, deceitful woman. Tales of sexually vampiric

women in folklore became the springboard for common perceptions of women as evil

incubi that had the potential to destroy not only a man’s family, but they also had the

ability to cause the downfall of the dynasty and even the entire kingdom. Thus the

8 Wu 2010 7

restriction and constraint placed upon women’s bodies and sexuality became inextricably

linked to the overall well-being of the dynasty.9

Fulfillment of Filial Obligation: The Role of Suicide in Women’s Lives

A traditional saying in Chinese states that there are three solutions to women’s

problems: “one—to cry; two—to scream; and three—to hang herself.” This quote highlights the central role suicide played within the lives of women throughout China’s long history. With women’s lives heavily restricted and controlled, most avenues for social mobility were denied them. Typically the only way for a woman to raise herself and her family into a higher social stratum was through marriage and reproduction. The limited opportunity for social mobility forced women to hold tightly to the honorable positions afforded them like faithful maiden, virtuous wife, and chaste widow. Society viewed these positions as the ultimate example of filial women—women who were performing their traditional Confucian duties. As a result, a strong cultural push for faithful maidens and widows developed during the late Ming dynasty. Due to marriage being central to the construction of a woman’s identity, the loss or death of the husband was devastating to the woman. She had pinned all of her hopes and aspirations, in addition to those of her family, to her successful birthing of sons and her continued ascension through familial ranks. With this dream gone, women were often forced into remarriage, or bullied into returning to their natal homes, many of which no longer had a place for them. Since Chinese widows were not able to inherit property and were essentially regarded as property themselves, they were left with scant options. This lack

9 Cass 1999 8

of opportunity or hope for a successful future often led women to turn to suicide as the

only honorable way to save face.

Riddled throughout late imperial literature are themes of the faithful maiden. The faithful maiden cult first emerged in mainstream Chinese culture during the thirteenth century and grew into a larger following during the latter half of the Ming dynasty and into the Qing.10 During this time there was an increase in the “intensification of

Confucian moral discourse on the cultivation of loyalty.”11 Suicide became the ultimate

demonstration of moral character and virtue. It was utilized by the ruling class as the

typification of their political theories and sentiment. In a highly dramatic manner the

ruling class was able to espouse their moral ideals and further solidify their place within

an increasingly Confucian society.

While women were pressured to remain chaste maidens for most of the Confucian

period, the earliest findings of faithful maidens committing suicide after the death of their

fiancées can be found during the Yuan dynasty (1280-1367 C.E.). Poetry written during

this time reflects the rise in esteem for chaste female suicide. A Yuan poem, “A Faithful

Maiden from Yuanchuan” depicts the chaste suicide of a young woman, which had been

previously unprecedented within poetry. In addition, there is a case during the Yuan

dynasty where a petition was brought to attention of the court in order to honor a faithful

maiden who took her own life for the sake of chastity.12

Confucian doctrine, which promoted a filial relationship between husband and

wife, was expected to continue even after the death of the husband. Although remarriage

10 Lu 2008 11 Lu 2008,7 12 Lu 2008 9

occurred amongst the lower classes for tangible reasons such as labor and reproduction,

the remarriage of widows had been abhorred by the upper classes upon moral lines.

Consistent with the popularity of Confucianism, which was touted as the ruling value

system of the elite, remarriage was commonly viewed as disrespecting a deceased

husband, which equated to disrespecting a filial relationship. Laws that dictated a

widow’s dowry and person being controlled by the woman’s in-laws stem from earlier

Mongol mandates. Around the time of the Mongol conquest in the 1270s C.E., Mongol rulers briefly imposed on all of the Chinese the practice of the levirate marriage whereby a widow was forced to stay with her in-laws and marry her husband’s younger brother.13

By attempting to remain chaste after the death of her husband, a woman was escaping a

levirate marriage, which was perceived by many Chinese as an incestuous union. In

addition, by remaining chaste a woman was attempting to exert some level of agency over her future, as well as resisting being passed between brothers and kept within the family as a form of property, similar to the sad existence of brood mare.

Consistent state recognition of chaste female suicides began to develop during the

Ming dynasty. To counteract previous Mongol traditions, such as the levirate marriage system, as well as to promote ethnic political loyalty, the first Ming emperor issued

“Admonition for Women” edicts that commemorated the faithful suicides of women and concubines. These edicts were given equal position with other important political events within the Veritable Records. It was during the Ming dynasty that “more than thirty thousand virtuous women were listed in the Veritable Records of the Dynasty and local

13 Ropp 2001 10

histories.”14 The increase of attention given to women who exude the “exemplary

behavior” of chaste, virtuous female suicide, demonstrates the sanctioning of such acts by

the state.

Governmental jingbiao records, or imperial testimonials of exemplary moral

behavior, abound during the Ming dynasty. It was during this period that a strong

fascination with extreme moral conduct coincided with the reemergence of Confucian

ideals of chastity. Towards the end of the Ming dynasty there was a considerable

increase in the awarding of jingbiao honors to chaste maidens. “From 1528 to 1560,

within a period of 33 years, 28 faithful maidens received jingbiao. This figure is nearly

double that of all those honored from 1368 to 1521, a total of 154 years. Seven of the 15

women who received awards before 1522 committed suicide. By contrast, of the 28 who

received awards during the late Ming era 20 committed suicide.”15 The rise in jingbiao

awards clearly demonstrates the cultural shift in emphasis in honoring chaste maidens,

from promoting women remaining virtuous through their resistance to remarriage,

towards endorsing demonstrations of chastity through suicide.

It was also during this tumultuous time in Chinese dynastic history that female

sexual chastity became synonymous with male political loyalty.16 An old Chinese

maxim, “A loyal minister does not serve two lords, neither may a faithful widow marry a

second husband” highlights the connection between chaste suicide and political loyalty.

Therefore, equality was established between male politically-driven suicide and female honor-driven suicides. These types of suicide were not deemed a sin, as they would be in

14 Tian 1988, 91 15 Lu 2008, 32 16 Ropp 2001 11

Western terms, but rather the equation of female chastity to male political loyalty led to

an altruistic form of suicide, where women inflicted harm onto themselves “in the interest

of another person or an abstract idea.”17 In addition, there are many romanticized

examples of female heroes that ultimately died gloriously, bringing honor to themselves

and their families through suicide. Take for example the fall of the Ming dynasty; not

only did the Emperor himself commit suicide as a last act of honor, but so too did many

of his imperial concubines. Their suicide demonstrated an utmost loyalty to the emperor,

the dynasty, as well as to the state. Many scholars have perceived this as females

following the male initiative, being that men commit suicide out of political loyalty and

women commit suicide out of loyalty for their men. Another example of female chaste

suicide being complementary to male political loyalty was when the Ming dynasty fell to

the Mongol invaders; many women throughout the neighboring areas committed suicide

for fear of the impending onslaught of rape and devastation. These acts of suicide were

deemed honorable due to the fact that these women, by committing suicide, were

attempting to stay faithful to their husbands and imperial dynasty by not succumbing to

rape by the invaders.18

To Save Face: Suicide and Shame

The protection and preservation of women’s sexual chastity was paramount in the

lives of women during the Ming/Qing dynasties. A woman’s life, and the honor of her

family, depended on her successfully defending her virtue. When a woman was

powerless to retain her chastity, incapable of proving her virtue, or too overcome with

17 Eberhard, 95 18 Wakeman 1985 12 shame, she would turn to the only option left to her, suicide. Suicide was not only a means to an end, if a woman could not prove her chastity in life she would attempt to verify it through death, “a chaste suicide could constitute proof of a trespass against virtue.”19 When sexual assaults occurred, suspicion was placed upon the virtue of the assaulted woman; what had she done to attract the attention of her accuser, why had she been in a position where she was left alone and vulnerable to such attacks? A woman who had been raped was commonly viewed as a woman who had a history of illicit relationships; such acts were viewed as sinful on the part of the woman no matter the circumstances.20 Therefore, when questions were asked by a woman’s family and community concerning a sexual assault, often her reputation was tarnished to such a degree that she felt unable to go on living: “Being so mortified, I am so indignant I can’t go on living!”21 In addition, if a woman’s chastity was lost, threatened, or even called into question there was a great deal of social pressure from family members, relatives and the community for the woman to commit suicide in order to save face. Suicide was also an avenue for agency; “the martyrdom of humiliated women redeemed their chaste reputations in the eyes of the state and their communities, but for the women themselves, suicide, by restoring chastity, was also a profound assertion of personhood.”22 Through suicide, women were able to affect their environment in a manner which otherwise excluded them by virtue of being female.

19 Goodman 2005, 68 20 Eberhard 1967 21 Theiss 2004, 160 22 Theiss 2004, 203 13

Suicide as Vengeance

A superstitious belief in ghosts allowed women to feel that through suicide they could exercise their agency in a way that was denied them in life. Due to the traditional

Chinese belief that those spirits that have committed suicide are believed to be able to stay on Earth and haunt those that did them wrong, a woman, by committing suicide, could exact her revenge upon a tyrannical mother-in-law, a dishonorable husband, or even the vicious slanderer that pushed her to mortally harm herself.

Suicide became a rectifying method of not only terrifying those who wronged her in her life, but also as a way to socially and publically implicate them for their transgressions. It was a “passionate act of self-assertion.”23 Women would hang themselves in their mother-in-law’s room or use an article of clothing from their husband’s philandering accomplice to strangle themselves to death. This was the most powerful accusation that a woman could make about the mistreatment by her husband, mother-in-law, or neighbor. In addition, the family or community, in an attempt to appease the deceased woman’s spirit, would enforce punishments for those who “forced” her into suicide. In this manner a slighted, or abused woman, through suicide, was able to retain her dignity and exercise her agency in a way that was more effective than when she had been living.24 Samsonitic suicide, or suicide for revenge, essentially became an act of engendered agency. Women used this traditional form of retributive violence to exercise agency that was otherwise outside their societal purview. Suicide became a powerful means of posthumous vengeance due to the traditional ideation of retribution within

Chinese culture. For, within the traditional conception, the act of suicide created a large

23Zamperini 2001, 78 24 Goodman 2005 14

accumulation of dangerous qi, which if left unrequited would spell certain disaster for the

family and community. This belief forced family members to take action on behalf of the

wronged spirit to reconcile the situation and bring peace to the ghost, while also

dispelling the bad qi.25

Another aspect of exercising female agency through suicide was that the only

thing a woman had control over, or could affect change upon, was her own body.

Therefore, it is natural that when a woman wanted to rebel or make a statement, the only

avenue open to her was to harm her physical person. The act of injuring oneself or

committing suicide could also be construed as a physical euphemism; for while it alluded

to the profanity of subversion against male dominance and a patriarchal system, it did not

expressly convey it.26 This is especially poignant in a Confucian society where filial piety

was the overarching defining feature; a society in which dismemberment or

disfigurement of one’s own body was seen as disrespecting your elders, suicide was the

ultimate form of self-mutilation.

The Promulgation of Suicide

While suicide was utilized by women as a way to break from domestic obscurity

and to gain notoriety and immortality through poetry, literature, and state proclamations,

it was also used by men to further their literary progression, acquire financial gain, and

even solidify their status within society. Especially during the “ruthless despotism which characterized the political environment in China during the Ming Dynasty, in which

25 Goodman 2005 26 Scott 1990 15

existed a favorable climate for scholars to direct their own anger and frustration toward

perpetrating in women the distortion of an originally deep moral sense to successive

levels of fanaticism.”27 Male scholars who had experienced political failings could

utilize their writings on female suicide to reinvent themselves and demonstrate their

continued political prowess. However, the use of female suicide by men to garner

personal success is not merely limited to the political arena. As demonstrated through the

many literary works and esteemed poems that focus on female suicide, a certain level of

voyeurism was attached to men writing about the phenomenon. Men were able to relieve

their social, political, and moral anxieties by encouraging female chastity, virtue, and

suicide.28 While doing so, they simultaneously promoted and embedded the

romanticization of female suicide into the hearts and minds of the Chinese populace.

Suicide became implanted within the cultural consciousness of Chinese women through the prolific instances of female suicide throughout poetry, literature, folklore, and theatre. Deeply rooted notions of female subservience and chastity, consistent with

Confucian ideals, presents themselves through poetry dating as far back as 600BCE. In a poem entitled I beg you, Zhongzi, a young girl begs her lover to not come over the wall to see her for fear of reprisal from her parents, brother, and community. This poem demonstrates her subservient position within her household, even to the desires of her brother. It also highlights the fear of a woman to be seen as committing a sexual transgression.

27 Tian 1988, 91 28 Tian 1988 16

I beg you, Zhongzi

I beg you , Zhongzi, Don’t come into my neighborhood, Don’t break my willow twigs. I’m not worried about the willow trees, I’m afraid of my parents. I do miss you But I’m scared of my parent’s scolding.

I beg you, Zhongzi, Don’t climb over my wall, Don’t break my mulberry branches. I’m not worried about my mulberry trees, I’m afraid of my brothers. I do miss you But I’m scared Of my brothers’ words.

I beg you, Zhongzi, Don’t trespass into our orchard, Don’t break my sandalwood boughs. I’m not worried about the sandalwood trees, I’m afraid of the rumors. I do miss you But I’m scared Of people’s gossip.

Book of Songs, 600 B.C.E.29

While not only demonstrating women’s powerlessness within their kinship roles, poetry during this time also illustrates suicide’s presence within the lives of women. An ancient poem that was promulgated as a folk song starting around 120 B.C.E. tells the story of a young woman who is taught from a young age all the traits to be a good wife.

However, after being married off at the tender age of seventeen, she finds that she rarely sees her husband and that in the eyes of her mother-in-law she can do nothing correctly.

29 Barnstone and Ping 2005 17

After some time, her husband concedes to his nagging mother and sends his bride home to her natal family. The bride’s family is humiliated to have her return, so they quickly arrange to marry her off to another husband. The young woman and her first husband are still in love and he vows to return for her at a later date, yet she is forced into remarriage and after the wedding ceremony drowns herself.

An Ancient Poem Written for the Wife of Jiao Zhongqing “I wove silk at thirteen And learned to tailor at fourteen. At fifteen I played the many-stringed harp, And at sixteen recited the Book of Songs and Book of Documents. I became your wife at seventeen But my heart’s core was often bitterly sad. You worked as a governmental clerk; I guarded my virtue and my passion never shifted. I stayed in an empty chamber, Rarely able to see you. I’d start to weave when the rooster crowed, night after night without rest. In three day I finished five bolts, But Big Mother chose to complain that I was slow. It wasn’t that I didn’t work fast enough, But it’s hard to be a wife in your home. ……..

Dark and dark, late in the evening, Quiet, so quiet, all the people settled, she said, My life is going to end today, The soul will leave the body behind.” Lifting her skirt and taking off her silk shoes, She jumped into a green pond. When the clerk heard about this, His heart knew she’d taken the long departure. Anonymous30

30 Barnstone and Ping 2005 18

In addition to poetry, theatre was also instrumental in incorporating suicide into the accepted social norms of traditional China; “it was a powerful medium for building ethical values in the popular mind” of many Chinese. 31 Contrary to much of the literature during the time, as well as the language of the Confucian classics, traditional

Chinese theatre was written and performed in everyday, colloquial language. This informal language ensured that theatre was accessible to all classes of people in many regions within China. It also highlights how powerful notions of femininity and female suicide were able to be conveyed through theatre and shape the cultural perceptions of women.

Written during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368 C.E.) the theatrical play “Injustice to Dou E” portrays the story of a young girl who is married at the innocent age of seventeen and whose husband dies two years later. She diligently works to care for her mother-in-law but both women fall prey to two scoundrels who hold power over them since they are men. The young girl recognizes the fact that she has two options to save herself and her mother-in-law: either submission or suicide. After bravely fighting for her independence from the men, she is wrongfully accused of poisoning her mother-in- law and, after being forced into a false confession, is beheaded. However, the story does not stop there - during the last scene in the play, the young girl shows up as a ghost and recounts the tragic true events to her father (who symbolizes the emperor). The paternal figure sees justice done and her spirit is vindicated. While the positive ending of the scene lessens the traumatic nature of the play, it demonstrates to the audience that justice can only be sought after death. Especially for women, who hold very little sway within

31 Barnstone and Ping 2005 19

the society, this play conveys to them that only through death, their death, can societal

wrongs be righted. In addition to praising the Confucian qualities of chastity and honor,

Dou E’s story is also about revenge and female agency. Dou E is portrayed as a heroine

who refuses to submit to needlessly overbearing patriarchal guidelines. Many scholars,

such as Henry Wells, argue that this is because traditional Chinese society allowed

women to be portrayed within theatre as strong individuals precisely because they were

unable to fill those roles within real society. “The Chinese fondness for exalting women

in the fictional and theatrical worlds and praising them for their long suffering suggests a

compensation for the subjugation frequently meted out to women in real life.”32 By glorifying women’s virtuous suffering, the status quo of subordinate women could proliferate.

Literature was also a tool to normalize the role suicide played in the lives of

Chinese women. The Ming literati were fascinated by female suicide and their view on

the “passion” that incited it. The literature during this time was imbued with emotion and

intrigue for both bodily love and dynastic greatness. The literati’s interest in female passionate self-harm led many of them to write about female suicide, thereby

encouraging and promoting the act itself. Katherine Carlitz furthers this claim by

discussing the scarcity of female authors who also wrote of love and passion during this

time; the same who failed to discuss female suicide in their writings. Carlitz does not

condemn the Ming literati as consciously promoting female suicide, but rather highlights

their voyeuristic fascination with it. “With the rise in spontaneous suicide stories,

32 Barnstone and Ping 2005 20

however, fidelity trumps filial piety.”33 This helps to answer the question why, in a

culture where harming one’s body which was equated to dishonoring your parents, suicide would be deemed acceptable and honorable.

Wolfram Eberhard, in his analysis of 1685 short stories, identified eighty-eight cases of suicide present within the short stories. Within those eighty-eight, seventy-eight

percent of the suicides were committed by women. Eberhard goes on to situate and

categorize the suicides found within the short stories in relation to the shan-shu, which

were books written and distributed for moral improvement that were “found in almost every house” that date as far back as the Song dynasty. 34 Eberhard states that within the pages of the shan-shu, special attention was given to suicide. He describes how cases of suicide were deemed sinful or shameful based upon moral justification. Within the shan- shu there were even depictions of varying levels of hell, such as “Hell ten” which was essentially a city for those who died without a cause; a city where those who were forced to commit suicide could watch those who had wronged them be punished. Within his study of how Chinese writers explained suicide, Eberhard highlights how notions of shame, guilt, and sin differentiate different types of suicide.

It appeared that even when an element of shame was directly or indirectly admitted, the stress was upon the aspects of sin and guilt in those suicides where the underlying behavior was sinful. But while the sin was the cause, the suicide itself was not necessarily sinful but ‘justified’ and was often, or even usually, looked upon as an admirable attempt to expiation, or the only way to avoid further sin. The Chinese writers seem to agree that the individual caught in such a situation is free of guilt, and that this suicide is not sinful but justifiable and sometimes even honorable.35

33 Carlitz 2001, 40 34 Eberhard 1967, 11 35 Eberhard 1967, 97 21

This excerpt demonstrates how within a Confucian society, where self-mutilation

is abhorred as a violation of filial piety, suicide was morally justified in terms of sin,

guilt, and shame.

The Story of the Stone, also known as Dream of the Red Chamber, is commonly held as the cornerstone of Chinese literature. Written during the 18th century, this five

volume novel contains numerous accounts of female suicide for a multitude of reasons:

spurned by lovers, caught in flirtatious situations, as well as other situations causing

women within the novel to take their own lives. This novel became engrained within

Chinese society and is considered part of a standard education, much like Shakespeare is

within Western societies. With so many of the female characters within the novel

committing suicide, this work of literature not only mirrors the suicide culture present

during Late Imperial China, it also serves to further instill within the psyche of Chinese

women the role of suicide within their decision making processes.

Discussion of female suicide in poetry and literature also serves to romanticize

and eroticize the topic. Lurid tales of sexual misconduct and vivid depictions of the

sexualized bodies of suicides lent not only notions of performance to female suicide, but

also allowed for eroticized notions of femininity, death, and suicide. Historical texts and

literature written during China’s Dynastic period, as well as writings of the New Culture

movement and Republican era, all engage readers in a voyeurism of female suicide. This

voyeurism establishes female suicide not only as a performance, but also as a form of the

patriarchal oppression of women. Female suicide, which was once state-verified, is now

oppressively gendered so that any form of female agency is stripped from it. It is now no

longer a tool of the weak, but an act of desperation. A 1920s book, One Hundred Views 22

on Women, dedicated an entire chapter to female suicide which essentially sought to

“naturalize the distinctive association of suicide with women in China.”36 The multitude of examples of women committing suicide throughout historical texts and literature serves to demonstrate how intrinsically linked notions of female suicide are within popular and historical memory.

The Performance of Suicide

During “Late imperial times, a woman’s suicide was generally understood to be a deliberate display of protest, even a moral decision, carried out in the most dramatic of ways.”37 In addition to committing suicide to incriminate those who had wronged her in

her life, it also became a means of performing virtue, chastity, and agency. Often, “a

widow or maiden would give notice of her intention to hang herself in public by a special

oral announcement, or written statement, posted next to the notice of the death of her

husband.”38 In addition to the public declaration of intent, how a woman chose to

commit suicide was also rife with notions of performance. Hanging, as previously discussed, was utilized by women in particular places, with particular utensils to employ vengeance. Fasting, which has often been a universal method of calling attention to grievances, was often employed by women who were attempting to make a statement of grief through suicide. However, these methods are considered somewhat private when contrasted with “platform suicides”. These suicides were the extreme of public

36 Goodman 2005, 75 37 Mann, 2011, 123 38 Tian 1988, 48 23

performance; they catered to the voyeuristic appetites of the times. One case in Fujian

province articulates the scene well:

An open space several hundred feet in width is selected and a platform is built. From a wooden beam overhead a red cord is suspended. When the widow ascends the platform, her relatives and clan members fall down on their knees and bow to her in respect. Then she scatters some grain around the platform and lets herself be supported by others for the hanging. When all is finished, the spectators cheer uproariously in praise of her virtuous deed. The corpse is then taken home, paraded through the streets with music.39

These tremendously public platform suicides, as well as the protracted starvation

suicides, demonstrate the large-scale societal acceptance of female suicide during the

Ming-Qing era. In addition, suggesting the embeddedness of female suicide within the

cultural consciousness, are reports of collective suicide by numerous young women who

had pledged sisterhood. These women took strength and solace from each other and

chose to end their lives with others, in a dramatic display of virtue:

The three Wang girls were from Jintan [Jiangsu Province]. They lived by the shores of Changtung Lake. At the end of the Ming during an army mutiny they fled into the marches near the lake to hide. When the rebels found out where the girls were hiding, they made a raft and poled out, pulling the three up onto the raft. The three girls joined hands back-to-back, with their arms tightly intertwined. When the raft reached a place where the current was running swiftly, they suddenly began rocking their bodies and pounding their feet, and the raft capsized, throwing everyone into the water. All drowned. Only then did the bodies appear, with the hands and arms still linked as they had been in life. Fathers and mothers wept, and grasping the girls’ hands, freed them at last. They were buried in a gravemound by the lake. The tree that grew there later had three branches, all intertwined. 40

Shift in Thinking during the New Republic

During the never-before seen outpouring of media throughout the May Fourth era, there was an inundation of articles discussing female suicide within the newspapers.

39 Tian 1988 40 Mann 2005 24

Within public discourse suicide became synonymous with female, it became known as a

female problem. In essence, suicide became increasingly feminized. Within this time

period, suicide was thought of as part of the traditional, Confucian culture; it was thought

to be inconsistent with the newly-established progressive ideals of the New Culture movement. Associating suicide with women was a way to recognize its existence within the society but remove any real consequences it may hold for the community by relegating it to women’s spheres.

Bryna Goodman demonstrates the shift in cultural values during the New

Republic in her article “The New Woman Commits Suicide: The Press, Cultural Memory and the New Republic.” The cultural shift, while espousing many new modern ways of

economic, political and social thinking, continued to retain many traditional beliefs. The formulation of the “New Woman” during the time of the early Republican era highlights

China’s attempt to move into the modern world of gender equality, economic prosperity, and political democracy. However, as demonstrated through Goodman’s example of the

young businesswoman, Xi Shangzhen, who committed suicide to implicate the wrong-

doing of her employer, the newly formed ideation of “femininity” was overshadowed

with traditional notions of chastity, virtue, and female suicide.

Female suicide was perceived as an ailment of modernization; it was presented,

“as a window onto the production of new tropes of virtue and suicide and as an

instantiation of the manner in which the suicide of an imagined new woman could be

represented as an allegorical failure of the historical constructs and ideological fantasies 25 of her time.”41 The topic of female suicide following the death of Xi Shangzhen was positioned in terms of questioning the ethics of Chinese morality, as well as attempting to understand the “new” position of women within a modern China. Xi, who committed suicide in Shanghai in September of 1922, was depicted throughout the media as a

“gendered pioneer who was victimized by an insufficiently reformed society.”42 Xi ended her life by hanging herself with an electrical cord in her employers’ office. Her suicide was purported throughout the media during that time as an act of vengeful agency to elucidate the lechery and financial wrong-doings of her boss. Xi had lost considerable amounts of money within the stock market after her employer, Tang Jiezhi, had invested her money for her. In addition, many accounts claimed that Tang had made multiple sexual advances that culminated in his request to make Xi his concubine. The shame of financial failure, coupled with the shame of tainted virtue, forced Xi Shangzhen to save face in the only manner afforded her—suicide. This story demonstrates the interplay between the old and the new within Chinese society during the Republican era. Women were allowed within the workforce, but were not seen as social equals. Rather they were perceived as sexualized beings that were male play-things within the workforce.

During the exact time period as the Xi Shangzhen suicide case, Shanghai news discussed another female suicide that was not as sensationalized. The suicide of a young woman who endured the depraved cruelty of her mother-in-law, and quietly hung herself by her trousers from the bedpost, was referred to as a family problem—not indicative of a societal problem as posited by the Xi suicide.

41 Goodman 2005, 70 42 Goodman 2005, 71 26

Whereas late imperial interpreters (bureaucrats, literati, and at times the emperor) typically contemplated female suicide in relation to the virtue of chastity and maintenance for the gendered boundaries of what was properly nei (the domestic realm, and spatial location for women), in the last years of the Qing dynasty and in the early Republican era the scope of interpretation widened, as normative structures of gender, virtue, and the state were called into question.43

The suicide spurred by traditional problems was not provocative enough for the media to

dwell upon it. These suicides were nothing new, they were merely viewed as the all too

familiar vestiges of a dynastic model that devalued women and their role within society.

The media instead sensationalized the suicide of Xi to call into question whether anything

had really changed with the fall of the dynasty and the Chinese move into modernity.

Women had become new social figures within the media and community; with their

supposed new status the continuation of female suicide also seemed new. How could

women who were no longer in positions of patriarchal servitude still commit suicide?

What role did suicide still fulfill for women within the ever-changing world of a modernizing China? Perhaps by making one suicide in particular seem extraordinary, it detracts from the actual overall ordinary nature of the act.

The Xi case also is intriguing because it signals the beginning of the modern trend

of the social sensationalization of urban female suicides and the dogged cultural

routinization of rural female suicide. The media attention also illustrates another detail

that characterizes the modern discussion on the perceived hastiness and whimsical aspect

of female suicide within rural China. A quote taken from a 1922 news article depicting

how important and distinct the Xi Shenzhen suicide is, in comparison to other rural

female suicides states, “this is not a hasty or insignificant suicide like that of a village girl

43 Goodman 2005, 69 27

who suffers infinitesimal aggravation and kills herself.”44 This statement makes evident

a social delineation between the well-justified, urban female suicide and the trivial, rural suicide by women. This demonstrates a shift from female suicide being seen through

traditional values into female suicide being understood through modern sociological

factors. One suicide was completed by a new woman who was participating in the

modern economic system and had become a victim of the evils of the stock market as

well as Western-educated employers. The other suicide was committed by a weak woman

who had failed to throw off the chains of the traditional marriage system and had

succumbed to her own impulsiveness. Suicide therefore became indicative of a woman’s

lack of successful integration within modern society. Because of this, she must still

revert back to traditional means, suicide, to exert her individual agency.

Preceding the suicide of Xi Shangzhen was another suicide that attracted the

attention of many revolutionary writers, the most well-known being Mao Zedong. The

1919 suicide of Chao Wuqie in Changsha was the topic of nine articles written by Mao.

These articles condemned her suicide as an effect of an outdated and misogynistic

marriage system that forced women into unwanted marriages with no avenues for refusal.

Mao and many of his revolutionary contemporaries felt that female suicide was wasteful

because it meant that women were not living up to their revolutionary potential. It was

during this time that reform politics was invested in the “women’s problem.” They were

concerned with instilling women with a cultural consciousness that elevated their roles

within society. Along this line of thinking, female suicide was perceived as thwarting the

44 Huang 1922 28

female potential and persisting with antiquated notions of female roles and female

identity. 45

Mao’s articles on the suicide of Chao are characterized as modern, yet are filled

with traditional overtones. Consistent with historical texts and biographies of famous

women, in which martyred women/female suicides are the only women who leave a

literary legacy, Mao focuses almost exclusively on women who conformed, suffered, and

subsequently committed suicide. Mao’s modern twist leaves the woman committing

suicide not out of love, honor, or chastity, but out of hate—hate for the gender oppression

by males and marriage. While Mao demonstrated progressive thinking in regards to

gender equality by calling for the destruction of gender segregation and condemning the

unequal gendered notions of chastity, he did so by singling out “women as being a vast

repository of the old habits of thinking.”46 Mao viewed Chao’s suicide as a result of

environment, society, and circumstances. He argued throughout his first article written

concerning the suicide that when facing a hostile environment the individual should not

give up (turn to suicide) but rather should struggle against it. Mao argues that the

draconian marriage system, coupled with intense pressure from a woman’s family and

community leave her with limited options. It is the pressure to conform or incur immense

social disgrace that forces a woman to commit suicide. Mao’s written disdain for

arranged marriages is tinged with his own experience of being forced into a betrothal to an older woman at the age of 13. In addition, his arguments for resisting environmental evils are consistent with his revolutionary stance on perpetual social struggle. He argues

45 Witke 1967 46 Witke 1967, 135 29 that suicide is symptomatic of social ills, and that these women are martyred as a way to resist societal tyranny.

However, one cannot fail to see elements of voyeurism and self-serving performance within Mao’s writings of Chao’s suicide. The titles given to the articles written by Mao are, “A Sacrificial Victim of the Reform of the Marriage System” and

“My Reactions to Miss Chao’s Suicide.” These titles reflect a certain level of sensationalism of the case of Chao’s suicide. She is, like so many women before her, a poster child for whatever cause is socially popular. During the dynastic era suicide was seen as perpetuating Confucian ideals of chastity and obedience. The New Culture movement and Mao Zedong used female suicide to bolster their revolutionary cause.

They are different sides to the same coin; they are using female suicide to further their own ends. These women are still being used by men to augment their own image and promote their own political agenda.

Present within Mao’s articles on Miss Chao’s suicide is an effort to look at the instances of female suicide as an attempt by an individual to toe the line between tradition and modernity. He recognizes women’s modern struggles within China to move away from being considered a household accessory and to establish herself within the family and society as an individual with agency. In addition, by using the articles written by Mao and others during this time period the genesis of modern conceptions of female suicide within China can be discerned. In 1920, eleven months after the death of Miss

Chao, another suicide took place where a woman moved from the country to the city, and had trouble adapting to mixed notions of what was expected of her as a traditional

Chinese, modern woman. After she committed suicide her husband wrote, “it was 30

inevitable that she should die, but she should have died in the country… for by dying in

the city she has caused me to lose face!”47 This ominous statement not only displays the

persistence of traditional patriarchal notions concerning female suicide, but it also has

implications for today’s situation within China where an enormous number of female suicides occur within the Chinese countryside.

Within the article written by Roxane Witke that discusses Mao Zedong’s articles on Miss Chao’s suicide is an interjection for the Western concept of mental default/defect as the cause of suicide. Witke illustrates how Mao considered suicide to be caused by society or the environment, yet she then argues, “He fails to raise the possibility that while there might be things wrong with society, there might also be something wrong with Miss Chao. Did she simply ‘fail to adjust’ or might she have been mentally unbalanced or mentally ill?”48 This interjection by the author is congruent with the way

many contemporary scholars perceive female suicide in China, not so much an indicator

of larger societal maladies, but a symptom of individual mental instability or depression.

Western Theories of Suicide

While instances of suicide pervade history and early literature, it has been argued

that the increase in suicide within the past two centuries has a direct correlation to

modernity. With this rise of modernization, comes the ever-increasing role of society

into the lives of individuals. Government, religion, and culture all have created a

structural hold over the society as well as over the individual. With these overarching

structures present within the very fabric of everyday lives, it is difficult to tell where

47 Witke 1967, 146 48 Witke 1967, 137 31 society stops and the individual begins. The ideation and actualization of suicidal thoughts and actions are rooted in this argument. Is suicide the product of greater social pressures or an example of a particular individual’s agency? When reasons for committing suicide are discussed, often the explanations given are personal ones: lost love, personal failure, physical illness. While there is little doubt that committing suicide is a deeply personal decision with equally personal consequences, French sociologist

Emile Durkheim argued for the preeminence of social rather than individual reasons in the estimation of suicidal actualization.

Durkheim argued that while individual reasons may exist, there is an overarching societal trait that is profoundly influential within the suicidal decision-making process.

“Sometimes men who kill themselves have family sorrow or disappointments to their pride, sometimes they have had to suffer poverty or sickness, at others they have had some moral fault with which to reproach themselves. But we have seen that these individual peculiarities could not explain the social suicide-rate.”49 He argued that the very existence of suicidal rates is confirmation for a social impulse towards suicide. In

Durkheim’s estimation, it is not profound enough that individuals commit suicide; for if taken on an individual level, the multitude of reasons for doing so and methods of action vary enough that it takes away the magnitude of the phenomena. “Durkheim is seeking to establish that what looks like a highly individual and personal phenomenon is explicable through the social structure and its ramifying functions.”50 Individual reasons alone cannot account for large-scale trends, larger social reasons must be present.

49 Durkheim 1951, 297 50 Durkheim 1951, 10 32

Therefore, suicide may be argued not as an act of individual agency, but rather as

evidence of a collective inclination towards the act.

When this individual act is linked with other similar acts within a society it no

longer is a single upsetting act, but a social phenomenon. “Since the handful of people

who kill themselves annually do not form a natural group, and are not in communication

with one another, the stable number of suicide can only be due to the influence of a

common cause which dominates and survives the individual persons involved.”51

Therefore, it is something residual within society that triggers suicide, not an individual’s

inclinations towards it.

In Le Suicide, Durkheim placed suicide within three categories. The first group is

egotistic suicide, which results from an individual’s lack of integration into society.

Anomic suicide is also the result of a lack of integration, but is defined further as when an

individual’s needs are regulated by society to the point that he or she is unable to endure.

Altruistic suicide is the final category and is defined by when an individual’s life is

highly controlled and results in the individual taking their own life due to religious or

political allegiance. In addition “an Egoist suicide results from a man’s no longer finding

a basis for existence in life; altruistic suicide, because this basis for existence appears to

man situated beyond life itself…and third (anomic suicide) results from man’s activity’s

lacking regulation.”52 While Durkheim effectively uses categories to expound his assertions for different types, or reasons behind, suicide, there is an overarching theory of

social integration of the individual.

51 Durkheim 1951, 313 52 Durkheim 1951, 258 33

Durkheim asserted that the primary reason for suicide is an individual’s lack of successful integration into society. He makes this argument through his categorization, which effectively creates a spectrum which locates individual integration within society.

At either extremes of the spectrum are individuals who are either too integrated into society (altruistic) or not integrated enough (egoist and anomic). Durkheim argued that these are the people who are susceptible to suicidal thoughts and actions. In simple terms, it is the individual’s relationship to the society and not the individual himself which dictates the suicidal ideation and actions.

Another aspect that Durkheim took into account was the political and economic structures operating within society. Imperial, socialist or revolutionary societies could potentially lead to increased numbers of suicide because Durkheim argued that individuals who are too attached to the society are more willing to give their life. For example, the servant that commits suicide after the death of the ruler would be an instance where the individual action is either willingly or unwillingly tied to the collective. Either the individual’s needs are secondary to those of the collective, or they are disregarded by the collective all together.

Additionally, a capitalist society, where fierce competition may lead to violence or isolation of an individual, may also promote suicidal tendencies. “The struggle grows more violent and painful, both from being less controlled and because competition is greater. All classes contend among themselves because no established classification exists. Effort grows, just when it becomes less productive. How could the desire to live 34

not be weakened under such conditions?” 53 Durkheim may have been stating that in a

competitive market system there are less formal and controlling ties between society and

the individual. This isolates the individual while simultaneously making progress more

difficult. This isolation and competition gives rise to an increase in suicide. High rates of

suicide may then be perceived as being a malady of modernity.

Is suicide therefore a product of societal evolution? Processes of industrialization

and urbanization have all led to the perceived degradation of a civilized society. These processes have also led to a greater divide within the peoples of society. “The human dregs of society…the sick, the incurable, the people of too little means or known weaknesses are found here. Hence, this part of the population is so far inferior to the

other, it naturally proves this inferiority by a higher mortality, a greater criminality, and

finally by a stronger suicidal tendency.” 54 However, later on in his argument Durkheim

argues that poverty is a natural buffer against suicide because it is a restraint unto itself.

If an individual is accustomed to reliance on the state or society for their livelihood, there

is a greater chance that they will, in fact, be better integrated into the society.

In addition to suicide stemming from social pressures and structures, Durkheim

also argued that “suicide is very contagious.”55 He claimed that people who already have

inclination towards the act of suicide are easily affected by suggestion or ideas. To

further demonstrate this collective tendency of suicide, Durkheim gave the example of a

hook in an insane asylum, a hook which became the impetus for suicide. “There is a well-

known story of the fifteen patients who hung themselves in swift succession in 1772 from

53 Durkheim 1951, 253 54 Durkheim 1951, 180 55 Durkheim 1951, 96 35 the same hook in a dark passage of the hospital. Once the hook was removed there was an end of the epidemic.”56 Durkheim asserts that if we take the hook away, the contagion stops. Like a case of dominoes, the suicide is triggered not by an individual action, but by a collective force. Suicide as a form of morbid imitation is also prevalent within society. Often, individuals hear of a case of suicide and, just like the hook in the asylum, the thought is obsessively fixated upon. “Thus, when suicides, obviously springing from one another all seem to follow the same model, they may fairly be attributed to the same cause.”57 Therefore, the cause of suicide may be perceived through the individual, but rather stemming from an environmental impulse.

While Durkheim’s theory of suicide as a social construct is compelling, it tends to essentialize the act itself. Durkheim, being a man of his time, frames his argument around white European males. This ethnocentric bias structures his argument in such a manner that it promulgates existing misconceptions. This demonstrates that while suicide may be heavily influenced by society, so too is the study of it.

Theories of Suicide and Women

If suicide is indeed triggered by a collective, social consciousness, why is suicide data grouped by region, gender, race, and age? Durkheim argues that the reasons behind suicide are primarily situated within social structures and interactions. Durkheim asserts that the primary factor in predicting suicide is the individual’s integration, or lack thereof, into society. While these assertions are compelling, there is a noticeable absence of discussion surrounding suicide and women. While Durkheim posits his argument in

56 Durkheim 1951, 97 57 Durkheim 1951, 97 36

order to be relevant within the argument of structure vs. agency, his male-dominated

Euro-centric approach frames his argument in such a manner that effectively

marginalizes half of the population—women.

Durkheim’s argument for social integration as the main deciding factor in suicide

is the apparent female immunity to it. Durkheim claimed that this immunity is due to the

fact that women are less integrated into society and therefore less likely to be negatively

affected by societal pressures. He stated: “If women kill themselves much less often than

men, it is because they are much less involved than men in collective existence; thus they

feel its influence—good or evil—less strongly.”58 Another facet to this argument is

Durkheim’s assertion regarding the importance of male socialization as an indicator of suicide, “the two sexes do not share equally in social life. Man is actively involved in it, while woman does little more than look on from a distance. Consequently, man is much more highly socialized than woman.”59 He argued that women’s lack of socialization as an equally important indicator for their perceived immunity against suicide.

Durkheim may have argued that it is women’s role within the family that lends them immunity to the suicide contagion. A strong conjugal society as well as a strong familial society creates a strong social bond which allows women security from suicidal thoughts and actions. Especially since “when woman enters the conjugal state she gains from the association more than man.”60 As far as female suicide is concerned, Durkheim

argues that integration into a family has the same redeeming value as integration into the

society.

58 Durkheim 1951, 299 59 Durkheim 1951, 385 60 Durkheim 1951, 189 37

Durkheim’s failure to add female suicide attempts into his theory may be because

it “fell short of actual death” and demonstrates his gendered conceptions of suicide.61

This is especially important because women in China attempt suicide in far greater numbers than men; if this statistic is taken into account, it debunks Durkheim’s theory as well as the “intrinsic maleness” of suicide. “The high rate of attempted suicide by women suggested that suicidal behavior was a common way for women to express their profound unhappiness. Given the social role of most nineteenth-century women, it is fair to assume that submersion in the family provided no special protection for women from suicidal behavior.”62 One fact is prevalent—there is a clear gendering of suicide that

affects Emile Durkheim’s theories. Suicide actualization was deemed male, while

suicide attempts were perceived as female and not worthy of study.

Civilization and modernity, which are Durkheim’s argued impetus for suicide,

were attached to maleness, while passivity, acceptance, and frailty were female traits and

thus immune to seemingly male tendencies of suicide. Similar to Traditional Chinese

Medicine, traits synonymous with agency were deemed male, while passivity was

essentialized as female. Even the methods of suicide were gendered: men used violent

means such as guns and knives, while women were more inclined to use “feminine”

measures like poison or hanging. These gendered methods could also explain why men

tended to be more successful in their suicide attempts. Generally speaking, guns are

more effective than poison. The reasoning behind suicide was also gendered; “Suicide

among women was portrayed as an individual emotional act and, thus inconsequential,

61 Durkheim 1951, 44 62 Kuschner 1994, 215 38

while male suicide was seen as a barometer of economic and social well-being.”63 This differentiation made male suicide socially acceptable, while establishing female suicide as pathological.

While suicide became a gendered topic, the study into suicide itself is indicative of larger societal struggles concerning gender. The link between traditional family morals and suicide immunity became indicative of a greater attempt to restrict women to their roles as wives, mothers, and daughters. The absence of women in suicide construction models “both obscures and reveals concrete fears that increasing numbers of working urban women were themselves among the forces of modernity that posed a

‘threat’ to the moral fabric.”64 However, it was not only women’s associations with traditional, household roles that demonstrated their immunity towards suicidal tendencies, it was also their “overexcitement of their sensibilities, their flights of imagination, their exaggerated tenderness, their religious attachments (which) produce in them illnesses opposed to suicide, in addition to which their mild character and natural timidity distances them from suicidal thoughts.”65

In addition, while Durkheim attributed women’s lack of suicidal tendencies to

their traditionalist nature, he also hinted that women did not possess the intellectual

capability for higher-level thinking that could result in suicidal ideation. Women were

thereby immune to suicidal thoughts due to their fundamental maternal nature as well as

their lack of mental capacity. “Fundamentally traditionalist by nature, (women) govern

63 Kuschner 1994, 208 64 Kuschner 1994, 206 65 Kuschner 1994, 207 39

their conduct upon fixed beliefs and have no great intellectual needs.”66 Further evidence of Durkheim’s dismissal of female intelligence is seen in his argument for the justification of gendered division within labor. “Whilst the average size of skulls of male

Parisians places them among the largest known skulls, the average size of those of female

Parisians places them among the very smallest skulls observed, very much below those of

Chinese women.”67 This statement, and its allusion to physical characteristics as

indicative of intellectual capacity, illustrates how Durkheim’s theories of suicide were

based upon gendered presuppositions. These assumptions not only silenced discussion of

female suicide, but set the theoretical framework for suicide research that, unfortunately,

still perceives of suicide in gendered terms on a global scale.

Durkheim’s Relevance to Female Suicide in China

Durkheim’s theory of society’s impact on suicide is an interesting lens to utilize

in an attempt to understand the reasons behind China’s phenomenally high female suicide

rate. Durkheim asserts that “in all the countries of the world, women commit suicide

less than men.”68 Yet contrary to Durkheim’s assertions, China is the one of the only nations in the world where women commit suicide more than men.69

Stepping away from the historical, individual reasons for suicide, we must look at

the current economic, political and cultural aspects surrounding female suicide in China.

In essence, we must look at the society as a whole. The heavy-handed Communist economic and political way of life has ended in China. Millions of people are flocking

66 Durkheim 1951, 166 67 Kuschner 1994, 20-21 68 Durkheim 1951, 99 69 World Health Organization 40

towards the cities, leaving their ancestral homes and farms behind. This massive

population migration has disrupted every fiber of the social fabric for women in the

countryside. Their families are torn apart and their previous livelihood has been

destroyed. Familial isolation and economic competition have entered the lives of peasant

Chinese women, and they are turning to suicide in large numbers in order to deal with

pressure.

Durkheim might argue that the lack of importance placed upon women’s position within the family and society plays a significant role in the increased rates of suicide. The

One Child Policy limits their roles as mothers and with massive migration of rural farmers to the cities, many women are left without their husbands. Durkheim might also argue that since the collapse of communes in rural China and the ensuing destabilization of community life in the villages, women are no longer integrated into a familial society or society as a whole. Traditionally, since the only place for a Chinese woman was within the confines of the household, with the breakdown of the nuclear and extended family women find themselves lost within society. In addition, Durkheim might claim that rural Chinese women are experiencing collective suicide ideation. The media sensationalization of rural female suicide, coupled with the easy access to pesticides, has created a situation similar to the example of the asylum hook. This situation allows for the “contagion” of suicide to easily influence rural women.

Due to a changing social, political and economic landscape, women’s identities in

China are now fluid, which is causing great angst. While there is potential for upward social mobility, it is still economically hindered by both traditional and current fears of economic competition. For the last couple of decades the rise in female suicide has 41 largely gone on without notice. Is this an attempt to control women’s entrance into a society which has historically excluded them? Are women in the rural countryside being left to their own devices?

Economic Reform, Persistent Patriarchy, and Policies of the Double

Heavily influenced by the May Fourth rhetoric of female emancipation, the

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) clearly advocated women’s liberation from overbearing

Confucian patriarchy. That being said, even though there were attempts to bring gender equality to the masses within China, such as the Great Leap Forward’s push for the full participation of women within the labor force, and the marriage reform legislation passed in 1950, these efforts only served to place women under a continued system of patriarchy, albeit socialist rather than Confucian.

The economic, social and demographic changes that have developed in China during the economic transformation have been profound. During the Maoist era (1949-

1976) the status of Chinese women greatly improved. With Marxist inspired female emancipation and high levels of female labor force participation, women enjoyed an equal playing field. However, following the decentralization and privatization of the state-owned enterprises (SOE) sector starting in 1978, the egalitarian approach to labor and services gave way under increasing pressure for efficiency and profits. Due to this fundamental shift in economics, social services such as childcare, public health care, paid maternity leave. all transitioned from being the responsibility of the employer or commune, to that of the individual’s household. This shift “eroded the institutional mechanisms that internalized the costs of reproduction and protected women’s 42

reproductive role under central planning.”70 With social services being heavily

downsized, women have fallen under a double burden of unpaid domestic work and wage

labor. With an ever-growing population of elderly, and 59 million children under the age of eighteen left behind in the rural countryside with a single parent (usually mothers), an increased care burden has fallen to women.71 Coinciding with the party’s transference of

social responsibility away from the state and back towards the family, a re-emergence of

traditional Confucian ideals is blossoming. This decline in centralized, socialist ideology

that called for women to “hold up half the sky” has enabled a resurgence of patriarchal

values that pressures women to leave the workforce and return to their customary

domestic responsibilities. The resurgence of patriarchal ideals is demonstrated in policies

that clearly reveal a gender bias. China’s gender-differentiated retirement policy, where the retirement age is sixty for men and fifty-five for women in white-collar jobs, and fifty-five for men and fifty for women employed in blue-collar positions, is one such policy. In addition, studies have shown that there are higher rates of unemployment for women, as well as an increasing trend for downward mobility with women moving into jobs with less pay and prestige.72 There is a concern for poor working conditions within

factories for urban women and a limited amount of time for rest for rural female farm

workers. These concerns, coupled with the double burden of increased responsibility of

childcare and the caring for the elderly have left women with little control or time for

their own well-being.73

70 Cook and Dong 2011, 949 71 Federation 2008 72 Song and Dong 2009 73 Cook and Dong 2011 43

Gender equality through economic reforms failed to resonate with the populace

because of the continued cultural conception of women as second class citizens and the

sustained perception of women’s employment being consistent with domestic labor.

Scholars have argued that policies promoting the assimilation of women into the male

workplace gave limited consideration to domestic labor and no consideration to men’s

inclusion into the domestic labor sphere.74 This failure to de-gender labor, both within the household and without, led to women’s continued link to the role of housewife in addition to her becoming a wage laborer outside of the household. Furthermore, there are a multitude of problems regarding gender equality associated with the current reforms: there are higher rates of illiteracy among women than men, discrimination in the workplace due to unequal hiring and firing practices, and attitudes that denigrate the potential of women.75 These problems stem from the legacies of gender discrimination

still present within Chinese society. Traditional ideas that equate women with

housework, and inferior social statuses still reside within China. Margery Wolf argues

that women’s continued status as second class citizens stems from the leadership of the

Chinese Communist Party being more focused on land and economic reforms, rather than

truly focusing on the success of women’s liberation. She argues that while the CCP’s

revolutionary leaders perceived of themselves as the liberators of women, they were

limited in their success due to their “cultured lens” of Confucian patriarchy.76

Many advocates for the success of the economic reforms, in regards to gender

equality, point towards the role that competition plays in raising the level of female

74 Johnson 1983 75 Beaver, Hou and Wang 1995 76 Wolf 1985 44

engagement within the work force. An article written in the People’s Daily in 1988

states, “competition is a magic weapon that can help people to find and raise their own

status. It will not smother human creativity…Women workers who participate in

competition will increase their own value; those who avoid competition are devalued.”77

In a gender-blind society this statement makes sense; however, China, like so many other

traditionally patriarchal societies, has a long way to go to counteract the vestiges of inequality present within every aspect of society. Women are not capable of competing with men because the playing field has not been leveled. Women are still equated with domestic labor, paid unequally, forced into earlier retirement than their male counterparts, and their low education opportunities ensure that they work in unskilled, low-status jobs. In addition, rather than seeing how these social hindrances affect women’s role within the economy, the concept of equality through competition persists.

Yet the capitalistic growth in competition has led to the further economic relegation of women within Chinese society. “From full reliance on the government for their job, healthcare, education, security, and retirement, many are experiencing the loss of job security, the loss of social benefits, and the loss of social respect. In the fierce competition for jobs in a market economy, women are losing ground and becoming increasingly marginalized.” 78 In addition, an intensified pressure has been placed on the

dual role women are forced to play in post-reform China. Women’s positions as both

care givers and wage earners place an incredible amount of responsibility on their over-

burdened shoulders.

77 Chen 1988 78 Lin 2003, 88 45

For the last couple of decades the rise in female suicide has largely gone on without notice. Is this an attempt to control women’s entrance into a society which has historically excluded them? Are women in the rural countryside being left to their own devices? With an increasingly unequal gender ratio in China, it seems strange that the Chinese government and society as a whole, is not making this problem a primary concern. Perhaps history is still too close and female suicide is just a trivial act committed by women without any power.79

Women in China are attempting to live in a world which continues the tradition of economically discounting them and socially devaluing them. Suicide is often the coping mechanism that has been passed down from generations of women to alleviate their sustained second-class position within Chinese society.

Re-thinking Modern Suicide:

There is an increasing amount of domestic and international attention being given towards female suicide in China. The interest lies primarily in the fact that the suicide statistics for China are inconsistent with those of the Western world (the majority of suicides being committed by females in rural areas, instead of the more typical scenario of male suicide in urban settings). While many scholars attempt to understand the continued persistence of female suicide through a cultural lens of patriarchy and

Confucianism, a burgeoning trend amongst scholars situates the discussion away from sociological problems and more around an individual and their mental health. With this shift in focus of the impetus for female suicide, the discussion centers on an individual’s chemical imbalance, as well as larger societal problems that allow for the persistence of female self-immolation in China. As the trend toward the increased medicalization of

79 Phillips, et al. 2002 46

female suicide within China grows, the discourse inevitably draws upon cultural heritage

being central to the continuation of the problem.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, emotional or mental disorders such as

depression were attributed to imbalances within the body. A blockage within an internal

organ or a deficiency of qi within the body was perceived as manifesting though

emotional or mental instability. The concept of chemical imbalance/instability within the

brain and its being linked to cases of depression or other similar mental problems has its

origins within Western medicine. However, with the re-opening of China to the West, an

influx of Western thought and Western medicine has permeated Chinese society. In

order to address the persistent problem of female suicide in China, there also seems to be

a blending of Western medical notions of suicide with a sociological approach that takes

into account traditional Chinese cultural notions of women.

A 2004 case study addresses the problem of suicide in China with regards towards

an increase in cases with schizophrenic patients who commit suicide. The study states

that within China, similar to the demographics of suicide, there is a higher prevalence of schizophrenia in women than in men. And that, in addition, about 10% of suicides have

been attributed to schizophrenia.80 This study, while utilizing Western notions of

medical treatment and mental disorders, also discusses the need for culturally sensitive

methodology in recognizing and treating mental disorders that lead to female suicide:

The dismissal of extensive data on schizophrenia from China by the World Bank in its Global Burden of Disease series is an example of the tendency of researchers in developed countries to dismiss research from developing countries that contradict prevailing (largely western) theories. We contend that detailed investigation of cross-cultural differences needs to replace the tendency to

80 M. P. Phillips 2004 47

prematurely dismiss unexpected findings from developing countries; such studies would enhance understanding of the factors that affect the onset and course of illnesses in both developed and developing countries.81

Another study conducted in 2002 in China identified a “depressive disorder—the

diagnostic category most closely associated with suicide—in 40% of people who killed

themselves.”82 While the study states that this percentage is lower than the percentage found in similar studies done in other countries, they state that it is much higher than other percentages previously reported in China. The authors of the study argue that

China’s higher rates of suicide, unrelated to mental disorders, could be a result of

culturally insensitive tools used during the study or the high rate of negative life events.

According to the authors of the study, these events such as economic difficulties and

physical illness were frequent in the lives of those who committed suicide. In addition,

“of the 108 women who committed suicide between the ages of 15-34 years, negative life

events relating to childbirth and pregnancy, including unwanted pregnancy, fines for

exceeding the birth quota, abortion, and sterilization occurred in 16%.”83 These statistics

demonstrate how important a woman’s environment in her decision to commit suicide.

Additional studies have made connections between high rates of suicidal behavior

in Chinese women and the rise of spousal abuse within the household.84 Other studies

have focused on the ready access rural women have to pesticides, which enables them to

be successful in suicidal behavior that would otherwise be stymied through lack of

81 M. P. Phillips 2004 82 Phillips, et al. 2002 83 Phillips, et al. 2002, 1732 84 Wong and Phillips 2010 48

suicidal methods.85 The hybridity found within these medical studies, with their inclusion of intrinsic cultural factors, allows for the complexity of the problem of female suicide to be better understood. A nuanced recognition of the persistence of patriarchy within Chinese society, coupled with a Western, medical approach to mental disorders provides a structured, cultured lens to the phenomenon of female suicide within China.

Conclusion Recent reports out of China suggest a decline in the rates of female suicide within

the country. It can be argued that the seeming drop in female suicide is, in part, due to

the government’s concerted effort to limit access to pesticides in the rural communities,

as well as their promotion of packaging labels that stress traditional, Confucian ideals of

respecting life and one’s body. Similar to Durkheim’s argument of the asylum hook that

becomes the impetus for suicide, which once removed halts the problem, after the

pesticides within the rural communities are less readily accessible there is a marked

decline in suicidal behavior.

While this type of governmental policy seems to be working in limiting access to

suicidal methods, there is a long row to hoe for the equality of Chinese women and the continued decline of female self-harm. Before the problem of female suicide in China can be solved, Chinese women need to have the same social, political, and economic standing within society as men. The tradition of equating women to domestic labor and second-class citizenry must end. Their reproductive rights must be protected and they must be able to rely on governmental infrastructure that enables them to be mothers, wives, and daughters, while still being able to supplement the family income with their

85 Zhang, et al. 2009 49 own paid labor outside of the home. Until women are perceived as equals within Chinese society and treated as such, the problem of female suicide will remain.

50

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