The Construction of Women as National Body in Twentieth Century : "Robust Beauty Girls" and "Iron Maidens"

LIANG, Yue

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Chinese Culture

The Chinese University of November 201 二 Acknowledgments

I have accumulated many debts over the course of researching and writing this dissertation, which began its life at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2008. Foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Ann Huss, for without her intellectual guidance and criticism this dissertation would never have been written. I also thank Professor Arif Dirlik, who taught me so much about the history of women in twentieth century China. He remains an inspiration. I am indebted as well to Professor Leo Lee Ou-fan for sharing his wisdom. I also owe much to other faculties of the Centre for East Asian Studies, Gender Studies and History Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for generously arousing my ardour of this study. Finally, I thank my parents and friends, whose loving encouragement made rough times less so.

i Abstract

This thesis represents a daring attempt to place two well-known public images of women in twentieth century mainland China, the "Robust Beauty Girl" {Jianmei nuhai, # ^

女孩）and the "Iron Maiden" {Tiegimfangjik姑娘、,within one framework. The main purpose is to reveal the diverse powers that existed in the manufacturing of the Chinese national allegory from the late 1920s to the late 1970s.

The dissertation includes six chapters. The author's methodology and the previous works related to "Robust Beauty Girls" and "Iron Maidens" are set forth in the Introduction.

Chapter One deals with the origin of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and its initial stage of evolution in Chinese society in the late 1920s. Chapter Two investigates the responses of

Chinese intellectuals and the (KMT) government to the trend of western "Robust

Beauty" and their attempts to reconstruct the "Robust Beauty Girl" in the 1930s-40s. Chapter

Three explores the public images of women during the Anti-Japanese War period (1937-1945), including the wartime womanhood and the Communist womanhood created in the Jiangxi and

Yan'an periods respectively. Chapter Four examines the shaping of the "Iron Maiden" in the

1960s-70s and the two evolutional trends of the Communist womanhood created by the

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the 1940s to the 1970s. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the diversity of the national narrative in creating a Chinese national allegory. Also, the Conclusion points further research directions for the study of the "Robust

Beauty Girl" and the "Iron Maiden".

ii 摘要

本篇论文尝试将“健美女孩”和“铁姑娘”这两个在二十世纪中国耳熟能详的女

性公彡形象放置于同一个研究框架之中。从1920年代至1970年代末期，论文主要的在

于揭示这段时间内构建中国国家语言的多重话语与力量。

本篇论文分为六个部分。绪论部分介绍作者的研究方法及之前研究“健美女孩”

和“铁姑娘”形象的重要著作。第一章讲述“健美女孩”于1920年代末期出现在中国缘

起和最初发展状况。第二章探讨中国知识分子和国民党政府对西方“健美”潮流的回

应，以及他们在1930年代至：1940年代对“健美女孩”形象的重建。第三章研究在抗日战

争时期(1937-1945)三个公共女性形象的建构：江西时期的女性形象、抗战时期的女性

形象和延安时期的女性形象。第四京关注1960年代至1970年代“铁姑娘”形象的形成并

指出从1940年到1970年代中国共产党塑造女性形象的两个基本倾向。在结论部分，笔者

重述了创建巾国国家预言的多重叙述，并对后续研究方向提出了些许建议。

iii CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i

INTRODUCTION 1

Chapter One: The Appearance of the "Robust Beauty Girl" in the late 1920s 9 The Infatuation with the "Western Beauty" 10 The Western "Robust Beauty Girl:" Hollywood Film Stars 13 The Chinese "Robust Beauty Girl:" Female Students 19

Chapter Two: The Reconstruction of the western "Robust Beauty" in the 1930s-40s 27 The Suspicion on the Western "Robust Beauty" 29 The Reconstruction of the western "Robust Beauty": critique on the "Modern Girl" 37 The Kuomintang's Response to the western "Robust Beauty" 52

Chapter Three: The Construction of the Chinese Womanhood in the War Period 70 The Communist Womanhood in the Jiangxi Period 72 The Women's Steering Committee and the Wartime Womanhood 80 The New Outlook of the Communist Womanhood in the Yan'an Period 91

Chapter Four: The National Communist Womanhood: the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s 107 National Model: Two Categories of the "Iron Maiden" 109 From Person to the Nation: Organization Form and Political Consciousness 114

CONCLUSION 126

APPENDIX 132

BIBLIOGRAPHY 139

iv Introduction

This thesis is a study of the construction of women's public images in twentieth century mainland China. The two images at the centre of this research are "Robust Beauty Girls" (Jianmei

瓜；健美女孩）and "Iron Ma 丨 dens"(776^ 炉//"k"名铁姑娘).From the appearance of the "Robust

Beauty Girl" in the late 1920s to the disappearance of the "Iron Maiden" in the late 1970s, the process of constructing public womanhood serves as a historical connection linking Chinese society's envy of robust and beautiful western women in the late Qing period and the introspection of Chinese revolutionary women in the Reform era. Within this process, women's public image was envisioned, constructed, destroyed and re-forged in order to discover a sense of national self.

This attempt played an undeniable part in shaping a Chinese national allegory in the twentieth century.

In the twentieth century, the Chinese national allegory is built around the task of building a

powerful nation. The aim of this thesis is to visualize the national task via the juxtaposition of the

"Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Iron Maiden." The "Robust Beauty Girl" initially appeared in the

late 1920s, daringly representing a new physicality for women, with images of women's curvy

bodies and robust muscles. In the next two decades, "Robust Beauty Girls" became more than a

cultural phenomenon, emerging as a political symbol that embodied women's contribution to

national salvation. The term "Iron Maiden," on the other side, was a title honoring female model

workers in the 1960s-70s. In the light of Communist female images in the Jiangxi Soviet and the

Yan'an periods, the "Iron Maiden" was the superlative form of the "Ideal Women" in the Mao

Zedong period, characterized by a high political consciousness, a consistent work ethic and an

amazing production record.

1 At the first glance, these two images are not related. Previous studies of these two images regard the "Robust Beauty Girl" as the representative of the prosperous urban culture or of the

Kuomintang's (KMT) policy concerning women in the New Life Movement; the "Iron Maiden" is seen as the political outcome of Maoism during the Cultural Revolution. This separate research not only limits the two images within a certain period of time, but also pays too much attention on the political factors behind the formation of the two images. In this thesis, the author tries to include the two images within the framework of the Chinese national allegory. Both images are laden with Chinese people's pursuit of constructing a powerful nation and they indicate a common women's image in the process. The joint women's image is characterized by a robust body and patriotic consciousness. For the "Robust Beauty Girl", the integration of women's robust muscles and national concerns is expressed as parts of the new standard of women's beauty. For the "Iron

Maiden," the premise of women's participation in social production to show their progressive perceptions is physical robustness.

The common direction of the two women's images, nevertheless, does not mean they adopt same strategy to illustrate women's robust bodies and patriotic consciousness. The two images display their own tracks and features in the evolution of the task of nation building. The "Robust

Beauty Girl" appeared in the late 1920s and early 1930s along with the promotion of the western trend of "Robust Beauty." Editors of popular publications introduced the western standard of physicality to Chinese women with the hope of getting rid of the traditional images of women as weak and delicate. In the New Life Movement, the meaning of the image expanded to both women's robust bodies and their contributions to the nation, including the purchase of domestic products and the care of family members. The image then faded away in Chinese history with the

2 military victory of the (CCP) in 1949.

For the image of "Iron Maiden", this thesis traces the initial step of its construction back to the late 1920s and early 1930s, the same time when the western trend of "Robust Beauty" was introduced to Chinese society. At that time, the CCP retreated from urban cities to rural areas in

Jiangxi province and began to formulate a new policy relating to the mobilization of village women for national revolution. The rudimentary Communist women's public image emphasized women's abilities to fight against the KMT troops. With the second alliance of the KMT and the

CCP in the late 1930s, the Communist women's images in the Yan'an period were described as heroines with great productive capabilities to support the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945). At the same time, women's right to land was not guaranteed by the CCP and the purpose of doing physical exercise was mostly for women's health rather than for the war. In the 1960s-70s, the

"Iron Maiden" was constructed under the propaganda of building a mighty socialist nation, featured by great productive capability and high political consciousness.

Meanwhile, the relation of the two images is unstable, both competitive and consenting to some degrees. The divergence firstly happened in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The "Robust

Beauty Girl" in urban cities and the Communist women's image in Jiangxi area represented two different strategies to mobilize urban and rural women to strength the nation. Women in cities were directed to perform physical exercise in order to build robust bodies and countryside women

in Jiangxi province were organized to participate in military training. The second encounter is

shown in the public image of women constructed during the Anti-Japanese War period. The 1937

Japanese invasion resulted in the formation of the second alliance between the Kuomintang (KMT)

and the CCP and the national Women's Steering Committee {Fimiizhidao weiyimnhw'M-k银导委

3 员会）in July 1938. This new Committee embraced both the CCP's experience of shaping

Communist womanhood in the Jiangxi Soviet Bases and the KMT's and intellectuals' expectations for reconstructing "Robust Beauty Girls" in urban areas. It is a national model set for all women to fight against Japanese invasion, although we should not ignore the internal conflicts of the

Committee among various members. After 1949, the image of the "Iron Maiden" dominated political and social discourses. The term "robust beauty" disappeared and the direct description of women's body was prohibited.

Many previous works provide the foundation for my exploration of this topic. Although scholars have written about "Robust Beauty Girls" and "Iron Maidens" separately, no substantive research in English or Chinese, however, has connected the two public images of womanhood.

Gao Yunxiang's article "Nationalist and Feminist discourses on Jiaiimei (Robust Beauty) during

China's 'National Crisis' in the 1930s" (2006) aroused my early curiosity and interest in the image of the "Robust Beauty Girl". The author examines the subtle entanglement of feminist and nationalist dimensions in the translation of the modern Western category of "Robust Beauty" and physical culture into China in the 1930s. However, some questions remain unclear. For instance, when was the western trend of "Robust Beauty" first introduced in China? What is the relation between "Modern Girls" and "Robust Beauty Girls"? How did the meaning of "Robust Beauty" in the 1930s differ from the western stereotype? The first two chapters of this thesis attempt to answer these questions by representing a more complete picture of the origins and evolution of the

"Robust Beauty Girl" from the late 1920s to the 1940s.

Fan Hong's book Footbinding, feminism andfreedom: The liberation of women's bodies in modern China (1997) represents the fullest work to date on Republican-era physical exercise.

4 Heavily relying on the narrative of progress, Fan focuses on the "liberating" aspect of sport in both the KMT and the CCP's physical projects to free women's bodies and improve their status.'

Although Fan's narrative is problematic, the book offers useful information with which to link

"Robust Beauty Girls" and the embryonic form of the "Iron Maiden" in the 1930s-他 in terms of their similar demands to strength women's bodies through physical training. In Chapter three, female body image as constructed by the KMT and the CCP respectively becomes the point of comparison.

Xia Rong's 2010 book, The JVomen's Steering Committe and the anti-Japanese War (Funii zhidao weihyuanhiii yu Kangri zhanzheng,妇女指导委员会与抗曰战争）’ dwells on the establishment, development and disintegration of the Women's Steering Committee during the War

Period. The author lists many first-hand materials to affirm the achievement of the Committee as an apolitical organization that mobilized all Chinese women to assist the war effort. The

Committee was neither a women's organization within the KMT Party nor an administrative agency of the Nationalist government. Xia also mentions the fact that the Nationalists and

Communists were divided in their opinions of several cases within the Committee. Xia's analysis, however, is unconcerned with the causes of conflicts and the KMT and the CCP's separate policies regarding women during the War Period. Chapter three of this dissertation attempts to shed some

light on the relation among the women's images created during wartime, the "Robust Beauty Girl"

of the New Life Movement {Xin shenghiw yundong, if? iS Sjj) and the labour heroine in the

Yan'an period.

Emily Honig's essay "Iron Girls Revisited: Gender and the Politics of Work in the Cultural

‘Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism, and Freedom: the liberation of women's bodies in modern China (; Portland, Or.: F, Cass, 1997), 11-13.

5 Revolution, 1966-76" (2000) and Jin Yihong's "Rethinking 'Iron Maidens': Social gender and labour during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China" {'Tie giwicm定:ai sikao:

Zhongguo Wenhua da geming qijian de shehui xingbie yu laochng, ‘铁姑娘’再思考：中国文化革

命期间的社会性-另ij与劳动）(2008) are two typical recent studies of "Iron Maidens." Both works tend to regard "Iron Maiden" as a gender image and criticize the sexual sameness policy during the Cultural Revolution through revealing the pain women laborers suffered. In contrast, the fourth chapter of this dissertation tries to explore the "Iron Maiden" from a different perspective: to see the Yan'an labor heroine as the foundation of the construction of the "Iron Maiden" in the

1960s-70s.

This dissertation is arranged in chronological order. Chapters One and Two aim at widening

Gao Yunxiang's study on the "Robust Beauty Girl" in the 1930s. Chapter One traces the origin of the "Robust Beauty Girl" back to the late 1920s and introduces the two early models of the

"Robust Beauty Girl" in Chinese society - Hollywood film stars and Chinese female students. The first sub-section analyzes the Chinese infatuation with "western beauty" in the late Qing and the early Republican periods. The second and third sub-sections compare Hollywood film stars with

Chinese female students and conclude that the promotion of the "Robust Beauty Girl" in Chinese society in the late 1920s embraced both the envy of robust and beautiful western women and the pride of athletic and plainly dressed Chinese female students. This controversial attitude indicates a common dilemma of Chinese intellectuals when they attempted to build up a powerful nation.

Chapter Two examines the discursive reconstruction of the "Robust Beauty Girl" in the

1930s-40s. It shows the struggles among various national narratives to interpret the image of

"Robust Beauty Girl." The first sub-section classifies intellectuals' suspicions of the western trend

6 of "Robust Beauty" into two categories: the exact numeral standard and the modern fashion tide.

The second sub-section explains the entanglement of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Modern

Girl." I consider the propaganda of the "Robust Beauty Girl" in the late 1920s to have accelerated the appearance of the "Modern Girl" in the 1930s and in turn, the criticism of the "Modern Girl" in the 1930s-40s acted as an important step in the reconstruction of the "Robust Beauty Girl" in the

Republican-era. The third sub-section adds the KMT's responses to the "Robust Beauty Girl" and

"Modern Girl" in the New Life Movement. Through emphasizing women's robust and healthy bodies, plain dressing style, and their domestic responsibilities, the KMT endowed the reconstruction of the "Robust Beauty Girl" with a new and direct political meaning.

Chapter Three is concerned with three public images of women in the 1930s-40s: the

Communist womanhood created in the Jiangxi Soviet Bases, the wartime womanhood shaped by the Women's Steering Committee, and the Communist womanhood constructed in the Yan'an period. This chapter illustrates both the convergence of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and Communist women's image and the evolution of the "Iron Maiden" in the 1930s-40s. Fan Hong's research attracted my attention on the issue of women's participation in physical exercise. In the first sub-section, the shape of Jiangxi women's bodies through taking part in military training became one of the most obvious difference between the construction of Communist womanhood and the

"Robust Beauty Girl" in the 1930s. The third sub-section further compares the images of

Communist womanhood in the Jiangxi and Yan'an periods and discovers that the CCP paid less attention to women's military training in the Yan'an period. Instead, the CCP focused more on the

mobilization of women for social production. Xia Rong's study on the Women's Steering

Committee laid the groundwork for my investigation of the public image of women during the

7 War Period. In the second sub-section, I attempt to reevaluate the wartime womanhood as the combination, if in a critical way, of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the Jiangxi public image of women.

Chapter Four represents my intention to expand current understanding of the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s. I regard the Yan'an labor heroine as the stereotype of the "Iron Maiden" and propose two evolutional trends of Communist womanhood created by the CCP from the 1940s to the 1970s. The first sub-section points out that the title "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s referred to a large cohort of female model workers whose occupations varied from weavers, spinners, and farmers to pilots, train drivers, lathe operators, road women, and transport workers. The second sub-section analyses the CCP's efforts to remold the ideology of the Communist image of women between the 1940s and the 1970s. I found "Iron Maidens" in the 1960s-70s were particularly characterized by their high political consciousness and spirit of dedication to the socialist construction. And I believe this extreme emphasis on the ideological and political parts of the

"Iron Maiden" led to the ignorance of both the limits of women's physical abilities and women's desires for feminine beauty.

Chapter Five concludes the complicated process of constructing the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Iron Maiden." The complexity is shown in three aspects: the changeable meaning of the two images, the different social and political forces involved in the construction, and the

controversial relationship of the two images. All these three aspects demonstrate the diversity of the national narrative in creating a Chinese national allegory in the twentieth century.

8 Chapter 1

The Appearance of "Robust Beauty Girls" in the 1920s

The term "Robust Beauty" {jianmei辦k、stems from European and American "Life Reform

Movements" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. People turned away from the

artificiality of the so-called "modern life" and tended to search for the genuineness through

rediscovering their bodies. At the same time, robustness was considered as one of the most

essential characters to represent natural and healthy human beauty. Ancient Greek athletes,

characterized by their strong and fit muscles, became the models of the western the "Robust

Beauty. "2

In the late 1920s, the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" was introduced to Chinese society.

Relying heavily on the propaganda of urban popular publications, the image "Robust Beauty Girl"

began to be seen in newspapers, magazines, advertisements and poster calendars. These images,

representing a new physicality for women (as well as men), formed a sharp contrast to the

previous idea of feeble Chinese womanhood. In the 丨ate 1920s, this contrast set off a new upsurge

of constructing the "Robust Beauty Girl" in China.

This chapter deals with the origin of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and its initial stage of evolution in Chinese society in the late 1920s. The first sub-section shows that Chinese intellectuals showed admiration of "western beauty" as early as in the late Qing and early

Republican periods. The second sub-section analyzes the two trends of the introduction of the western the "Robust Beauty to Chinese society: the preference of Hollywood film stars and the promotion of women's outdoor exercise. The third sub-section explains why Chinese female

2 George Mosse Lachmann, and Sexuality: respectability and abnormal sexualit)' in modern Europe (NewYork: H. Fertig, 1985), 48-49. ‘

9 students were chosen as models of the Chinese "Robust Beauty Girl" in the late 1920s. The variety of western and Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls" indicates editors' controversial attitudes toward the term "Robust Beauty" and the project of constructing a Chinese national allegory.

The Infatuation with the "Western Beauty"

The late Qing and early Republican eras witnessed a startling increase of social attention toward women's issues. From the abolishment of foot-binding, the promotion of female education to the organization of the women's movement, Chinese reformers and revolutionaries adopted a series of measures in order to construct a new image of Chinese women. In the course of construction, the new image not only emphasized the strength of women's bodies, but also indicated the reconceptualization of women's relationship with men as well as their status in society. In 1918, Hu Shi 胡适 firstly proposed the concept of "New women"新女性).

In his words Chinese "New women" should be bodily strong, well-educated and active political affairs. Many other characters were added to this new concept in the following decades. For instance, by 1923 when a translation of Ibsen's "A Doill's House" had been published in China, Lu

Xun stated Chinese "New women" ought to have economic independence.^

The construction of a new Chinese women's image in the late Qing and early Republican periods was related to the issue of nation-building. Western political framework, social structure, cultural atmosphere, and of course womanhood became models from which Chinese people could learn from. Western women were usually described as having healthy bodies, autonomous spirits, being well-trained and active in social movements. In Chen Duxiu's 陈独秀 essay "The Way of

Confucius and Modern \Ait"{Kongzi 二hidao yu xiandai shenghiio, ？L 子之道与 I见 iX 生活),the

3 Hua R. Lan and Vanessa L. Fong ed.. Women in Republican China: a sourcebook (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe,1999), 176-181.

10 western women's images were understood as the most admirable and civilized womanhood that should be imitated by Chinese women.'' Another article "The Interpretation of the Ten Heroines of the World" (Shijie shl niijie yanyiM^WY 女长徵义、that was published in the Journa/ of Women 's

Learning {Nii Xue Bao,女学宇反）agreed with Chen's statement. In explaining the purpose of translating the stories of ten western heroines, the author Chen Xiefen 陈撷芬 stated clearly in the preface, "I use vernacular to tell the ten stories because I want to let our sisters know more about western women. It is always a good thing if our sisters may learn from these Western Beauties."s

Sometimes, western womanhood was placed in a superior position than Chinese womanhood. As the essay "Advice to Female Compatriots" {Zhonggao mi tongbao,忠告女[n1 j]包)that was published in Women's Magazine (Funii :a:hi’ 妇女杂志乂 demonstrated, Chinese women were

"lower animals." Compared with devoted, civilized, independent and progressive western women, the author used sarcastic language to portray Chinese women as shallow, ignorant, selfish and superficial.'' For specific women's issues such as footbinding, western women's natural feet were used to rebuke Chinese tradition. In the article "The Discussion of Footbinding'X^^/^^// Zti Lun, li

足论)，published in The Review of the Time {Wa/i Guo Gong Bao,71 @ 公报）in 1896，the three main disadvantages of footbinding were listed. Firstly, women with bound feet were unable to help their families. Secondly, it is impossible for these women to walk out of their boudoirs. Lastly, footbinding is bad for women's health. Western women's natural feet, by contrast, were

4 Chen Duxiu 陈独秀，"Kongzi zhi dao yu xiandai shenghuo"孔子之道与现代生活（The Way of Confucius and Modem Life), in Chen Duxiu zhuzuo xuan P东独秀著作选(Selected works of Chen Duxiu), edited by Ren Jianshu 任建树，Zhang Tongmo 张统模 and Wu Xinzhong 吴信忠’ 1 vol. (: Ren min chu ban she, 1993), 230-238.

5 Chunan ntizi (Chen Xiefen)楚南女子(陈撷芬)，"Shijie shi nujie yanyi: xifang meiren"世界十女杰演义： 西方美人(Ten World Heroines: Western Beauty), Niixue bao 女学报(Journal of women's learning), August 4’ 1989.

6 "Zhonggao ntitongbao"忠告女同胞(Advice to Female Compatriots), Funii zazhi 妇女杂志(The Ladies' journal) 7 (July 1916): 8.

11 commended by the author since their feet ensured women's healthy conditions and gave them the opportunity to work in society. In comparing western natural feet with Chinese bound feet, the article believed the evil tradition of foot binding needed to be abolished.

In the eyes of many Chinese reformers, the image of western women embodied advanced civilization and modernity. In this sense, the construction of a new image of Chinese women indicated the efforts made to re-strengthen the nation. Chinese women became the target to be criticized and reformed in the national project. In the inspiring essay "Advice to Female

QQ\w^?Ax\Q\^"{Zhonggao mi tongbao,忠告女同胞），the author expressed directly that the twenty thousand Chinese women had to bear the blame for the nation's weakness. Although Chinese men should take the responsibility as well, the author believed it was women who made the situation uniquely harrowing. In the language of the article, Chinese women were short-sighted and naive; they were unable to accomplish social and national duties as citizens. In Chen Xiefen's depiction of the ten western heroines' brave endeavors in pursuing freedom and national independence, she heaved a deep sigh and felt shameful. Chen encouraged our sisters to learn from western heroines and attempted to spur Chinese women's enthusiasm to the nation and social responsibility. Here, the idea of strengthening the nation's power through transforming Chinese women's behaviours was emphasized. When talking about the tradition of footbinding, the article "The Discussion of

Footbinding"(6y7^/; Zu 缠足 i企）stated that Chinese women have no chance to serve for the nation simply because their feet were bounded. The author further explained, at the time of national crisis, women have to work together with scholars, peasants, workers and merchants for the purpose of self-saving and self-strength. However footbinding was the obstacle that women faced to join this united national salvation.

12 Early reformers set a high value on "Western Beauties." Their inclinations of learning from

western women set the cultural foundation of the popularity of the western cult of the "Robust

Beauty" in the late 1920s. The Young Companion、Licmg You 良友画报乂，the flagship

journal of the Liang You Public House and the main advocator of the "Robust Beauty" in Chinese

society first echoed this trend. In the front article of its twenty-seventh issue, it stated "Chinese

women have been praised as fragile as silk for a long time... nowadays, robust bodies and active

spirits became the standards of women's beauty. Chinese women need to stand under the sun in

competitive settings (like Western Beauties) rather than hide in their boudoirs/" At this time, as

Lee Oufan stated, The Young Companion endowed new social understanding and moral value with

the women's image it created and published.8

The Western "Robust Beauty Girl:" Hollywood Film Stars

Western images played an exemplary role in the introduction of the western cult of the

"Robust Beauty to Chinese popular culture in the late 1920s. These images included singers, dancers, athletes, beauty contestants and Hollywood film stars in western countries. They were either the main attraction in recent news or advertisement models to promote imported products who lead the latest fashion trend. No matter in what circumstances, their robust and beautiful bodies were always the points emphasized by Chinese media to interpret the term "Robust

Beauty" visually.

In 1930’ The Young Companion published five western women's images under the title of

7 "Dengguang zhi^ia; Yangguang zhi xia"灯光之下；阳光之下(Under the Lamplight; under the Sunlight), Liang You Huabao 良友岡报(The Young Companion) 58 (1930): 30-31.

8 Lee Oufan, Modern Shanghai: the flowering of a /7ew tirban atltiire in China, J930-J945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 84-85. ‘

13 "Healthy body, Healthy mind."9 In the picture, Clara Bow, a well-known "Robust Beauty Girl"

was standing on the left with her bright smile. She was wearing a tight vest, short pants and a light

gown with a full length opening. Alice White and Barbara Kent were placed in the middle. Alice

White was wearing a costume for performance to show her robust and curvaceous body shape.

Barbara Kent dressed in a conservative blouse and knee-high skirt. She was playing golf under the sunlight to express the message that outdoor activity was the most scientific way to keep hygienic.

On the right, Doris Hill and Jenny Jungo's sports spirits and robust bodies were illustrated. They were all wearing swimming suits. Doris Hill was standing on sea rock with her arms upraised.

Jenny Jimgo was sitting on a life buoy to appeal the good of swimming for health.

This report indicated two important inclinations when the western "Robust Beauty" was introduced to Chinese popular culture in the late 1920s. The first trend referred to that Chinese popular publications tended to use Hollywood film stars to represent the western "Robust Beauty

Girl." At the very beginning, western women with different backgrounds and occupations, such as singers, dancers, film stars, students, athletes and common people, were regarded as a collective identity to demonstrate the cult of the "Robust Beauty." In a short time, this phenomenon gave its way to the Hollywood mode. Hollywood film stars were chosen by Chinese popular publications as the typical and influential models of the western "Robust Beauty Girl." The imagined "Ideal

Girl" that created by Ling Long 玲珑 magazine in 1935 reaffirmed this trend. In shaping modern women's beauty, the editor chose five well-known Hollywood film stars as the standard. These prominent film stars were Jean Harlow, Marleane Dietrich, Joan Blondell, Janet Gaynor and Joan

9 "Jian er mei de tige"健而美的体格(Healthy body, healthy mind), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 45 (1930), 24.

14 Crawford•⑴ The editor believed every actress has her own character, for instance, Joan Blondell was famous for her mysterious mien and Janet Gaynor was popular because of her active life attitude. It was these characters that constituted the "Ideal Girl." Here, the editor particularly highlighted Jean Harlow's robust and beautiful body and expressed clearly that the "Robust

Beauty" was the most significant features for constructing the "Ideal Girl."

Reports of western film stars reached an upsurge in the 1930s. Except for top Hollywood actresses, numerous secondary and peripheral actresses and students in film training classes were also known by Chinese people. Their photos were posted in popular publications and their robust and beautiful bodies became the major concern for editors and readers. The Young Companion introduced a group of female stars in Warner Brothers Company in 1936. All actresses were wearing swimming suits to show their healthy body shapes. They were sitting on the springboard, poising for a jump, or standing on the margin of the pond and looking afar." The enhancement of publicity of Hollywood film stars on popular publications in the 1930s far exceeded other western women. The first reason rests on the fact that Hollywood actresses were more alluring and attractive than common stage performers or athletes. As the two previous reports of Hollywood film stars in The Young Companion and Ling Long illustrated, they have permed hair, delicate makeup and most importantly, the "Robust Beauty" was decorated by their engaging, sexy costumes and their desirable and provocative gestures. In comparison to western female athletes, for instance, the feminine characteristics of actresses were conspicuous. The Young Companion once published a photo of western athletes practicing boxing. They were wearing plain T-shirts

10 "Shijie biaozhun meiren zaoxing"世界标准美人选型(The World Standard of Beauty), Ling Long 货 1 168 (1935), 99.

“"Zhuangmei de quti, qingnian de guangrong"壮美的躯体，讶年的光衆(The Robust and Beautiftil Body, the Honor of Youth). Liang You Huabao fe 友而报(The Young Companion) 119 (1936); 48-51,

15 and dark pants without heavy and colorful makeup. They had stronger muscles than Hollywood film stars. In the sense of robustness, these athletes were more often publicized by Chinese popular publications. However the fact was that Hollywood film stars became the best choice of western "Robust Beauty Girls." There has to be a certain predilection for Hollywood film stars when the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" was introduced to Chinese society. For popular publications, they believed robust but not strong Hollywood actresses would better attract consumers and boost sales. Their delicate makeup and fashionable clothes mingled with their robust bodies to construct the western cult of the "Robust Beauty." In other words, Chinese editors hold the opinion that the "Robust Beauty" did not merely mean natural appearance and strong muscle. As a result, this commercial preference has many impacts on Chinese understanding of the western "Robust Beauty" and caused the debates that concerned the meaning of the "Robust

Beauty" in later years.

The second reason refers to the popularity of Hollywood films in Chinese society. In the early 1920s, film was chosen to move to the domain of entertainment in China. Pang Laikwan explained this prosperity of movie industry as the result of the increasing residue capital stored up ill China after the First World War. According to her description, more than 180 film companies were established by the mid-1920s because they all believed that movie making could bring them quick capital returns.'^ Meanwhile, compared with the low quality of Chinese films, films imported from Hollywood occupied great superiority in the Chinese cinema market at that time.

Many educated bourgeois and students preferred foreign movies based on a research published by

12 Pang Laikwan, Building a new China in cinema: the Chinese left-wing cinema movement, 1932-1937 (Lanham, Md.: Rovvman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002), 22.

16 Movie Month/y(Dia>7ying,电影）in 1930.'^ It is not surprising to see large number of news and pictures about Hollywood films and their stars were published in popular magazines and newspapers. This situation experienced a decided change when Lianhua Film Production and

Processing Company Limited {Lianhuayingye 二hipianyinshua gongs/]联华影业制片印刷公司） was established as a registered company in March of 1930. As a complete and self-sufficient studio system that controlled all aspects of the production, distribution, and exhibition of its films,

Lianhua Film Company had all the resources and potential to attract a number of talented filmmakers and performers to produce Chinese films.''' However, the development of Chinese cinema industry did not constitute a threat to the circulation of Hollywood films in China. Instead, closed cooperation between Chinese and Hollywood film companies occured. Hollywood film stars had more chances to come to China to propagate their new works and exchange ideas with

Chinese stars. The Young Companion published one of such opportunities in 1929.'^ For example,

Hollywood film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford's travelled to Shanghai and Hong

Kong. A grand reception was given by the Star Motion Picture Company. A photo of Mary

Pickford and Miss was called by The Young Companion as the combination of the West and the East. It is worthwhile to note that the close ties between Hollywood and Chinese film stars, in one way or another ensured the validity of Chinese actresses as being the representatives of

Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls" in the late 1920s and 1930s. Meanwhile, in the process of contact, it was unavoidable for Chinese film stars imitating the dressing styles of Hollywood film stars.

Ji , "Da xuesheng yu dianying"大学生与电影(University students and film), Dianying 电影(Movie monthly) 5 (December 20, 1930): 69-71.

14 Pang, Building a new China in cinema, 25.

15 "Dianying mingxing Douglas Fairbanks jiqi fiiren Mary Pickford laihua jingguo qingxing"电影明星 Douglas Fairbanks 及其夫人 Mary Pickford 来华经过情形(Film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford's trip to China), Liang YouHuabao 6_友_报(The Young Companion) 42 (1929):7.

17 And this copy behaviour further complicated the meaning of the "Robust Beauty" in Chinese society.

The second trend of introducing the western "Robust Beauty" to China was the particular emphasis on western women's participation to sports activities, especially outdoor exercises.

Among the five Hollywood film stars that publicized under the title of "Healthy body, Healthy mind" in The Young Companion in 1930，Alice White was dancing, Barbara Kent was playing golf, and Jenny Jungo was swimming. In addition, Clara Bow's vest, short pants, parasol and slippers suggested the possibility that she was standing on a sunny beach and preparing to swim in the sea.

The implication of Doris Hill was more conspicuous. She was standing on a rock beside the sea with a swimming cap and bathing suit. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, European and

American reformers in "Life Reform Movements" considered sun and water as symbols of robustness, cleanliness and beauty. They called the human body to be exposed to the healing power of nature. In this fashion, sun, outdoor swimming and other kinds of physical exercises were promoted and earned amazing popularity in Europe and the United States，With little hesitation, Chinese popular publications put forth great effort to publicize photos of western women doing outdoor exercises. These western women were depicted by Chinese editors as very much enjoying sports activities in order to keep their weights. As Gao Yunxiang once argued, after finding regular physical training was the secret of the western "Robust Beauty," popular magazines did their best to propagate many kinds of outdoor exercises, ranging from boxing, swimming, and riding to running.At this time, outdoor activity under the sunlight was seen as an important factor in shaping the western "Robust Beauty." The Young Companion/ published

Lachmann, A^ationalism and Sexuality. 48.

17 Gao, "Nationalist and Feminist discourses," 551.

18 two photos in 1931 to differentiate western women under the sunlight to Chinese women under the lamplight.'^ In the picture, a short-haired Chinese woman on the right is wearing a swimming

suit, high-heeled shoes, and standing under the lamplight. Although posed as a swimmer, the

editor claimed that she was rather fragile and delicate when compared to the western woman who

was enjoying the sunlight on the beach on the left.

As discussed earlier, in the process of introducing western "Robust Beauty Girls" to Chinese

society in the late 1920s, Chinese popular publications inclined to promote Hollywood film stars

rather than professional athletes to represent the western cult of the "Robust Beauty." In this sense,

Hollywood actresses were consciously shaped by public media as sports lovers. Seen from the

many pictorial examples mentioned above, Hollywood film stars were normally put in an athletic

background, such as tennis court, swimming pool, beach, dancing ball and playground. But these

actresses were not participating in professional or formal sports competitions. The situations were

rather amateurish and leisured. Their makeup was not destroyed by sweat, their gestures were

elegant and light, and their sports suits were not as plain and normal as regular athletes. The

indicative message was that Hollywood film stars built the "Robust Beauty" through sports

activities, but such exercises were conducted in a comparatively tender way. In other words,

exercise intensity was not the focus when the cult of "Robust Beauty" came to China. Being

"Robust Beauty" did not mean to be professional athlete, but to have a healthy body and sports

spirit, even if makeup and delicate dressings were considered.

The Chinese "Robust Beauty Girl:" Female Students

The preceding discussion demonstrated that when Hollywood film stars were regarded as

18 "Dengguang zhi xia; Yangguang zlii xia'’灯光之下；阳光之下(Under the Lamplight; under the Sunlight), Liang YouHuahao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 58 (1930): 30-31,

19 the best representatives of "Robust Beauty Girls" in the late 1920s, their body shapes and attitudes toward sports activity set a basic tone for introducing the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" to

Chinese society. Their feminine body characters, gorgeous costumes and beautiful sports gestures became prominent features of western "Robust Beauty Girls." At first glance, Chinese film stars would be the most possible models of the Chinese "Robust Beauty" because of their similar identities with Hollywood actresses and the ever-increasing connection between Hollywood and

Chinese film companies. However, the initial Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls" were female students.

They were not as well-shaped as Hollywood stars and they were normally wearing plain and uniform sports suits. The exact point that differentiated them from other Chinese women was their regular exercise training at school.

As early as in 1844，formal female physical education was put in the curriculum when the first women's school in modern Chinese history was established in Ningbo by a missionary Mary

Aldersey. Until 1860, it is estimated that twelve missionary female schools were built up in the five treaty ports - Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai.''' In these schools, physical education was conducted in the form of game playing and extra curriculular activities. In

1884，Zhenjiang Female School regulated physical training as a required course as Bible reading.

But exercise was still limited to game playing during rest time.'° Such mode of women's physical practice was not changed drastically when Chinese official and private female schools sprouted out in the 1900s. In March 1907, the Qing government issued the Regulations of the Ministry of

19 The five treaty ports were written in the Nanjing Treaty issued in 1842. Chen Sanjing 陈、三井，ed. Jindai Zhongguo 近代巾国妇女运动史(The history of women's movement in modem China) (Taibei Shi: Jin dai Zhong guo chu ban she, 2000)，101.

20 Guojia tiwei tiyu wenshi gongzuo weiyuanhui 国家体委体育文史工作委员会（The State Sports Commission), Zhongguo tiyushi xuehui 中国体—ff 史学会(Chinese Sports Society), ed. Zhonggito jindai fiyusfii 句 国近代体育史(The history of physical education in modem China) (: Beijing ti yu xue yuan chu ban she, 1989), 63.

20 Education on Elementary Schools for Girls (Niizixiaoxuetang zhangcheng, ic ^ ^J^ ^fS) and the Regulations of the Ministry of Education for Women's Normal Schools {Niti shifan xuetang

女子师范学堂章程).2i The dominant situation of missionary school encountered a challenge from the ever-increasing rate of Chinese-run girls' schools. It is recorded that the total number of women's school boomed by 58.5 times in 1908, of which Chinese official and private schools accounted 31% and 30% respectively.^^ Except for female military schools, gymnastics and informal game playing were the most prevalent forms of physical training for female students.23

The failure of Germany in the First World War to a large extent diminished Chinese people's enthusiasm to military physical training at school. In the early 1920s, the American mode of regular athletic exercise was popular in the Chinese school system. For female students, physical education was no longer considered an informal excurriculum activity. More sports trainings were included in the school schedule such as basketball, volleyball, swimming, high jump and long jump. The extension of Chinese women's physical curriculum resulted to the broad participation of female athletic students to diverse sports meetings at that time. In 1924, female athletes were allowed to take part in three exhibition events (basketball, softball, and "team ball") in the third

"National Games." Four women's sports activities (running, basketball, tennis and volleyball) were

''Chen Pingyuan 陈平原,Zuo tuyoushiytixixiie dongjian: wcnicp'ng/madao右、与 渐：晚淸麵报研究（Picture on the left. History on the right, and the introduction of western knowledge to China: the study of the late Qing pictorial magazines) (Xianggang: San Liang Shu Dian, 2008), 175.

22 Liao Xiuzhen, "Qingmo nuxue zai xuezhi shang de yanjin ji nuzi xiaoxue jiaoyu de fazhan, 1897-1911" 清末女学在学制上的演进及女子小学教竹的发展，1897-1911 (The evolution of female education in late Qing and the development of female primary education, 1897-1911), in Zhongguo fimiishi lunji 中国妇女史论集(The collected works of the history of Chinese women), edited by Bao Jialin 鲍家麟，2 vol. (Taibei shi: Mu tong chu ban she, 1979), 225.

“Zhang Shiliu, "Canguan Jiangsu sliengli ge xuexiao di'erci lianhe yundonghui ji"参观江苏fT立各学校 第 二次联合运动会 i己(The record of the second sports meets in Jiangsu province), Jiaoyu :a:hi 教育杂志 7 (December 1915); 90,219-220,

21 incorporated into the regular programs in the next "National Games." In 1933, the number of regular women's sports events in the fifth "National Games" increased to seven, including running, basketball, tennis, volleyball, swimming, softball and martial arts.24

Following this trend, popular media did not hesitate in reporting female students' participation in outdoor activities and competitions at schools. Photos of female students playing basketball, baseball and other kinds of athletic exercises were frequently published in newspapers and magazines. In these photos, female students' robust bodies and shapely muscles helped them win the name of Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls." In 1927, Jinling Female University in Nanjing held a sports meeting event. Female athletic students who attended in this meeting were called national models for all Chinese women.^^ Another typical example is when one swimming lesson of Liang Jiang Girls Physical Academy was published in 1930 by The Young Companion. Eight female students were sitting on the jumping board in line with professional swimming suits.26

They raised their heads, threw out their chests and rested arms on their hips. Their confident smells and progressive gestures were praised by the editor as a group of mermaids with "Robust

Beauty" bodies. In terms of shaping the body, daily physical training at school indeed created more favorable condition for female students than other women to strengthen their bodies. And it was their healthier and stronger bodies shown in these photos that laid the foundation of female students' initial advantages in representing Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls" in the late 1920s.

Meanwhile, a noticeable fact was that these female athletic students showed no special interest in

Susan Brownell, Training the Body for China: sports in the mora/ order of the People 's Republic (: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 43-50.

"Nanjing jingliii niizi daxue yundonghui"南京金陵女子大学运动会(The Sports Meeting of the Nanjing Jinling Women's University), Liang You Huabao t^友麵士R(The Young Companion)21 (1927): 24.

沉"Liangjiang nuzi tiyu xuexiao xuesheng zhi qiuyong shenghuo"两江女子体育学校学生之徊泳生活 (Swimming class of the Liangjiang Female Physical School). Liang You Huabao 友画报(The Young Companion) 49 (1930): 32.

22 external decoration. Most of them have unadorned short hair, they wore no makeup, and were simply dressed in similar student uniforms. However, as stated previously, when the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" was introduced to China by popular publications, the best western representatives were Hollywood film stars, who were characterized by their gorgeous outlooks, well-mannered behaviours and energetic spirit in sports. In comparing the western models of

"Robust Beauty" to Chinese ones, a paradoxical phenomenon was that they shared less similarity than we normally thought. On the one hand, both of them are enthusiastic about physical activities.

Hollywood actresses' leisured sports were nothing compared with the athletic and professional training of Chinese female students at school. On the other hand, they differed from the attractive and delicate dresses of Hollywood stars, as female students did not care much about their appearances. In this sense, western and Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls" were not necessarily identical, although they both became famous through the propaganda of the Chinese public media.

What factors caused this contradiction in the process of constructing "Robust Beauty Girls" in Chinese society? The most apparent reason was that Chinese film stars were too weak to compete with female students to be the model of the "Robust Beauty" in China because of the immature condition of Chinese film industry in the late 1920s. As a quick way of capital returns, movie making in China sprang up in a surge after the First World War. According to Pang

Laikwan's analysis, more than 180 film companies were established by the mid-1920s. The three largest studios, Mingxing, Dazhonghua Baihe and Tianyi, soon took control of the market and made many commercial films tailored for the tastes of the general masses. However, these movies were produced in high quantity but low quality. Many educated bourgeois refused to enter the theatres which showed Chinese films. They preferred the films imported from the West,

23 particularly from Hollywood." At a later time, photos of Hollywood stars began to show up on the front page of popular magazines and newspapers. As discussed previously, it was only until

Lianhua Film Production and Processing Company Limited {^Lianhua yingye :hipian yinshua

评联华影业制片印刷公司）was established in March 1930 that a comparatively firm and coherent team of Chinese filmmakers and performers started to form. But in the late 1920s when the company had not been founded, Hollywood film stars were the main focuses of Chinese film magazines and public media. For Chinese film stars, it was not an overnight success to resemble these Hollywood "Robust Beauty Girls". Without sufficient social affirmation and influence,

Chinese actresses could not be able to represent "Robust Beauty Girls" in the late 1920s.

A more important reason rested on the significance of selecting female students to be

Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls". Since women's education turned to a public concern in the late imperial period, female students became the novel representatives of Chinese women. In 1844, the first missionary female school in Ningbo endured disdainful looks and misunderstanding by local people. The school was doubted by local people as an evil and unorthodox place in which Chinese girls would be eaten by missionaries.'^ Less than half a century later, the 1898 reformers openly advocated the necessity of women's education. In order to strengthen the Chinese race and defend the nation, according to Liang Qichao's 梁启超 announcement on the occasion of a Shanghai female school's opening, women should contribute to the productive power of the Chinese state by becoming erudite mothers who in turn would produce better sons and thereby a stronger

” Pang, Building a new China in cinema, 22.

Luo Suwen 罗苏文’ NuxingyitJindaiZhongguo shehui 女性与近代中国社会(Women and Modern Chinese Society) (Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she, 1995), 67-69.

24 body-politic.^^ Education for girls and women once again gained people's attentions. But this time, female education was no longer regarded as a horrible matter; conversely, it was seen as an

effective way to save the nation. Differed from Chinese talented women {caimi, 女）’ the new

educated female students in a general reformist view divorced from traditional high culture and

closed to the practical learning needed for the advancement of modern China，At the same time,

the request of having healthy and strong bodies through physical exercises was promoted.

Another climax of people's focuses on female education happened when the Qing

government enacted legislation for women's education in 1907. From then on, Chinese-run female

schools were founded in great quantity and female students gained more and more social attention.

According to Chen Pingyuan's research on late Qing pictorials, female students were investigated

and discussed under curious and erotic men's looks.^' Many images of educated girls were shown

in pictorials in order to satisfy male readers' desires and inquisitivenesses. Their hair styles,

costumes, behaviours and ways of speaking were all under the male gaze. In addition, in the

official regulations of education for women's schools, gymnastics became the required course at

the junior elementary level of female education. As mentioned previously, the content of female

physical training experienced a change in the early 1920s and female students' sports activities

were continually published in public media. The extensive reports on the performance of these

new female students in popular publications demonstrated the fact that they were specially

Liang argued "the new women 'above, will be a helpmate to her husband, and below a source of instruction for her son; in her immediate surroundings, she will give ease to the family, and in a wider sphere, she will improve the race'". Quoted from Sally Borthwick, "Changing Concepts of the Role of Women from the Late Qing to the May Fourth Period," in David Pong and Edmund S. K. Fung, ed., Idea! and Reality: Social and Political Change in Modern China、1860-1949 (Lanham and London, 1985), 63-91,

30 Hu Ying, Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000), 4-6.

Chen Pingyuan, 205-207, 212.

25 concerned by Chinese society. As the representative of new women, female students were laden with the expectations of both re-constructing strong Chinese women and building a progressive and modern nation. When the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" was introduced to Chinese society in the late 1920s, their social popularities in the late Qing and Republic periods and their regular physical training made us have little doubt to believe that they would be chosen as the best representatives of "Robust Beauty Girls" in China.

26 Chapter 2

The Re-defmition of the western "Robust Beauty" in the 1930s-40s

In the previous chapter, the clamorous advertising of Hollywood models of the "Robust

Beauty" in Chinese society failed to create parallel "Robust Beauty Girls" {Jianmeim'ihai, W^ic

孩）in China. The representatives of Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls" were plainly dressed Chinese female students who received regular athletic training at school. As mentioned, this phenomenon could be ascribed to two main reasons: the immaturity of Chinese film industry and the important role played by female student in modern Chinese history. However, a more frank factor, as this chapter explores, is the general suspicion on the suitability of western models of the "Robust

Beauty" to Chinese women. The doubt not only touched upon the uncertainty of the western precise requirement of the "Robust Beauty" in terms of exact measurements, but more importantly, concerned with the mistrust and even critique of the western modem fashion that accompanied with the introduction of the cult of the "Robust Beauty" to China in the late 1920s.

In the 1930s, "Modern Girls" (M?论“玄"/Zr/;摩登女子）became the main target of criticism as an essential step to reconstruct the "Robust Beauty Girl" in China. They were described as having intensified interests in western fashionable attire and luxurious living style. They wore flamboyant clothes to expose their body curves, they preferred foreign products to national ones and they loved to go to places of amusement mostly at night. As a new women's image connected with the appearance of the "Robust Beauty Girl," the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" at this time encountered a re-analysis in Chinese society. In the course of the discussion, traditional morality and values were endowed with great strength and encouraged to compete against western fashionable trend. The prominent juncture is the "New Life Movement"(.I/// shenghuo yundong,

27 新生活运动）, a national crusade launched in 1934 by Chiang Kai-shek 蒋介石 to revive

traditional virtues and save China from material and spiritual degeneration. "Modern Girls" were

criticized as the embodiment of women's bad conducts that symbolized the vices of Chinese

society. Moreover, the meaning of the the "Robust Beauty" was added with other requests such as

proper morality, social responsibility, and national contribution constituted an overall image of

new women in the 1930s.

Another two phenomenons that demand our attention are the evolution of Chinese female students and the rise of Chinese film stars in the 1930s. With the rapid development of women's physical education, female students became more aggressive and competitive in attending various national and international sports events. Consistently reported by public media, female students in the 1930s have a high place in standing for Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls." Especially for students in women's athletic schools, their robust bodies and good scores in sports competitions helped them earn the name of national heroines and models of the "Robust Beauty". In the first few years of the "New Life Movement," these robust sports stars were greatly propagated by the

Kuomintang (KMT). Meanwhile, the 1930s was also a period when Chinese film stars were in vogue. On the one hand, they showed up in public, in most cases, with permed hair, delicate makeup, faddish dresses and high-heeled shoes. In some cases, they were not afraid of wearing daring attires and felt proud of leading the fashion trend of the season. While on the other hand, many of Chinese film stars played an exemplary role in supporting national products and rejecting luxurious living mode in the 1930s. Their plain appearance in daily life was reported by popular publications.

In this chapter, three points related to the re-position of the "Robust Beauty" in Chinese

28 society in the 1930s will be explored. The two aspects of Chinese intellectuals' suspicion on the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" are put at the first place of discussion. Except for the doubt of the practicality of western standard of "Robust Beauty" to Chinese women, intellectuals put most of their critiques on the western modern trend. The second point focuses on the critique of the

"Modem Girl" by urban intellectuals. The request of "Robust Beauty" was divided into two parts: women's robust body and internal beauty. And these two new conditions became the basic requirements of being positive/true "Modern Girls." The New Life Movement is the last point.

Interacted with critical intellectuals' responses, the KMT government tended to reconstruct the

"Robust Beauty Girl" to serve its political purpose through formulating regulations on women's body, appearance and domestic responsibility. The re-poisition of the "Robust Beauty Girl" in the

1930s, more importantly, implies the reconstruction of Chinese national narrative.

The Suspicion on Western the "Robust Beauty"

When Chinese popular publications put all their efforts to advertise the western cult of the

"Robust Beauty" and Hollywood film stars, a number of Chinese intellectuals kept their suspicions on the applicability of western criteria on Chinese women. These doubts were shown in two main aspects. The first aspect was the rough and vague standards to describe the Chinese "Robust

Beauty Girl." As mentioned in the previous chapter, Chinese female students were propagated by public media as the models of the "Robust Beauty" in the late 1920s. Performing regular physical exercise at school, the most prominent characters that made these students different from other

Chinese women was their strong muscles and healthy curves. Publishers and editors continually put their focuses on praising students' robust bodies, wide chest and strong legs in the 1930s, but there was rarely precise information about the height, weight, chest and waist measurements of

29 Chinese female students were hardly provided. Here, the term the "Robust Beauty" that used for the description of Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls" looked like an abstract rather than a scientific concept.

For European life reformers, nevertheless, physical beauty meant to a healthy constitution, in which various constituent parts of human body keep harmonious and purposeful interactions. It is stated that ideal health and beauty could be manipulated, disciplined and managed through specific measurements.^^ In this respect, the pictorial definition of western the "Robust Beauty" required a precise norm with exact numbers. In 1932, an American woman Deff took the place of the Venus de Milo of Greek antiquity and stood as the norm for the "Robust Beauty." The measurement was reported as 5.5 inches tall, 120 pounds, with 13-inch neck, 34.5-inch chest,

5.43-inch wrists, 26-inch waist, 36.5-inch hips, 21.5-inch thighs, 13.4-inch calves and 8-inch ankles." In addition, various western International Beauty Institute {Guoji meirongyuan,国际美

容院）rushed out to adjudicate exact annual beauty norm or women's international standard beauty.

These criteria in terms of precise measurements were frequently published by Chinese popular publication. With a strong hold on reading public, Ling Long magazine published a series of articles to introduce the annual standard of women's the "Robust Beauty." For instance, the norm for 1935 was 5 feet 7 inches tall, 130 pounds, 35-inch chest, 35-inch hips, blond and physically fit.

In the coming year, the norm added that the hair was to be at least 2-inch long, the wave of hair should not be too thin and the neck should be revealed.^'' Compared with the vague words that

Michael Hau, The Cult of Life and Beauty in Gennany: A Social History, 1890-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)，6-7，32-44, 183. ‘

33 "Jianmeidebiaozhun"健美的标准(The Standard of Robust Beauty)，Z/々玄/o"玄玲珑 74 (1932): 1112.

"Weilai zhi guoji biaozhun meiren"未来之 _ 际标准美人（The International Standard of Beauty in the future). Ling Long 辦k 150 (1934): 1589; "1936 nian mei de tiaojian"1936 年美的条件(The Standard of Beauty in 193 6)，Ling Long 玲珑 196 (193 5): 1941 -1942.

30 were used to describe Chinese "Robust Beauty Girls", such as large and erect breasts, high nipples, ample behind, slender waist and even-proportioned figure, the western the "Robust Beauty" was set by rigid measurement with accurate numbers.

A dubious fact was that Chinese publishers and editors consistently propagated the precise standard of the "Robust Beauty" in western countries; while at the same time they left an open space for defining the specific pattern of the Chinese "Robust Beauty Girl". A direct outcome caused by such ambivalent attitude was that common people felt confused about what exactly does

"wide", "ample", "large", "slender" and "strong" mean. A nineteen-year-old girl named Nian proposed several specific questions in a letter to the chief editor of Ling Long magazine Ms

Zhenling 珍玲 in 1936. In the letter, she asked how much does a nineteen years old girl normally weigh? What is the standard number? And for a grown-up woman, what is the standard height? In replying her questions, Ms. Zhenling replied with a fickle answer. On the one hand, she believed the norms that were set annually by the International Beauty Institute did not apply to Chinese women at all due to the differences of race and regions. On the other hand, however, Ms Zhenling gave a western-oriented women's measurement -5 feet tall and 130 pounds- for the young reader.^^

Gao Yunxiang expresses his disappointment to Ms. Zhenling's uncertain reply. Standing on the point of searching for Chinese own standard of the "Robust Beauty," Gao believes although the editor realized the fact that western norm might not be suitable for Chinese women, Ms

Zhenling finally chose to follow the western pattern.in the 1930s, the hesitation of Chinese popular publications to clarify the standard of the Chinese "Robust Beauty Girl" represented their

35 Nian 年."Biaozhun de tige"标准的体格(Physical Standard), Ling Long 劑229 (1936): 805.

36 Gao Yunxiang, "Nationalist and Feminist discourses on Jianmei (Robust Beauty) during China's 'National Crisis' in the 1930s." Gender & History 18 (November 2006):553.

31 uncertainties and worries to the practicability of the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" to

Chinese women. Ms. Zhenling's answer indicated a typical contrary attitude of most Chinese

publishers and intellectuals in the transitional stage of constructing Chinese "Robust Beauty

Girls." For one thing, as the first group of people who promoted western cult of the "Robust

Beauty" in Chinese society, progressive publishers and editors emphasized the necessity for fragile

Chinese women to learn from western robust and healthy women. No matter what the reason was:

for commercial success, women's health or national salvation, they normally hold positive

attitudes to the western women's measurements. In 1935, Ling Long begged all reader sisters to

examine their own weight, height, chest, hips and waist to see whether they fit the standard

measurement that was set by the International Beauty Institution every year." For another thing,

however, Chinese publishers and editors doubted the very imitation of western scientific norm of

"Western Beauty." As Ms. Zhenling stated, because of the differences in race and regions, the

western standard of the "Robust Beauty" did not necessarily suitable for Chinese women. As far as

Ms. Zhenling was concerned, the specific western norm of the "Robust Beauty" was a norm at

least for reference rather than for absolute identity. This was probably the reason why Chinese

editors and publishers preferred using vague and ambivalent adjectives to describe Chinese

"Robust Beauty Girls" in the 1930s.

If the first aspect of Chinese intellectuals' suspicions on the applicability of the western

standard on Chinese women was a roundabout expression, the second aspect of suspicion

regarding to western modern fashion was a rather direct and blunt critique. The popularity of

western modern fashion initially derived from the introduction of a large number of Hollywood

37 "Guoji meirongyuan shending:1934 zhi 1936 nian Miss zhi biaozhunmei"国际美容院审定:1934 至 1936 年 Miss 之标准美(International Beauty Institute: the standard of Miss beauty between 1934 and 1936)，Ling Long 玲珑 181 (1935): 846.

32 film stars to China as models of western "Robust Beauty Girls" in the late 1920s. Except for their robust and healthy bodies, their permed hair styles, fashionable appearances and extravagant living habits were also known by Chinese people through pictures, photos and reports published in printed media. In other words, Hollywood film stars played an important exemplary role in showing western beautification to Chinese women when they were introduced as models of western "Robust Beauty Girls" in the late 1920s.

In addition, Chinese popular publications intentionally informed their readers of the western fashion trends of the season, although this information was not considered as necessarily related to the "Robust Beauty." Many newspapers and magazines introduced new hair styles, western bras, foreign makeup, reformed qipao, stockings and high-heel shoes periodically. It is reasonable to believe that these acts of Chinese popular publications further stimulated Chinese women's interests in western stylish products.

Moreover, the ever-increasing requests of Chinese women for imported items, at the same time, caused more and more western brands of products came to Chinese market. Western shampoo, cosmetics, accessories, clothes and shoes could be found in many department stores.

The four famous shopping malls in Shanghai, Xianshi 先施,Yong'an 永安，Xinxin 新新 and Daxin

大新，have special counters for these imported goods and hired professional sellers for demonstration.^^ In most cases, Hollywood film stars were used as advertisements for increasing sales. In addition, many western as well as Chinese merchants followed this trend and opened their own stores for making and selling western items. Take the case of ready-made clothes shop in Shanghai, there were more than two thousands shops and around four thousands workmen in

Zhuo Ying 卓影’ ed. Lireming: mingiio shanghaifumizhisheng/mo 丽人行：民国上海妇女之生活(Li Renxing: the life of Shanghai women in the Republic) (Suzhou: Gu wu xuan chu ban she, 2004), 65.

33 the 1930S.39 Two of the most famous clothing shops at that time were Peng Jie 朋街 and Hong

Xiang 鸿翔.Peng Jie was opened by a Jewish person in 1935. The shop was famous for its good quality and solid cutting. In its annual fashion shows, western female models were invited for exhibition. Hong Xiang is the first women's cloth shop founded by Chinese people in Shanghai.

As the fourth generation of Zhao Chunlan 赵卷兰，the Chinese originator of women's clothing, Jin

Hongxiang and Jin Yixiang consistently expanded their business and established an influential clothing company in 1932.4°

Under such circumstances, many Chinese intellectuals proposed their doubts and even critiques regarding to this fashion trend. Their disagreements focused both on the western stylish items for women's beautification and women's consumer behaviour. One explanation of such critiques was that women's western attire was seductive, exotic and upset social order. A typical example is the discussion of women's naked legs. With the introduction of western the "Robust

Beauty" to Chinese society in the late 1920s, the fashion changed to expose women's robust legs.

In most photos of Hollywood film stars that published in popular publications, they were wearing swimming suits, short pants or sexy dresses without stockings to show their leg muscles and shapes. These photos were considered as harmful to Chinese traditional propriety. An actress' picture took in the Confucian Temple in was under attack simply because the actress exposed her legs without stockings. It is reported that the actress's behaviour was strongly denounced by the descendants of the clan of Confucius for it destroyed Chinese propriety/'

Another argument attributed the increase of traffic accidents to women's short attire and naked

Zhuo Ying 卓影，78.

Ibid., 76-77.

41 Jiamo 嘉谟."Guanyu luotui de chuxian"关于裸腿的出现(About the appearance of naked legs), Furen /w"力妇人画报(The Women's Pictorial) 19 (1934): 14-15.

34 legs. According to the report, male pedestrians and drivers were often attracted by the beautiful sight of women's legs and did not pay attention to the traffic. Thus, women should cover their legs when they walked on streets.'^- But such idea was criticized by the editor of The Young

Companion in a satirical tone. It is argued that women's images with naked legs or other parts of their bodies were not impure; it was the conservative thought that it was unhealthy

A more prevalent explanation to interpret Chinese intellectuals' critiques to the trend of imitating western fashion in China was that when Chinese women paid excessive attentions on beautifying themselves, they cared little about national restoration. A series of articles published in

The Republic Daily{Minguo ribao,民国曰报）in 1928 argued that current women wasted a lot of time and money to maintain their permed short hair and forgot their important roles in family and society.44 In the article "Talking about bizarre clothes" {Tan qizhuangyifu, ii^ ^ ：^ )jlx ), the author Zhao Liang 兆良 wrote that in a male-centered society, women who loved to wear flamboyant clothes were aiming to please men and they regarded external beauty as the precondition to gain happiness. Zhao considered this trend would definitely worsen the nation's economic situation.''^ Similar critiques pointed to women's high-heeled shoes. Some critics compared western high-heeled shoes to Chinese footbinding and stated that women wearing high-heeled shoes were unhealthy to the feet. The author believed there was no need for Chinese women to wear high-heeled shoes and this kind of unhealthy fashion would not be beneficial to

"Xinzhuang mozhang"新装魔障(Bewitching obstacles made by stylish fashion), Da Gongbao 大公报， April 26, 1940.

"Xuanmei jingsai"选羡竞赛(Beauty Competition), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 97(1934):12. “

44 Su Feng 苏风."Piaoliang xiaojie (2) (Yuxian shengming) bingfei wuru niixing"漂亮小姐（2)(预先声明） 并非侮辱女性(Beautiful xiaojie (2) (advanced statement) not to insult women)), Minguo ribao 民国日报(The Republic Daily), December 5’ 1928.

45 Zhao Liang 兆良，"Tan qizhuang yifu"谈奇装好服(Talking about weird costume)，Ling Long 询 I 249 (1936): 2382-2383.

35 national survival.''^ Theses unsatisfactory emotions to western products for women's beautification reflected a prevailing thought in the late 1920s and 1930s that women's appearances have great impact on national salvation. Women's ways of dressing became easy targets to blame for most, if not all, national problems in days when nationalism was overwhelming.

Such connection between women's beautification and nation's restoration also encountered many questions at the same time. Some intellectuals pointed out that women have their own rights to choose the ways they like to dress themselves up. For instance, the editor of The Women's Voice

、Ni_isheng,女 P) wrote in 1932 that people should not blame women and put restrictions on what and how they dressed. The color and style of women's clothes should be chosen according to their specific preferences.47 Other intellectuals considered women's beautification was not the only factor that should be blamed for national crisis. Scholars such as Hu Shi 胡适 argued that more social attention needed to be paid on serious national issues like poverty, famine and economic depression rather than on correcting women's appearances.'^® Although these critics did not agree with the act of criticizing women's beautification in totality for the sake of nation, they did not argue that women's beautification has nothing to do with national problems at all. As one editor

encouraged, women have the responsibilities to support national products and avoid buy foreign

products in order to save national industries."^^ In this sense, these critics did not doubt about the

relation between the trend of imitating western beautification and national building, but only about

Ximen shading 西门沙丁，"Jiankangmei yu nUxing"健康突与女性(Healthy beauty and women), Fang 方舟(Ark) 20 (1936): 29-31.

47 Sheng Baoyi, "Xinxiang: niizi yizliuang wenti"信箱:女子衣装问题（Letter box: problems of women's clothing)，J•力玄女声(The Women's Voice) 1 (1932): 15-16.

Hu Shi 胡:iS’ "Wei xinshenghuo yimdong yijie"为新生话运动进一解(A Explanation of the New Life Movement), 发//仍独立评论 95 (8 April, 1934): 19.

49 Sheng Baoyi, 16.

36 on what level did the two factors influence each other. And a noteworthy tendency is that compared with specific western products, Chinese women's acts of consumption gradually gained more attentions from intellectuals. This change of focus became particularly obvious when more and more Chinese women indulged themselves with western stylish attire and items in the 1930s.

The Reconstruction of the western "Robust Beauty:" critique on the "Modern Girl"

As stated previously, western scientific standard of the "Robust Beauty" dissolved in vague words to describe "Robust Beauty Girls" in China. Instead of being restricted to accurate numbers, the imprecise measurement of women's robust and healthy bodies expended Chinese people's understanding of western the "Robust Beauty." In the long run, such behaviour has a positive effect upon the reconsideration of the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" in Chinese society.

However, the social effect of the criticism of western fashionable attire and products were not as operative as expected. In fact, huge amount of imported products continually sold in the

Chinese market in the 1930s. And more and more Chinese women showed their great demands for foreign cosmetics, accessories, dresses and shoes through their luxurious consumer conducts. At this time, a group of new women called "Modern Girls" appeared with the development of urban cities and the prosperity of commercial culture.

According to an article entitled "A Modern Girl I Know"、fVo suo zhidao deyiwei modeng

/wL-/;我所知道的一位摩登女子）that published in Shanghai Daily {Shenbao,申报）in 1932, the term "Modem Girl" was the name given to the Chinese woman with the following three main characters. The first character referred to her obsessive interests in foreign fashion trend and

excessive attention on outward appearance. She lived in western-style houses, loved imported

cosmetics, wore the latest foreign dressings and ate western cuisine. Every morning, she tidied up

37 her eyebrows, powdered her face, permed her hair, trimmed her fingernails and wore lipstick and perfume. The second character was concerned with her western pattern of behaviour in public.

After being dressed up, she chatted with lover in parks and kissed in cinema theatres. She entered dancing halls freely at night and went for a ride in the car during the daytime. The third character was relevant to the purpose of her education at an early age. Her ability to read and write, as the author stated, was only used to compose love letters, to know the history of sex, to skim cosmetic advertisements and films pamphlets.This article illustrated a representative image of the

Chinese "Modern Girl" in the early 1930s. The author suggested that they preferred imported

items, they moved in fashionable circles, they were in love and cared very much about external

beautification and individual happiness. With little doubt, modern women's ardent cravings for

foreign material things and leisured ways of living formed a striking contrast to the widespread

criticism of western fashion during the same period. In the 1930s, "Modern Girls" became the new

target of criticism on their extravagant consumption, decadent life-style and indifference toward

national issues. These critiques have strong impact on the reconstruction of the western "Robust

Beauty" in Chinese society in the following years.

As discussed, the popularity of Hollywood film stars played an exemplary role in instructing

Chinese women the latest western fashion. Together with the expanding market, the importation of

various foreign items provided a convenient environment for shopping. A shocking number

appeared in 1934. It is estimated that the gross import value of perfume, powder, fake and

authentic accessories and attire from January to November was more than two million yuan(兀).

The primary reason rests on Chinese women's infatuation with foreign items and up-to-date

Shao Guang, "Wo suo zhidao de yiwei modeng niizi"我所知道的一位摩登女子（A Modem Girl I Know), Shenbao 申报(Shanghai Daily), August 2’ 1932,

38 fashion.^' In fact, Chinese women regardless of age group, living area, economic strength, educational level and social status in the 1930s dreamed up and built many hopes to follow the western fashion trend. Purchasers were not limited to bourgeois xiaojie 小姐 or taitai 太太 who were wealthy enough to buy imported commodities in shopping malls and have ample time to beautify them. Following the trend of western fashion, numerous examples of "Modern workers",

"Modern grandmothers" and "Modern rural women" were frequently reported by newspapers and magazines." An article published in 1932, for instance, illustrated the way for a common female worker whose monthly salary was no more than ten yuan in Shanghai to modernize herself. In a sarcastic manner, the reporter stated that her expensive watch was actually borrowed from her colleague and her excessive purchase of stylish clothes resulted in a cruel situation that she was swamped by debts.^^

These Chinese women attempted of being modem could be explained as women's instinct of

love of beauty. Especially during the period when traditional Chinese standard of female beauty

was doubted and criticized, Hollywood film stars who represented the western cult of the "Robust

Beauty" became the new beauty models from which Chinese women could learn. At the same time,

the appearance of the "Modern Girl" has several social reasons. Some critics blamed the fast

development of entertainment industry. They believed that women were easily seduced by places

of amusement, such as dancing balls, cinema theatres and Bingo halls. Inspired by Hollywood and

51 Yang Xieli, "Funii zenyang tichang guohuo"妇女怎样提侣国货（How to Promote National Products to Women), Shenbao 中报(Shanghai Daily), October 26’ 1933.

52 Xu Shiguang, "Xianvveijing xia de modeng niizi"品微镜下的摩登女子(Modem Girl under Microscope), Nu duo 女铎，21(1932): 8; Jun Xi, "Modeng laotai"摩登老太(Modem Grandmother), Shenbao 中报(Shanghai Daily), November 28’ 1933; Li Jian, "Fanhua dushi de moli, xiangxia nuzi laile bian buxiang huiqu"繁华都市的 魔力，乡下女子来 了便不想回去(The Magic of Urban City, Rural Women Do Not Plan to Go Back), Da gong bao 大公报(Da gong bao), November 17, 1928.

“Xu Shiguang, 8.

39 Chinese bourgeois films, for instance, young women inclined to lead their extravagant lives as

film stars.Some analysts pointed to the imbalance between the large numbers of female students that annually graduated from schools and the limited social positions for female students.

Except for the employment that required much labour force, like factory worker, waitress, shop assistant and housekeeper, women have little opportunity to choose their jobs." In most cases, female students who received higher education finally realized it is difficult to find a suitable job in reality. For this reason, they shifted their focuses on free love, parties, gatherings and of course, beautification.56 For those who got vocations in government or companies, on the other hand,

"beautiful vase" was a widely used name in society to mock their auxiliary functions in office.

These "beautiful vases" were believed as having no competence except for fashionable appearance." In this sense, a nice look became a determine factor for women to find a job. In

1933’ Li Zhishan pointed out in a sad tone that common innocent women misunderstood the

so-called "beautiful vase" as typical women of the time and thus put all their efforts into imitating

them. To make things worse, more attention of Chinese women was paid on external modern

appearances, the less time they could spend on improving working ability. And this situation

caused more and more working Chinese women labeled as "beautiful vase".^^

54 Hui Ho, "Dianying yu fonii"电影与妇女(Film and Women), Shijie nbao 世界日报，October 22’ 1932; Chen Biyun 陈碧云，"'Modeng shaonu' de xin qingxiang""摩登少女"的新倾向(The New Tendency of'Modem Girls'), Nitiyuekan 女子月刊 vol.2，3 (February, 1934): 2081.

55 Cheng Xu, "Xin nuxing de zhiye wenti"新女性的职业问题（The Question of New Women's Career), Shishixmbao 时事新报，February 12, 1935.

56 Xiao Ying Nushi, "Nu xuesheng shi hong luobo"女学生是红萝卜(Female Students are Carrots), Mingiio 卯民国日报(Minguo Daily), October 23, 1928; Chen Biyun 陈碧云，Funii wentihmwenji 妇女问题论文奥 (Essays of Women's Issues) (Shanhai: Zhong hua Ji dujiao Nu qing nian hui quan guo hui, 1935)，134-135.

“Gui Zhong, "Funu de zhiye jineng"妇女的职业技fi 巨（Women'svocationa l skills), Shenbao 屮报 (Shanghai Daily), February 25，1934.

Zhishan, "Xiangei Nanajingshi geming de jiemeimen"献给南京市革命的姊妹们（Devoted to Revolutionary Sisters in Nanjing), Funiigongming 妇女共鸣(Women Resonance) vol.2, 7 (1933): 10.

40 Many critical intellectuals expressed their anxieties and angers to the social circumstances in which a large number of Chinese women turned to competent followers of western fashion trend. Some radical remarks came out at that time, like women's pursuit of modem would finally destroy the country and the nation was stayed in a deadlock.^^ Relatively mild talks advocated women have rights to beautify their appearances, but excessive consumption of western products was not promoted.Although differed in degree, both the two statements realized the necessity of adjusting Chinese women's attitudes to western fashion and their extravagant consumer behaviour.

Under such circumstance, intellectuals did not hesitate in offering proposals to re-direct the conduct of "Modern Girls" and people's understanding of women's beauty. And within these

proposals, the western meaning of "Robust Beauty" was reconstructed in the 1930s.

Before we dive into the measurement taken by Chinese intellectuals to rebuild western the

"Robust Beauty", a noticeable article written in 1933 deserved our attention in the first place.

Published in the magazine JVomen Resonance {Fumigongming, ic ^t- ), the author named Yun

Shang 云裳 brought forward his/her doubt of current interpretation of the term "Modem Girl" and

argued the term actually has two distinct definitions. One definition referred to the kind of

skin-deep female hedonists who wasted time competing with one another for beauty and

fascination. While another definition of "Modem Girl" described them as hardworking, frugal and

neat women. According to the author's description, they have robust and healthy bodies; they

know scientific knowledge and reformation ideas; and they have the power to destroy the old

59 Chen Biyiin 陈碧云，"'Modeng shaonii' de xin qiiigxiang""摩登少女“的新倾向(The New Tendency of 'Modem Girls'), Nu=iyuekan 女子月刊 vol.2，3 (February, 1934); 2081; Liu Bingyi, "Modeng lun"摩登论(The Theory of Modem), Shenbao 中报(Shanghai Daily), October 8，1933.

You Ji, "Modeng yu guohuo"摩登与国货（Modem and National Products), Shenbao 中报(Shanghai Daily), December 24, 1933.

41 tradition and build a new social system.^' The re-interpretation of the term "Modern Girl" was in fact a strategic way used by some critical intellectuals to re-define the Chinese "Modern Girl" in the 1930s. Instead of creating another name or title to symbolize the ideal image of Chinese women, the legitimacy of the term "Modern Girl" was reserved by the emphasis of its positive meaning. Intellectuals tended to prove that the Chinese "Modem Girl" in the 1930s virtually represented the negative/false aspect of the term "Modern Girl." And they hold the expectations of transforming these negative/false "Modern Girls" to positive/true ones. In this process, women's

robust and healthy body and women's internal beauty were the two basic conditions for the

re-definition of the "Modern Girl" in China.

Having robust and healthy body through physical exercises was the first task for

intellectuals to rebuild the Chinese "Modern Girl" in the 1930s. As stated previously, Hollywood

stars build up their presence in Chinese society by news reports, imported film and advertisements

for foreign products in the late 1920s. In the 1930s, the appearance of the "Modern Girl" was

closely connected with such popularity of Hollywood stars. "Modern Girls" spent large amount of

money to imitate Hollywood ways of beautification, such as having their hair permed, applying

61 Yun Shang, "Lun 'modeng ntilang' zhi suoyou chansheng"论“摩登女郎"之所由产生(Discussing the origin of 'Modern Gilrs'), Funii gongming 妇女共鸣（Women Resonance) vol.2, 6 (1933): 27-33. Resembling arguments were popularly seen in the 1930s. Most reviewers criticized the existing "Modem Girls" were abnormal creatures of western modem trend and asked for the construction of true "Modem Girls". See Xia Shutiao, "Sange modeng nilxing zhong de zui modeng zhe"三个磨登女性中的©摩登者(The most modernist one among the three Modem Girls), Shenbao 巾报(Shanghai Daily), January 12’ 1932; Li Qi, "'Modeng' de neirong he xingshi"“ 摩登"的内容和形式(The content and form of 'modem'), Shenbao 中报(Shanghai Daily), December 5，1933; Liu Bingyi, "Modeng lun"摩登论（The Theory of Modem), Shenbao 申报（Shanghai Daily), October 8，1933; Yi, "Zaitan 'modeng' 'maodun"’ 再谈"摩登""矛应"(Further discussion of the 'contradiction' of 'modem'), Da gongbao 大公报，July 1, 1932; Xue Qiu, "Modeng niizi de san da maodun"摩登女子的三大矛盾(The three contradictions of Modem Girls), Shenbao 屮报(Shanghai Daily), November 7， 1932; "Jieshao yipian you jiazhi de lunwen 'Modeng de fonii"介绍一篇有价值的论文’摩登的妇女’ (Introducing a piece of worthy paper 'Modem Girls'), Shenbao 申报(Shanghai Daily), August 23，1931. On June 18"' 1934, 汪精卫 promoted the positive meaning of "Modem Girl" and connected it to the New Life Movement to correct people's misunderstanding in his speech for the weekly ceremony of the Nanjing government. See "Jiaozheng 'Minzhu' 'Modeng' liangge mingci de wujie: Wang yuanzhang zai guofu jinianzhou yanjiang"矫正’民主"摩登'两个名词的误解:汪院长在国府纪念周 演讲(Correcting the misconception of democracy' and 'modem': the dean Wang's speech for the weekly ceremony of the Nanjing govemient), Shenbao 中报(Shanghai Daily), June 19’ 1934.

42 famous-brand cosmetics and wearing expensive attire and high-heel shoes. Meanwhile, "Modern

Girls" enjoyed western mode of living that was shown in various Hollywood films. They were desirous of romantic love and wandering through newly established places of recreation. But ironically, "Modern Girls" paid little attention to Hollywood stars' robust bodies and their great interests in sports activities, the two decisive factors for them being chosen as exemplary models of the "Robust Beauty" in the late 1920s. Facing the jeopardy that Chinese women were increasingly attracted by make-ups, extravagant dresses, accessories and other ways of external beautification rather than owning a robust and healthy body, intellectuals held the idea that natural, robust and healthy meant true women's external beauty.

If the requirement for women to strengthen their bodies through taking part in sports activities in the late Qing period largely served for race preservation and national salvation, the similar call for women having robust and healthy body in the late 1920s was added with aesthetic

stimulus due to the introduction of western the "Robust Beauty." Such western cult prompted the

close connection between women's external beauty and robustness and health. Many forms of

sports activities were recommended to Chinese women as an effective method to gain beautiful

figure. In the case of the "Modern Girl" in the 1930s, the encouragement of sport hit its highest

level. As stated previously, "Modern Girls" put most of their focuses on beautifying their

appearances. External beauty in their words referred to short and permed hair, delicate makeup,

florid attire and matching jewelry. But these so-called fashionable and hyperbolic make-ups,

accessories, dresses and shoes were belittled by critical intellectuals as merely contribute to

artificial beauty. The true women's external beauty should have substance, being robust, natural

and healthy. And the only way to achieve such true beauty was to participate in physical

43 exercise.62 Accordingly, a common character of all positive/true "Modern Girls" that were portrayed in popular publications was their extraordinary capabilities of swim, run, play tennis, golf and even pilot airplanes."

At the same time of emphasizing the importance to regain true women's beauty of doing sports activities, many easy and fast ways of physical training designed for groups of women who have no time or money to do exercise were also promoted by intellectuals. The Young Companion published several pictures in 1935 to teach women fifteen-minute morning exercise.64 Qiu

Daiwen, the sports director of Guangdong female school, acted as model to illustrate twelve specific gestures of this exercise to build up women's neck, arm, back, waist and leg muscles. The editor believed that this set of morning exercise was organized in an easy way for every reader to learn from and held optimistic attitude to the popularization of women's sports in China. Another report entitled "Bedroom Gymnastics" put its focus on Chinese housewives who were very busy with chores and had little chance to do outdoor exercise." The report firstly stated the fact that most housewives found it is unnecessary for them to go to gymnasium everyday to keep healthy and beautiful bodies. For this reason, the report introduced several methods of doing physical

exercise at home. As the report demonstrates, hot irons were just as good as dumb-bells for

housewives to train their arm muscles and a washing bay filled with clothes could be used as a

62 Chen Xi, "Houbei cuyao naihe"厚竹粗腰奈何(What to do with thick back and waist), Shenghuo 生活 23 (1929): 251; Su Feng 苏风，"Piaoliang xiaojie (8) (Yuxian shengming) bingfei vvuru nuxing"漂亮小姐(8)(预先 声明）并非侮辱女性（Beautiful xiaojie (8) (advanced statement) not to insult women)), Minguo ribao 民国曰报 (The Republic Daily)’ December 12’ 1928.

"Weinasi faxing de bianqian"维纳丝发型的变迁(The transformation of styles of Venus), Furen huabao 妇人画报(The Women's Pictorial), 20 (1934): 10,

64 "Zaochen qichuang qian 15 fenzhong yundong"早晨起床前 15 分钟运动（15-niinite Morning Exercise on Bed), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 102 (193 5): 18.

65 "Woshi jianshenfang"卧室健身房（Bedroom Gymnastics), Liang You Huabao 良友画报（The Young Companion) 155 (1940): 28-29.

44 punch bag.

The above two examples indicated that when critical intellectuals propagated the idea that true women's external beauty rested greatly on physical training, the sorts of training were not limited to professional athletic activities in outdoors, but contained forms of amateur exercise that could take at home. These simple and basic exercises helped an increasing number of common women strengthen their bodies. In the 1930s, daily exercise was no longer an exclusive right for female students. Meanwhile, women felt easier to have the "Robust Beauty" and become the positive/true "Modern Girl." As discussed in the previous chapter, when the western cult of the

"Robust Beauty" was introduced to China in the late 1920s, female students were named as

Chinese models of the "Robust Beauty Girl." Their physical training at school has strong intensity

and was quite competitive. The method of having robust and healthy body for Chinese women at

that time referred more likely to participate in athletic activities. But this inclination changed in

the 1930s with the popularity of easy and fast ways of doing exercise. In the process of re-building

the Chinese "Modern Girl", critical intellectuals believed that "Robust Beauty" could be achieved

through amateur physical exercise. This idea to a large extent reduced the difficulty for Chinese

women to turn to the positive/true "Modern Girl" with the character of the "Robust Beauty".

The second measurement took by critical intellectuals to re-build the "Modem Girl" in the

1930s was the difference made between women's internal beauty and external beauty. The external

beauty here referred to women's fashionable appearance through wearing foreign cosmetics and

flamboyant attire. As mentioned, Chinese "Modem Girls" in the 1930s spent considerable sums of

money, time and energy on adornment. For the sake of beauty/fashion, it is reported that some of

them wore new pair of tights everyday since washing and mending would diminish its decorative

45 value.66 In the words of a critic, "Modern Girls" were indulged in luxurious and meaningless external beautification.'^^ Under such circumstance, women's internal beauty was brought forward and promoted to work as the opposite side of modem women's infatuation of external beauty. In

1934, The Women's Pictorial {Furen Hitabao,妇人画报）published a special feature on "The

Beauty of Chinese Women". The editor stated that the beauty of Chinese women grew from the long historical tradition of China and hoped that "other than maintaining their external beauty, women should make efforts to enhance their internal beauty." In the article, women's internal beauty was defined as the beauty of the whole personality and composed of beautiful character, profound knowledge and rich emotions.^^ Similar argument was made by The Women's Voice

{Niisheng.'k'P). The author used the term "spiritual beauty" to refer to women's internal beauty in the areas of knowledge, character and personality.^^ Although differed in names, a common point of these calls was the re-building and re-promotion of women's inward composition, virtue and wisdom. In the 1930s, intellectuals held the hope that women's extravagant consumption on beautification would be regulated through this way. In their requests, two points were proposed as the basic factors of women's internal beauty.

The first factor of women's internal beauty pointed to women's abandonment of foreign goods. As mentioned, one prominent character of Chinese "Modern Girls" in the 1930s was their constant pursuit of western modern fashion. Following Hollywood stars' dressing style, there was

66 Su Feng 苏风，"Piaoliang xiaojie (5) (Yuxian shengming) bingfei wuru nuxing"漂亮小姐（5)(预先声明） 并非侮辱女性(Beautiful xiaojie (5) (advanced statement) not to insult women)), Minguo ribao 民国曰报(The Republic Daily), December 8’ 1928.

Ibid,, 8 December 1928.

""Bianji yutan"编辑余谈(Editor's talk), Furenhuabao 妇人画报(The Women's Pictorial) 17 (1934): 32.

® Feng Zhiqiu, "Shifei zhiwei duo kaikou"是非只为多开口（Gossips just because of being talkative), Nii sheng kP (Women's Voice) 11(1934): 18.

46 a rush on imported female products in China, such as cosmetics, attire, accessories and shoes.

Zhao Min once wrote an article to mock "Modern Girls'" awkward imitation of Hollywood fashion.

He stated that although these Chinese "Modern Girls" wore imported clothing, had their hair permed and applied famous-brand of cosmetics, they were not as beautiful as Hollywood stars.

Besides, Zhao emphasized women's extravagant consumer behaviour would definitely worsen the economic situation of the nation.™ In fact, the fear of national economic recession rose promptly at that time. Many intellectuals accused modern women of wasting national money on foreign imports, which would cripple the development of domestic infant industries. Under such circumstances, women were urged to be thrifty and to purchase national goods instead of imported ones. At this time, popular publications played an important role in announcing numerous campaigns and exhibitions of national products. As early as in 1928, an exhibition of national products that was sponsored by the Minister of Industry and Commerce of the Kuomintang government was propagated. The exhibition was remarked as a positive step took to resist western goods. On that day, it is reported that the activity successfully attracted a huge amount of people to view."" Similar exhibitions to promote national products that happened in Nanjing and Shanghai in 1930 were also reported enthusiastically. In 1931, Ling Long used a whole page to publish the meeting held by the "Women's Association of National Products" to celebrate the "March

Eighth."72 111 1934, "the Year of Women's Nationalists Consumption" {Fiinii guohuo nian, tE\ [5|

货勾三）that was launched by the KMT Government met with quick responses from critical editors,

™ Zhao Liang 兆良，"Tan qizhuang yifu"谈奇装异服(Talking about weird costume). Ling Long 资 1 249 (1936): 2382-2383.

"Guohuo zhanlanhui kaimu"国货展览会幵幕(The Inauguration of the Native Products Exposition), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 32 (1928): 8.

72 Zhen Ling 珍玲，"Funti yaovven"妇女要闻(Women's News), LmgLong糊t 1 (1931): 3.

47 reporters and intellectuals.

At the flash point of spreading propaganda of using national goods among the masses,

Chinese film stars became an indispensable and dynamic force. In the above cases, film stars were

often chosen to display and promote the new patterns of national clothes and shoes. Their

exemplary roles played in the various national product movements indicated the fact that film stars

in China became increasingly popular and influential in the 1930s. As discussed in the previous

chapter, Chinese movie industry was at its initial stage in the late 1920s. And a mature group of

Chinese film stars was not formed at that time in order to represent the western cult of the "Robust

Beauty." But things changed within a few years. Chinese movie industry experienced a fast

development in the 1930s and kept an intimate interaction with Hollywood movie companies.

Chinese film stars were gradually known by more and more spectators. At the same time of being

famous in Chinese society, their good tastes in manners and conduct were imitated by common

people. This is particularly seen in the way of dressing. Because of their social popularity, film

stars were often invited by shopping malls to represent the fashionable costumes in the next

quarter of a year. Meanwhile, popular publications made detailed comments on their clothing style

for propaganda of the latest fashion trend among readers."

There was an undeniable fact that sometimes Chinese film stars tried a bit of daring style.

For instance, in reporting movie star Miss Chen Yunshang's trip from Hong Kong to Shanghai,

Miss Chen showed up with heavy makeup, permed hair, a feather coat, high-heeled shoes and a delicate hand bag. Film stars' images on the cover of popular publications were quite delicate and

73 "Nanjing funti guoliuo yundong choubei weiyuan heying"南京妇女国货运动筹备委员合影(The Photo of the Preparatory Committee), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 47(1930): 26; "Shizhuang biaoyan"吋装表演（Fashion Show), Liang You Huabao 良友画报（The Young Companion) 68 (1932): 22; "Shizhuang biaoyan"时装表演(Fashion Show), Liang You Huabao [？1友_报(The Young Companion) 82 (1933): 24; "Xiaji shizliuang"a!季时装(Summer Fashion Show), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 106 (1935); 41-41.

48 luxurious. They usually had permed hair and an exquisite facial appearance; they wore fashionable reformed qipao and matching accessories.74 On the other hand, reporters tried to reveal another fact that most film stars' daily dressings were quite plain and normal. In the previous case of Miss

Chen Yunshang, her dressing at home was much more plain than in public. She wore a piece of quiet color qipao and covered with common sweater. A typical and ironical comparison made between famous film star Hu Die 胡蝶 and an anonymous rural woman regarding to their clothing styles was published by The Young Companion^ The left picture recorded Hu Die's experience in rural area. She took off her accessories and flamboyant clothes once shown in popular magazines and wore a rural-style jacket and pants. It was commented that Hu Die loved nature and did not exclude common clothes at all. While in the right picture, the countryside woman applied heavy makeup and had her hair permed. She wore a reformed qipao that was characterized by western style collars and sleeves. In showing the two different ways of dressing, the editor on the one hand mocked the rural woman's awkward imitation of modern fashion and tended to illustrate the real image of Chinese film stars in daily life on the other hand. Thus, Chinese film stars carried much more conviction to promote national products and show their patriotic emotion in the 1930s.

The second factor of women's internal beauty referred to women's responsibility to their families and society. In a doggerel named "Advice to Modern Girls" {Fuquan modeng niizigeM

劝摩登女子歌)’ the author Shi Zheii argued women in the past were better than current "Modern

74 For example. The Young Companionl chose Riian Lingyu, Hu Ping and Li Minghui to be its cover women in the 1930s. The images of these three film stars were characterized by their arch eyebrows, bright eyes, spirited noses, rubicund mouthes and florid complexions. Ranged from vivacious Li Minghui, beautifol Hu Ping to mild Ruan Linyu, their facial appearance applied to all Chinese famous actresses at that time. "Li Minghui"黎明阵， Liang You Huabao 良友画报（The Young Companion) 97 (1934): cover; "Yuan Lingyu"阮玲玉，Liang You Hiiabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 99 (1934): cover; "Hu Ping"胡萍，Licmg You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 102 (1935); cover.

75 "Youqu de duibi"有趣的对比(Interesting Contrast), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 152 (1940): 42.

49 Girls" in two aspects.76 The first good point of women at an earlier time was their plain appearance. They did not apply makeup and wore simple clothes and shoes. In addition, women in former times played an active role in domestic sphere. They took good care of family members and supplemented the family expenses by weaving in spare time. The second aspect struck a responsive chord among the critiques of the "Modem Girl" in the 1930s. Many intellectuals put their critical focuses on women's production capacity and family function. "Modern Girls" were accused of knowing nothing about production but consumption. Instead of caring about family members, they were indulged in dressing themselves up everyday and going out to tour around."

An author named Ran Zi censured "Modern Girls" neglected their instinct duties as women and proposed the necessity of being the new style of "Virtue Wives and Good Mothers" {Xianqi

“cmgmu’、资赛良母）.78 At the point of promoting "Virtue Wives and Good Mothers", Ran Zi's emphasis was not that women must stay at home without little chance to go out, but that women have to place their domestic works at the first place. Ling Long set similar argument in 1937. In the article "Do not forget your family"(Mo wangle ni de jiating,莫忘了你的家庭),the author Yun

Qiu firstly admitted that women's teaching at school was a kind of occupation. Then, she stated that being virtue wives to help husbands and being good mother to educate children were also lofty vocations.^^ Although the argument of being "Virtue Wives and Good Mothers" caused

Shi Zhen, "Fuquan niodeng nuzi ge"附劝摩登女子歌(Advice to Modem Girls), Mi duo 女铎 21(1932): 11.

77 Zhang Danzi, "Tiaochu xinjiushi de kuilei quanzi zhivvai"跳出新旧式的傀ffw圈子以夕卜(Jumping out of the puppet circle of new and old women), Fimii yue bao 妇女 JI 报，March 1’ 1935; Qiu Feng, "Funti shengji de yantao" fc]女 ^Si计(1勺研！寸（The discussion of women's living), in column "Funu yu jiating"fci 女与家庭（Women and Family), Da gong bao 大公报，October 22，1933,

Ran Zi, "Modeng fiinu yu xianqi liangmu"摩登妇女与贤妻 g：母(Modem Women and Virtue Wives and Good Mothers), Da gong bao 大公报，July 29, 1931.

79 Yun Qiu 韵秋，"Mowang le ni de jiating"莫忘了你的家庭(Do not forget your family), LmgLongV^il 296(1937): 2253-22556.

50 several debates in the 1930s, the encouragement for "Modern Girls" to focus on domestic work was better than the previous situation of living in idleness.^®

At the same time, the expansion of Japanese aggression in the 1930s aggravated the social and economic circumstances. A nationwide call was made by progressive intellectuals to summon

all Chinese women to support the nation. "Modern Girls" were seriously criticized because of their pursuits of individual pleasure and were asked to contribute to the war.^' In the 1930s, many

typical female groups that were organized to assist the army were reported in order to evoke

common women's enthusiasm toward the war. In 1937, for instance, several pictures published by

The Young Companion illustrated the members of women's association. Foreign ladies and nuns in

Hangzhou were sewing and collecting woolen clothes and cotton vests for Chinese soldiers.^^

Besides, girls who used to be living on the entertainment boat in Zhejiang were spontaneously organized for military training. As the editor remarked, even they have little opportunity to know

about the war, the anger derived from death stimulated them to shoulder the responsibility of

卯 Being "Virtue Wives and Good Mothers" was easily interpreted as what women ought to do. Supporters believed this idea would benefit to the revive of national morality; while opponents argued this idea symbolized the male-centered pattern of thinking. See He Jingyuan, "Xin xianqi liangmu zhuyi fafan"新贤妻良母主义发凡 (The statement of the New 'Virtue Wives and Good Mothers'), Chenbao 晨报’ February 25’ 1935; Guang Yi, "Liangqi xianniu zhuyi de butong"良妻贤母主义的不通(The illogical 'Virtue Wives and Good Mothers'), Fuii 妇女杂志(The Ladies'journal) 1 (1924): 365. Meanwhile, the dispute on "Women Back Home" in late 1930s and early 1940s were involved. Not all supporters of "Virtue Wives and Good Mothers" asked women to back home; and not all opponents denied women's domestic responsibility. See Xu Huiqi 许慧王奇，"1930 niandai 'funii huijia' lunzhan de shidai beijing jiqi neirong: jianlun Nala xingxiang zai qizhong banyan de jiaose" 一:iL三零勾Mt ’妇女回家’论战的吋代背最及其内容——兼论娜拉形象在Jt•中扮演的弁色(The background and content of the dispute on "Women Back Home" in the 1930s - The image of Nora and its act in the dispute), Donghua renwen xuebao 东华人文学报 4 (2002): 99-136.

For instance, Shijie ribao 世界日报 published a serial of articles to appeal for women's attendance to the war. Zhu Ruhuan, "Guoqing jinian gao geming de flinu"国庆纪念告革命的妇女(To revolutionary women during the national commemorative activity), Shijie ribao 世界 H 报’ October 11, 1932; Xuan Feng, "Zhongguo funu de remvu"中国妇女的任务(The task of Chinese women), Shijie ribao ill：界日报，March 8’ 1933; Heng, "Tan Zhongguo minzu geming yundong zhong zhi funu dongyuan wenti"谈巾国民族革命运动中之妇女动员问题 (The question of mobilizing women in Chinese national revolution), Shijie ribao 世界日报，May 23，1933; Xian Ru, "Dazhaii qian ftinU yingyou de zhunbei"大战前妇女应存的准备(The women's preparation before the war), Shijie ribao 世界日报，October 1，1935; Zi Yan，"Erci dazhan yu zhongguo funii" 二次大战与中国妇女(The Second World War and Chinese women), Shijie ribao 世界日报’ January 20，1936.

"Handong jiang zhi"寒冬将至（Winter Approaching), Liang You Huabao 良友画报（The Young Companion) 132 (1937): 22-23.

51 national salvation. They were regarded as fighters for the women's work during the war period.^^

Female students did not lag behind at this time. The female student army in Guangxi represented the new profession of Chinese women. The girls of today cared more about the nation rather than themselves and their families. Now, they were war nurses, service corps workers and fighting forces.84

The KMT's Response to the western "Robust Beauty"

In the 1930s, the reconstruction of western the "Robust Beauty" not only spread out among critical intellectuals, but also attracted the attention of the Kuomintang government. In many areas, the KMT government cooperated with intellectuals, editors and reporters in one way or another to re-direct the bad conducts of "Modern Girls." The governmental effort was mainly worked out through the New Life Movement, inaugurated by Chiang Kai-shek on February 19, 1934 in

Nanchang, Jiangxi. The KMT leadership tended to save China from material and spiritual degeneration by means of reviving traditional moral principles: civility, righteousness, incorruptibility, sense of shame (li, yi. lian. chi,礼义廉 Mj for nation-building. One of its important concerns was the prohibition of modern women's extravagant consumer behaviour and luxurious living mode. Conducts such as wearing luxurious clothes, purchasing foreign products or exposing parts of their bodies in public were condemned negative and evil. Closely related to intellectuals' disputes on the reconstruction of western the "Robust Beauty", the government built up its ideal image of Chinese women in three aspects: a robust body, a conservative dressing, and domestic and public responsibilities.

"Jiuguo bufen nannii: Zhejiang lanxi chaunniang shouxun"救国部分]^女：浙江兰谿船孃受训(Zhejiang boat women underwent training), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 148 (1939): 30.

"Qijia jiuguo"弃家救国(New profession for Chinese girls), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 142 (1939): 14.

52 Robust and Healthy Body

Physical soundness was the key to realize the imagined Nationalist womanhood. From the establishment of the KMT government in Nanjing in April 1927 onward, the government took series of actions to propagate the necessity of taking part in sports activities among the masses and tended to developed a complete national physical training system for both men and women. The first political act was the foundation of a National Physical Education and Sports Committee under the Education Ministry in December 1927. An official national body to supervise exercise throughout the nation was set up. In the following "national" education conference took place in

Nanjing in May 1928, girls were encouraged by the government to participate in gymnastics, physical education and sports. A further step was took on April 16, 1929, when the Law on Sports for Citizens {Guomin tiyufa,国民体育法）was issued to promote participation in sports activities.

One of the clauses set physical education as an obligatory course in middle schools and colleges and as a decisive factor of students' graduation (for both boys and girls).^^ A marked effect was the enlargement of women's events in the National Games. As stated in Chapter One, the number of women's sports increased from three exhibition events in 1924 to seven regular games in

1933.86 During the Model District Sports Movement that was launched by the Ministry of

Education in September 1932, the level of women's involvement in exercise and their consequent healthy condition were considered as an important criteria for selection."

Other clauses included parents and guardians are responsible for supervision; scientific sports method must be applied; every town, city and region must have public sports stadiums; physical education teachers and instructors should be qualifies and so forth. The Law was revised in 1941 but retained much of its original content. It emphasized that every man and woman must exercise and that central and local government must take a role in controlling, administering and financing sport. See Fan Hong, Footbinding, feminism and freedom: The liberation of women's bodies in modern China (London; Frank Cass, 1997), 231-232.

秘 Susan Brownell, Training the Body for China: sports in the mora/ order of the People's Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 43-50.

“The Ministry of Education requested that every country and province select one district or town as a model of sports progress to stimulate others. The Model District Sports Movement was to be found throughout the

53 The pace of promoting women's participation in physical exercise accelerated during the

New Life Movement. In Chiang Kai-shek's open letter entitled "Promotion of Sport and Exercise" in March 1935, he proposed having a mass physical exercise campaign. In Chiang's words, all staff of Party offices, social services, the army, students and teachers of primary and middle schools must choose one event as their regular exercise and have their daily exercise time fixed between five to six o'clock every day without exception.^^ Chiang's talk set the basic tone for further measurement of the New Life Movement to encourage women (as well as men) to have robust and healthy bodies. On February 2’ 1936, the Women's Department of the New Life

Movement was established under the leadership of Song Meiling, Chiang Kai-shek's wife. When women's work, particularly in urban cities, was actively pushed ahead with the spread of the

Movement, the primal faith of being female participants of the Movement was published in 1936 by the official magazine Xinyunyuekan 新运月刊.As exemplary models for common women to learn from, one of the necessary conditions for women who took charge of the Movement was having robust and healthy bodies.^^ Very soon, the request applied to all Chinese women.

The series of measures adopted by the KMT government to propagate women's physical exercise received prompt responses from popular publications. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, female students' participation in physical education classes and sports meetings at school became an active topic that was frequently reported by printed media. Photos of students' swimming,

nation and was particularly well organized in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shandong. See Guojia tiwei tiyu wenshi gongzuo weiyuanhui W 家体委体育文史工作委员会(The State Sports Commission), Zhongguo tiyushi xuehui 中国体—ft"史学会(Chinese Sports Society), ed. 讲少"j/z/中国近代体衍史 (The history of physical education in modem China) (Beijing: Beijing ti yu xue yuan chu ban she, 1989)，245-246.

Chiang Kai-shek 蒋介石，"Tichang tiyu duanliaii"提倡体齊锻炼(Promotion of Sports and Exercise), in Fan Hong, Footbinding, feminism andfreedom, 243.

約 Other requests include sacrifice for the nation, serve for the society, hold a simple life, have proper behaviour, use national products and so forth. See Xinyunyuekan 新运月干丨J 35 (15 July, 1936); 7.

54 running, jumping, playing baseball, basketball and doing other forms of outdoor activities were published. Students' robust bodies, shapely muscles and healthy conditions were highlighted by the camera. In 1930, for instance, The Young Companion published several pictures of students of the Liang Jiang Female Physical School attending swimming class，In one of the photos, eight students sat on a jumping board in line and intentionally showed their shapely figures. On this basis, the editor commented on these students as a group of beautiful mermaids who were characterized by robust and healthy bodies and believed the cultivation of women's body would created a new model of womanhood.

By the time the KMT government instituted the New Life Movement, government and popular publications kept their intimate relationship to give publicity to the new conception that women should be robust and healthy through physical exercise. At this time, the promotion of

Chinese female sports star became the point that connected government propaganda and printed media. In the 1930s, sports stars (both male and female) were springing up with the flourishing of physical exercise at school, colleges and in public stadia. Normally, they received professional training at schools and were chosen as representatives to attend annual sports meetings among

universities and National Gaines. When they got good scores or broke the records in athletic filed,

they were always given tremendous buildup in the media. Some of the excellent athletes got

chance to compete at international competitions and such as Yang Xiuqiong 杨秀琼，a swimmer

from Hong Kong who won all of the individual titles in women's swimming events at the Far

Eastern Championship Games in 1934 and broke her own records in the 1936 Berlin Olympic

90 "Liangjiang nuzi tiyu xuexiao xuesheng zhi qiuyong shengliuo"两江女子体育学校学生之泅泳生活 (Swimming class of the Liangjiang Female Physical School), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 49 (1930): 32.

55 Games.9i She was well know by readers because her great performance, well-toned body and personal life were frequently reported by popular publication. Printed media tended to shape Yang as model for common women to learn from. At this point, her robust body, active spirit and healthy condition through the participation in sports activities were particularly promoted. Among the propagation, famous magazines like The Young Companion and Ling Long even used her image in both swimsuit and regular clothes for the magazines' covers in the 1930s.

Meanwhile, the KMT government did not fall behind. The leadership of the New Life

Movement also recognized the strong social influences of sports stars and tried to use them as vehicles to propagate women's participation in physical exercise. Not surprisingly, Yang Xiuqiong was a typical example. After the Far Eastern Championship Games in 1934, Yang was invited by the New Life Committee in Nanchang to perform her swimming technique for the public in the

newly established Sha Wo 沙窝 swimming pool. The whole process was quite lively. When Yang

arrived in Nanchang, Liu Baichuan 义ij 白川，one of the secretaries of the New Life Movement

Promotion Committee {Xinshenghuo玄《；7'/》力"/;新生活运动促进会）who opened the Sha

Wo swimming pool, and thousands of people went on the street to welcome her. During her stay in

Nanchang, she was treated by Liu Baichun with sumptuous feasts that was prepared by the famous

restaurant Da San Yuan 大三元.92 Newspapers and magazines reported Yang's experience in

Nanchang and estimated the tatal cost was more than three thousands yuan. Faced with such huge

amount of money, Xiong Shihui 熊式辉，the general secretary of the New Life Movement

Promotion Committee in Nanchang, claimed that "it is not a financial but a political issue. Miss

⑴ Qinfen 勤杏,vol.l，2 (October 1933); 32-33; vol.3’ 2 (November 1935): 157-158.

92 Wang, Xiaohua 王晓华’ "Mofan" Nmchcmg: Ximhenghiio yundong ceyuandi、、\〜》：ML、、—镇為•.新生活运动 策礼±也（"Model" Nanchang: the origin of the New Life Movement) (Nanchang: Jiangxi mei shu chu ban she, 2007), 81.

56 Yang Xiuqiong is the model of the New Life Movement. The idea of combining 'Chinese

Mermaid' with the Movement is extremely good."93 Later, Yang was arranged to visit Lushan 庐

山 for sightseeing and was also invited by the Secretary of the Executive Yuan to be the special guest at the Municipal Swimming Competition in Nanjing.

At the point of propagating women's robust and healthy bodies by taking part in sports activities, the KMT government and popular publications reached a mutual agreement; nevertheless, they adopted their specific advertising tactics and statements to encourage women to strengthen their bodies. The key point rested on their different understandings and expectations of women for being robust and healthy. As stated previously, popular publications made their contribution to the introduction of the western cult of the "Robust Beauty" to China in the late

1920s. Western women, especially Hollywood film stars, were chosen to be the models of "Robust

Beauty Girls" for Chinese women to learn from. At that time, a robust body was considered as a new form of women's beauty that differed from traditional frail beauty. And this new kind of women's beauty was characterized by wide chest, fuller hip, strong legs and shapely muscles.

Around the 1930s, the request of having robust and healthy body was re-emphasized when the kind of women's beauty that relied on imported cosmetics and fashionable attire became more and more popular among Chinese women. In order to change women's extravagant consumption for beautification, many popular publications stated that women's external beauty actually meant to robust and healthy body.

For the KMT government, however, its propagation of a robust body was not merely for the reconstruction of the standard of women's beauty; but more importantly, for the good and strength

力 Wang, Xiaohua，82.

"Rongyu yu vveiji"荣齊与危机(只0110『and Danger),150 (1934): 1587,

57 of the nation. Chiang Kai-shek once explained the importance of creating robust and healthy bodies for the restoration of the nation. He stated that if a person had a robust body, he/she would have a strong spirit and a strong spirit would then help a person acquired all the abilities to strengthen the nation and get rid of the aggression of foreign country."" in Chiang's words, robust body (of both men and women) was the source of vital spirit and also, through the latter, the source of national salvation. It was under the influence of this long-standing view that women's participation in physical exercise became one of the main tasks of the New Life Movement. Sports activity was regarded as a fundamental and effective way to build up robust and healthy body. And with a robust and healthy body one could ensure endurance for every kind of labour and most demanding tasks for the nation. For Chinese women who accounted to half the population, taking part in physical recreation was believed to bring the nation a new hope. Song Meiling 宋美龄 made it clear that robust and health of a nation's women was a measure of "civilization."96 Liu

Shengcen, the Director of Physical Education in Sichuan Provincial Education Council, made similar statement in May 1935. He explained that sport would stimulate women's awareness of the nation and build up spirit of responsibility and sacrifice.。？ As Zhu Xaiochu, an experienced physical educator explained in his article in May 1936, the ultimate purpose of the New Life

Movement was to encourage Chinese women to become an important force for the salvation of the

95 Chiang Kai-shek said, "In order to become a healthy modem citizen, it is necessary first to have strong and robust bodies; having a strong body’ one then has a strong spirit; having a strong spirit, one can then acquire all the abilities to strengthen the nation; having all kinds of abilities to strengthen the nation, one can naturally defend the state and glorify the nation, help our state and country to forever accord with the world and never again suffer from the aggression and oppression of foreign countries or receive disdain and insults." Chiang Kai-shek 蒋 介石，"Lun xin shenghuo 论新生活(On the New Life Movment)," See Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom. 242.

如 Norma Diamond, "Women under Kuomintang Rule: Variations of the Feminine Mystique." Modern C/7maVo\.\, 1 (January 1975): 13.

97 Liu Shengcen, "Tiyu jiuguo lun"体育救 |玉1 论（On the Salvation of China through Physical Exercise), 勤杏，vol.2, 8 (May 1935): 19-22.

58 nation.卯

The Regulated Appearance

In the 1930s, "Modern Girls" were crazy about modern western fashion. In order to bear some likeness to the charming and perfect film stars in Hollywood, Chinese modern women spent a huge amount of money on perming hair and purchasing foreign makeup, attire, accessories and high-heel shoes. This kind of women's beauty that was based solely on western cosmetics and dressings was criticized by intellectuals. In the process of rebuilding the image of Chinese

"Modern Girl" in the 1930s, plain appearance was then requested as an important character of being real/positive "Modern Girl." At the same time, the KMT government held several public exhibitions of national products with the purpose of rescuing modern women from the influence of western modern fashion. Such government action was quickly supported by popular publications.

As stated previously, newspapers and magazines played an essential role in helping the government to propagate home-made clothes, shoes, gloves, scarves and daily items such as umbrellas. By the time the New Life Movement was launched, the KMT government took a stricter attitude toward women's appearance.

In June 1934, the first ban on strange and outlandish women's clothes {(^thmngyifu,奇、髮i

异月艮）was passed by the Nanchang New Life Headquarters in Jiangxi.卯 Regulations concerned with women's hair style, facial appearance, the material of clothes, and the pattern of qipao followed. First and foremost, permed hair was not allowed; the length of hair should not below the

训 Zhu Xiaochu, "Zhongguo funu de jiankang wenti"中 W 妇女的健康丨、丨丨j 题（On the Problem of Chinese Women's Health), 勤奋 vol.3, 8 (May 1936): 12.

99 "Jiang weiyuanzhang qudi funii qizhuang qifu"蒋委w长取締妇女奇装兄服(Chiang Kai-shek issued the ban on strange and outlandish women's clothes), NiiDtio 女铎 vol.23, 3 (1934): 88.

59 collar line unless it was tied in a knot or bun. Besides, cosmetics were not encouraged to wear for it was believed to be frivolous and lighthearted; thin fabrics should not be used since a man on the street could become distracted. Last but not least, qipa(H sleeves should be long enough to cover the elbow; its slits were not allowed to above the knee for more than three inches; and the total length of qipao should not shorter than one Chinese inch above the ankle because bared legs and feet were prohibited in public areas.These regulations on women's hair, facial appearance and clothes were consistently propagated. And with the rapid development of the New Life Movement, they were enforced by different levels of New Life organizations in the 1930s.

At the initial phase, the New Life policy on women won support from some intellectuals who worked particularly at changing modern women's eager adoption of western fashion.'®^ In

1934, for instance, Chen Hengzhe expressed her pleasant emotion to the New Life Movement in

her book The New Life and Women 's Emancipation (Xmshenghuo yii fumijiefang,新生活与妇女

解放/ Chen held the view that the New Life Movement would help to build up Chinese "new women" who were characterized by dressing simply, independence and self-respect. After one year, however, Chen felt very disappointed about the New Life Movement and believed the

卿"Lifaye lixing xinshenghuo"理发业J万行新生活(The New Life in the hairdressing business), Zhongyang ribao 中央曰报(Zhongyang Daily), January 23, 1935; "Lifaye Hying xinshenghuo: jinzhi tangfa zuo kaishi shixing"理发业历营新生活：禁止资发昨幵始实行(The New Life in the hairdressing business: the ban on perming hair was operated yesterday), Zhongyang ribao「t】央 P 报(Zhongyang Daily), February 1, 1935; "Qudi funu qizhuang yifU"取缔妇女奇装异服(The ban on strange and outlandish women's clothes), Zhongyangnbao 中 央日报(Zhongyang Daily), February 26, 1935; "Yushengjin tangfa, jinii biijin"豫咨禁资发,妓女不禁(The ban on perming hair, prostitutes were excluded), Shibao 卩.、」'报，November 2, 1935.

'"'The New Life Promotional Associations were established in nine provinces as well as three municipal centres through March and April in 1934. By the first anniversary of the Movement in Febraury 1935’ 15 provinces, three municipalities, and nine railway centres had New Life organizations. As of the end of 1935, organizations had spread to 19 provinces, five municipalities, 12 railway centres, and ten overseas Chinese communities. At the lower administrative level, the organization had been extended to 1132 counties by 1935.

102 In May 1934, the editor of Women's Monthly {Nitiyuekan,女子月 f'J) Huang Xinmian appealed to Chinese women to join the New Life Movement and to fulfil the government requirement of plain appearance. Huang Xinmian, "Xin fiinu yundong yu xin shenghuo yundong"新妇女运动与新生活运动(New Women's Movement and the New Life Movement), Nitiyjiekan 女子月刊 vol.2，4 (May 1934): 2279.

60 government in fact hampered the construction of Chinese "new women.An important reason why Chen changed her mind was the stark fact that women had no freedom of apparel when the government paid excessive attention on women's appearance. Government warned that women's behaviours such as perming hair, applying makeup, wearing flamboyant clothes, and exposing legs would definitely bring social unrest and destroy the nation. It seems that once women's clothes were regulated and united, the morality would be recovered and the nation would be strengthened. This statement was doubted by many intellectuals. Some held skeptical view on to what extent the social trend of extravagant would be revised through proscribing strange and outlandish women's clothes; others questioned the decisive function of women's appearance to the salvation of the nation. There has a common view that the restoration of nation rested on a series of social, economic and political reforms. Only focus on trivial things, such as to examine whether a woman on the street wore makeup or not was meaningless，

Meanwhile, reports on the tricks of makeup and the various styles of attire were continually published in popular publications. Turning a blind eye to the government restraint on women's appearance, newspapers and magazines used this way to express their different opinions on women's adornment. In 1934, for example, The Young Companion published an article teaching

Chinese women the way to get powders well distributed on the powder puff, the skill to paint

阳 Chen Zheheng's book The New Life and Women's Emancipation was published by Nanjing Zhengzhong shuju in 1934, The article she wrote in 1935 to criticize the New Life Movement entitled "Xin Zhongguo mtu de wunian Jihiia"'W\ 中国女子的五年计划（The five-year plan of the New Chinese women). It was published in Independent pmg/tm,独立评论/ The editor of the magazine responded Chen's argument by saying that the government should put its focus on other national issues instead of women's hair. See Xu Huiqi 许慧琦， "Nala" zai Zhongguo: xin niixing xingxiang de suzaojiqi yanbian, 1900s-1930s _’娜拉"在中国：新女性形象的塑 造及其演变，1900s-1930s ("Nora" in China: the construction of new women's image and its evolution, 1900s-1930s) (Taibei: Guo li zheng zhi da xue li shi xue xi, 2003).

104 Mei Xue, "Nuren tangfa"女人资发（Women's perm hair), Shehui ribao 社会日报，February 23，1935; Qian Yu, "Women yingdang wei ziyou fendou"我们丄、2 —为 0 由奋斗（We should fight for thefreedom), Shijie /•/•々^^世界日报，August 11，1934.

61 brows and eye-shadow, the many ways of forming rosy lips and the trick of softening the skin by a slight application of lemon cream.i。5 Sometimes, Hollywood film stars and eminent western women were adopted as models to introduce the new way of apply makeup and new style of clothes. In 1940, Dorothy Lamour, Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Alice Faye，Ginger Rogers,

Danielle Darrieux, Barbara Stanwyck and Carole Lombard's own way of applying lipstick were reported for Chinese women to learn from. Besides, it was reported that foreign nail polishes won the favor of Chinese women because they were more convenient to apply and offered more hues than the home-make nail polishes. For this reason, the editor listed the types of nail polish that were used by Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, Nancy Kelley, Helen Wills Moody and the Duchess of

Windsor.106 Similar reports include the decoration of women's legs. Various styles of socks that fashioned in Hollywood were published, ranged from the Lastex Mesh stockings worn by dancers and show-girls to painted stockings for the new short skirts; from the zipper stockings to the stockings worn by one of the actresses in the film "Gone with the Wind.'""'^

The discordant voices from critical intellectuals and popular publications in fact pointed out the exact blind spot of the New Life Movement. At the very beginning, government restraint on women's appearance was proposed by the KMT government as part of the New Life scheme. Its final purpose rested on the regeneration of people's moral spirit and the furtherance of the national salvation. In other words, women's plain appearance was considered as the initial step and the means to achieve the expected end of the movement. But the beginning act was repeated again and

105 "Meirong dejiqiao"美容的技巧(Cosmetic skills), Liang You Huabao 友画报(The Young Companion) 86 (1934): 24-25.

106 "Xiaojiemen de enwu: kouhong yu zhihong"小姐们的恩物：口 红与衍红(Women's Gifts: Lipstick and Nail Polish), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 152 (1940): 24-25.

107 "Tui de xinzhuang"月退的新装(Fashions for Legs), Liang You Huabao 良友画:}t(The Young Companion) 161 (1940): 32.

62 again without any progress toward its end. Local governments kept their hands over women's appearance and even proposed more rigid regulations than the Jiangxi Headquarter. For example, in order to regulate women's dressing, Beiping (Beijing) government prohibited exhibiting and selling indecent women's photos and pictures.As Arif Dirlik argued, as the New Life movement progressed, the means supplanted the ends. The KMT leadership refused to turn to deeper underlying issues and instead became even more adamant in defending its methods.【的 To make things worse, the government excessive emphasis on women's appearance was not implemented in a fair way. The New Life Movement Promotion Committee in Nanchang stated that women should not expose their arms and legs. But western women and female relatives of potent officers were not included. In Lushan, for instance, foreign women wore vests and short pants were not arrested by police; Chinese xiaojie 小姐 and faifai 太太 applied powder and nail polish and exposed their legs to the public."。Two famous figures were the fourth daughter of He

Jian 何健，who was the chairman of the Hu Nan government, and Xiong Shijui's wife Gu Bojun 顾

柏绮.The unfair treatment further deepened people's disappointment to the New Life Movement.

Domestic Responsibility

At the same time of requiring women to have robust and healthy bodies and regulating women's external appearance, the KMT government put forward a claim that women ought to contribute to the New Life Movement through managing their families. In 1934, Xiong Shihui announced that family was the basis of human being and the target of New Life reform. For a long

_ "Jiu Jing zhengdun fenghua"旧京整顿风化(The rectification of morality in Beiping), Xin min bao 新民 报 December 4，1934.

而 Arif Dirlik, "The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement: A Study in Counterrevolution." The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 3 4, 4 (August, 1975): 946.

"0 Wen Bo 温波’ Chongj.icm hefaxing: Nanchangshixuishenghuoyundongyanjiu "夕JV-/夕重建合法性： 南昌市新生活运动研究（1934-1935) (Rebuilding the validity: a study of the New Life Movement in Nanchang, 1934-1935) (Beijing: Xue yuan chu ban she, 2006), 239.

63 time, women played an essential role in organizing housework and family lives. Thus, the New

Life Movement should place its focus on women's ability to manage household."' Song Meiling particularly emphasized women's virtue was the most important character to be cherished.

Women's rightful social place was at home as virtuous wife. It was only through this way that the

New Life Movement would succeed at last."2 To conclude the basic point in their words, social reform began with family reform; and family reform depended upon women. In this sense, the improvement of women's domestic capability and the cultivation of women's virtuous character became quite important during the New Life Movement.

The KMT leadership put forward a serials of measures to reform women and their families.

In 1934，the New Life Movement Promotion Committee issued the Draft of the proper way to implement the first phase of Women's New Life in Naiichang (Nonchangshifuniijie xinshenghuo diyiqi tnixingbanfa cao 'an,南昌市妇女界新生活第一期推行办法草案/ The draft regulated that a female elite group took the responsibility to organize Women's Service Club {Niifitmi“mn’~kW^

务团）and Family Reform Club (力？〃,玄//>7玄识/�Zv/"";家庭改进会).Femal estudents and career

women were in charge of the Women's Service Club; while educated housewives formed the

Family Reform Club. In updating training program, emphasis was laid on the efficiency of

women's work at home, the common knowledge of family hygiene, children education, family

arrangement, family budget and family harmony.In order to propel the development of

women's work, the idea of organizing Nanchang Women's Life Reform Club {Nanchang fwiii

111 Xiong Shihui 熊式辉，"Xinshenghuo yundong yu funu fowu"新生活运动与妇女服务(The New Life Movement and Women's service), Xinyim:onghuihuikan 新运总会会刊 9 (1934): 6-9.

112 Song Meiling, We Chinese Women (New York: International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1943), 111; Fan Hong, Footbinding, feminism, and freedom. 237.

⑴ Wen Bo, 184.

64 shenghiio gaijinhiii,南昌妇女生活改进会）was proposed in the nineteenth meeting of the New

Life Movement Promotion Committee on November 22, 1934. The Club began its classes in May

1935. The curriculum contained family decoration on Monday, family budget and family hygiene on Tuesday, cooking on Wednesday, cooking and music learning on Thursday, cooking and family hygiene on Friday, and family garden on Saturday. At the same time, the Club established

Women's Labour Service Club {Funii laodong finvutuan,妇女劳动服务团）.Its main tasks included children's welfare, home reform and handicraft making."'^

The KMT government expected the development of women's Clubs in Nanchang would set a good example from which other places could learn. But the practice of women's New Life reform was not successful. On the one hand, the number of women who were in charge of spreading New Life Movement was limited. According to Wen Bo's research, there was at least twenty thousand women in Nanchang who were writing often being educated in the mid-1930s.

Yet, there was around two-to three-hundred female instructors. Most of them were female students.

Female civil servants made up only a small section, educated housewives were not included."^ In

fact, the achievement of these women's clubs in Nanchang was not that much. On the other hand,

people who shouldered responsibility of women's clubs were mostly KMT officers' wives and

independent middle-class women. They believed the government policy of being virtuous and

knowledgeable women embraced all Chinese women; but for working-class women or poor

housewives, survival was the top priority."。This caused a gap between the educator and the

educated. For instance, Women's Service Club issued magazine IVomen (Funii,妇女乂 twice a

…Wen Bo, 194.

Ibid., 195.

For more data information, see Fan Hong, Footbinding. feminism’ and freedom, 237-240.

65 month to cooperate women's movement. But most working-class women and housewives have little or no formal education.

As stated previously, critical intellectuals also promoted women's participation in domestic work in the reconstruction of the "Modern Girl" in the 1930s. A serial of articles instructed women to improve the ability of household management, such as the way to keep a good relationship with husbands, the method of decorating rooms, and the trick to make a proper arrangement of family income. As early as in 1931, for instance, Zhang Pinxian compared the women's role at home to an interior secretary and listed two types of plans for family expenditure."? Zhang reminded female readers to allocate family income flexibly based on the total income of their husband and the special conditions of themselves. Another article that was published in 1934 by The Young

Companion showed the knowledge of family arrangement and the preliminary lessons for the house-keeping bride. The learning content included cleaning, shopping, reading, cooking, accounting and ikebana (flower arrangement)."^ The editor used a cheerful tone to teach women to follow and assist the husband at home. In the afternoon, women could to read some foreign magazines and books in order to catch up with their husbands' interests. They also need to keep books clean to let husband feel more comfortable in reading after whole day's work. Through this way, intellectuals tended to shift modem women's attention from tour around and external beautification to household management. At this point, the KMT government further connected women's domestic capability to national salvation. This was best shown in family budget class.

The government recognized that women have great power over the use of daily products for

117 According to the author, the regular plan included food, clothes, residence, education, insurance, etc. and the temporary plan focused on medical treatment, wedding, funeral and lawsuit. Zhang Pinhui 张品惠 ’ "Nuzi jiating zhi chouhua"女子家庭之范划(Family Plan), LingLong'Wll 2 (1931): 45.

"Xiao Jiatingxue diyike"小家庭学第一课（Preliminary Lessions for the Home Keeping Bride), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 101 (1934): 40-41.

66 family, ranged from flavoring to clothes and from household electric appliance to room decoration.

The leadership continually emphasized the importance of calculating domestic expenditure in advance in order to avoid budgetary difficulties. Meanwhile, when making family budget, products with Chinese brands was encouraged. Buying foreign items was considered as inappropriate and showing no respect for the nation. It was a behaviour not only wasted husband's money, but also degraded the family morality. In this sense, the ideal womanhood that constructed by the government carried the nationalist mission of Chinese self-strengthening.

Although intellectuals showed their agreement to the government claim that women should took the responsibility of household management, they did not measure virtuous housewife as the only standard of ideal womanhood. As the editor of The Young Companion demonstrated in 1934, except for household capacity and virtuous character, being a "normative women" should also contain adventurous spirit, dignified conduct, literature talent, independent economic status, and a gift for dance and sports activity."'^ The editor did not define women's duty merely as being an apprehensive wife and kind mother. Instead, a "normative women" should have a robust and healthy body and abundant knowledge and work experience. Among these requirements, women's work experience in society caught many critical intellectuals' attention. In the 1930s, a hot debate on the issue of whether women should stay at home or participate in workforce broke out. The debate began with 's 林语•堂 article "Marriage and Women's Occupation" [Hunjiayu

/"L-/r力/>",婚嫁与女子职业）that published in Shanghai Shishixinbao (时事新报）on September

13, 1933 and ended with Lugou Bridge Incident 妒“炉•卯 卢沟桥事变）inl937. Shishi xinbao in Shanghai, the supplement Shidaifunii 測.代妇女）of Da二hong Daily (Dazhong ribao.'X

"Biaozhun ntaing"标准女性(Standard Women), Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 99 (1934): 22.

67 众日报V in Beiping, the weekly publication Fmiii 广妇女乂 of Beiping xinbao 广北平新报〉and

Beipingfum'i 广北平妇女夕 were main battlefields of the debate.120 Other popular publication also proposed their attitudes and joined the debate. In 1936，The Young Companion, for instance, used the term "new women" to praise career women in Shanghai. In the report, these women took jobs as telephone operators, office clerks, directors and typewriters.⑵ In the same year, Ling Long also showed its critique to the slogan of women back home. The author Long suggested that the allocation of social occupation should based on one's talent and ability rather than sexual difference.

In this debate, the issue of whether women should go back home or work outside was considered as not only a problem of women's occupation, but also a social problem that reflected the panic of economic depression. In fact, China's economy was severely damaged by Japanese invasion and world economic crisis in the 1930s. The competition for jobs became more and more fierce. Some department announced that they refused to accept female staff; others made rigid regulation to employ female clerk. In the Shanghai shopping mall, for instance, female assisstants were not allowed to get married. If they were pregnant, they would be fired.At this time, the

KMT government issued a serials of regulations to against this tendency and tried to protect women's rights. But during the New Life Movement, women's social work was only advocated as

Zang Jian, "'Funii huijia': yige guanyu Zhongguo funujiefang de huati""妇女回家一个关于屮国妇女 解放的话题("Women Back Home":An issue related to Chinese women's emancipation), in Gonghe shidai de Zhongguo funii 共和时代的中国妇女(Chinese women in the Republican period), edited by You Jianming 游鉴明’ Luo Meijun 罗梅君 and Shi Ming 史明.（Taibei xian xindian shi: zuo an wen hua, 2007), 368-372.

⑵"Xin mixing: Shanghai zhiye funii yipie"新女性：上海职业妇女一督(Modem Womanhood: ladies with different vocations in Shanghai)，Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) 120 (1936): 20.

122 "Suowei 'ftinii huijia yuiidong"’所消”妇女回家运动"(The so-called "Women Back Home Movement), LingLongWil^ 229 (1936): 765-766,

Zhuo Ying, 154.

68 for the leisured. Women's capability of household management was put at the first place, little was said by women's organizations and branches of the New Life Movement Promotion Committee about women's career continuing after marriage or women's participation in the workforce.'^'' The government's controversial behaviour led to people's doubts on its determination to guarantee women's employment as well as its expected results of the New Life Movement.

124 Wen Bo, 195.

69 Chapter 3

The Construction of the Chinese Womanhood in the War Period

As discussed in the previous chapter, the western "Robust Beauty" experienced a long process of reconstruction in Chinese society in the late 1920 and 1930s. Both critical intellectuals and the Kuomintang (KMT) government expected to construct an idea of Chinese womanhood and a proper national narrative through rebuilding the western "Robust Beauty." Apart from a robust and healthy body, women's beauty was redefined as having a plain appearance, patriotic emotion and domestic responsibility. In most cases, modern women who were at the center of this reconstruction were living in urban cities. Three points deserved to be highlighted in this regard.

The first point is the prosperity of the publishing industry in urban cities. As illustrated, this depended on advanced communication equipment; the majority of newspapers and magazines that promoted the western "Robust Beauty", such as The Young Companion and Ling Long, were issued in urban cities. The second point is the rapid development of commercial culture in urban cities. Various shopping malls and shops sold or made western products. Modern women's wishes to become as beautiful as western beauties were satisfied by these businesses. Thirdly, women's policy in the New Life Movement was mostly practiced in urban cities. After the KMT's coup of

12 April 1935, the first United Front between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

split up. The KMT occupied the cities.People who attended women's works in the New Life

125 In 1923, Sun Yet-san, the leader of the Kuomintang, turned to the Soviet Union and the new Chinese Communist Party for an alliance to fight the warlords. The first United Front of the KMT and the CCP was set up. In 1925, Cliinag Kai-shek moved to take command of the KMT. Chiang acted with the Communists to destroy the power of the northern warloards in the Northern Expedition of 1927. But fearing the consequences of the great social changes which the Communists were encouraging among the workers and peasants, he associated with other KMT leaders decreed the establishment of a government in Nanjing and proscribed the CCP in April 1927, The CCP was badly destroyed. Some were executed; some went underground in the cities; and some withdrew deeply into the countryside. See Edwin E Moise, Modem China: A History (Harlow, England; New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008), 63-66; Joyce Reason, Chiang Kai-shek and the Unity of China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh House Press, 1943), 28-43; H. Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press,

70 Movement were upper- and middle-class women in urban communities. Although these privileged women once announced the necessity of educating and awaking working-class and peasant women, the result was not as good as they expected.

However, these were not all efforts made by Chinese people to construct an ideal womanhood or a proper national narrative in the 1930s. At that time, a Communist woman's image was created by the CCP in Jiangxi rural areas to represent a Communist national narrative. The split of the first national alliance in 1927 resulted to the retreat of the CCP to rural bases. In

November 1931, delegates from fifteen Soviet areas met to establish the Chinese Soviet Republic in Ruijin, Jiangxi. 毛泽东 was its first Chairman.Before the Jiangxi Era ended in

October 1934, the CCP expanded Communist women's movement in Soviet areas through systematic procedures for recruiting and organizing female members. A series of measures such as the Red Sports Movement, the marriage law’ the land reform and mobilization helped to create a

Communist standard of womanhood. And this new concept of Communist womanhood mingled with the reconstructed western "Robust Beauty" during the second United Front (1937-1945) and remained its importance in the Yan'an period (1936-1945).

The conflicting and blending process of constructing Chinese womanhood in the 1930s and

1940S is the focus of this chapter. The first issue deals with the formation of the Communist

womanhood in the Jiangxi era (1931-1934). Local condition and military survival were the two

main factors that influenced the creation of the Communist womanhood. Women were encouraged

to take part in physical exercise and military training to build up iron muscles and steel bones and

1951), 37.

Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism, and Freedom: the liberation of omen's bodies in modern China (London; Portland, Or.: F. Cass, 1997), 238-240,

Edgar Snow, Red Star Over (r>^//7^(Harmondsvvorth: Penguin, 1972), 207-208.

71 to fight in the battlefield. The second issue concentrates on the establishment of the Women's

Steering Committee {Fwn'i =hidao weiyuanfmi,妇女指导委员会）and the construction of the wartime womanhood. The 1937 Japanese invasion transformed the Civil War into a National War and brought about the formation of the second United Front between the KMT and the CCP. The second political alliance accelerated the foundation of the Women's Steering Committee. Jointly sponsored by female leaders of both the two parties and female independent intellectuals, the

Committee defined itself as an independent and apolitical women's association and regulated women's assistance to the national war as the fundamental character of the wartime womanhood.

The third issue concerns the new outlook of Communist womanhood in the "Shan-Gan-Ning

Border Area" {Shan-Gan-Ning bianqu,陕甘宁边区，its capital city was Yan'an). Considering the second political alliance with the KMT and the local condition, the CCP made three changes on its

women policy in the Yan'an period. At this time, the initial group of labour heroines turned up and

continued its influence after the CCP came to power in 1949.

The Communist Womanhood in the Jiangxi Period

Between the late 1920s and the niid-1930s, western "Robust Beauty" was one of the most

controversial topics in Chinese society. The point at issue was the practicability of this imported

standard of women's beauty to Chinese people. Particularly irritated by "Modern Girls" and their

extravagant infatuation with western external beautification, critical intellectuals and the KMT

government shifted their focuses on western "Robust Beauty" from imitation to reconstruction.

The rebuilding project contained many aspects - from hair to dressing style, from bodily exercise

to daily conduct and from family duty to social responsibility. The goal was to construct an ideal

Chinese womanhood to adapt the great social change of China in the late 1920s and 1930s.

72 However, almost in the same period, there was another form of ideal Chinese womanhood that was shaped under Communist culture in the rural region of Jiangxi province. The construction project began with the establishment of a soviet-style regime at Jianggangshan. In the autumn of

1927，Zhu De, a member of the CCP and the commander of the revolutionary army, led the army to meet Mao Zedong's peasant army at Jianggangshan and formed the Chinese Worker-Peasants'

Red Army (known as the Red Army). Later in November 1931, the Chinese Soviet Republic was founded in Ruijin, Jiangxi. Mao was voted as its first Chairman. The 1931 Constitution of Jiangxi

Soviet set principles that concerned with women's issues in law. Under this circumstance, the series of measures that were taken to construct Communist womanhood came into effect in the

1930s.

The particularity of the Communist womanhood in the 1930s depended on two practical elements. The first element refers to the geographical distribution. As discussed in the previous chapters, modern women's fascination with western beautification such as cosmetics, accessories, attire and shoes was an important reason for critical intellectuals and the KMT government to reconstruct western "Robust Beauty." The criticism concentrated on modern women's excessive consumption on western extravagant products and their overmuch emphasis on appearance. In order to correct the decadent ideas, wearing domestic plain dressings and constructing women's internal beauty were put on the national agenda. Nevertheless, the precondition of these measures was the fact that many modern women in urban cities were middle or upper class women. They had legal rights. Some of them were financially independent and had received good education.

They trained their bodies early when they were in school, they read popular publications to know both national and foreign news, and they have good taste and were able to arrange their families

73 properly.

Compared to these modern women, rural women in Jiangxi province lacked the basic protection of law. The rolling mountain blocked the way for people to know about the outside world. In many aspects, rural women's lives remained much the same as before. For instance, patriarchal structure of family control still dominated the rural region. Women were seen as merely machines for producing sons and sources of labour. In hard times, the business of selling and purchasing girls as slaves or "little daughters-in-law" (Tongyangxi, m#) were seen in many places.128 As Fan Hong concluded, nothing essentially changed in rural areas in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The politically motivated movements such as the One Hundred Day Reform in 1898，the 1911 Revolution, the New Cultural Movement and the had an important impact on urban women's lives but had little influence on rural women.In Jiangxi rural areas, women were not treated as human beings, let alone have legal rights, economic independence and educational opportunity. Meanwhile, they had little chance to know the western trend "Robust Beauty." In this sense, they did not share with modern women's shortcomings that were criticized by critical intellectuals and the KMT government in urban cities. Under such circumstances, when the CCP moved through the rural area in Jiangxi province, the first step taken by the Party to construct Communist womanhood was the revision of the local heretical ideas about enslaving women.

The CCP adopted two parallel ways to change rural people's minds concerning women's

issues. The first way was to protect women's basic rights for living through making principles and

Ono Kazuko, Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850-1950 (Stanford, Calif.:Stanford University Press, 1989), 142-145,

129 Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism, and Freedom, 152-153.

74 laws. The initial call was expressed in the document "The Guiding Principle of Labour Women's

Struggle" on 8 November 1930. Issued by the Central Executive Committee of the CCP, the document stated that every liberated area must establish laws to protect and emancipate women.

The content included that women were to be equal to men in politics, law, education and the economy, women were to have rights to land and choice in marriage, and women over the age of

16 were to have the right to vote and they were to be eligible for political office.‘〕。These principles were set in law by the 1931 Constitution of Jiangxi Soviet. To be more specific, the

Labour Code granted equal pay for equal work for both women and adolescent girls. The Land

Law stated that hired farm hands, coolies, and toiling labour shall enjoy equal rights to land allotments, irrespective of sex. The Marriage Regulations in 1931 and the Marriage Law in 1934 emphasized women's rights to divorce, to dispose of property and to have control of the marriage

children.⑶ These legal issues regulated the Party's guidelines to run women's work in Jiangxi

Era.

When the new law was introduced, the Party made frequent use of propaganda to educate rural people who held traditional concepts on women's issues. Except for extensive publicity, the

CCP adopted the form of family visiting to have face-to-face conversations with rural women and their family members. Normally, Party members explained the fact that women endured more bitter lives than other people and needed to be liberated. Then the new principles and laws would

'30 Zhonghua quanguo fonu lianhehui funu yundong lishi yanjiushi 中华全圃妇女联合会妇女运动历史研 究室(The Institute of the History of Women's Movement of the National Women's Federation, ed. Zhongguo funii yundong lishi :iliao 中国妇女运动历史资料(The Historical Archives of the Chinese Women's Movement), 2 vol. (Beijing: Zhongguo fu nil chu ban she, 1991), 73-77.

'31 Victor A, Yakantoff，The Chinese Soviet (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1934), 148-149, 227; Conrad Brandt, Benjamin Schwartz and John K. Fairbank, A Documentary History of Chinese (London; George Allen & Unwin, 1952), 224-225; M.J. Meijer, Marriage Law and Policy in the Chinese People's Republic (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1971), 281-282; Ann Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in Chma (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 51-62, 115-137.

75 be pointed out to protect woman legally and achieve personal freedom. In order to get closer to the masses, Party members for propaganda purposes wore the same clothes and ate same food as local people did. Also, they tried to use the words that local people were familiar with and sometimes helped local people do housework.In many cases, women were not the only group of people to be educated. Woman's husbands, father-in-law and mother-in-law were included as well because they were afraid that women would refuse to work at home or even run away after the new law practiced. This is particularly seen in the promotion of women's education. In fact, the CCP founded many day and evening schools, clubs and classes for women to learn to read and write.'"

The purpose was to eradicate illiteracy for women, propagate the Party's political belief, and make preparations for the recruitment of female soldiers.

The second element that made Communist womanhood different from the type of womanhood that was built upon the reconstruction of the western "Robust Beauty" derives from the KMT government and provincial militia's military attack to the Jiangxi Soviet bases. Between

December 1930s and October 1933, for instance, Chiang Kai-shek mounted four campaigns against the Jiangxi Soviet Republic.丨34 The cruel reality in Jiangxi Soviet areas formed a big contrast with the relatively steady social circumstance in urban cities. When modern women were asked to focus more on training their bodies for the purpose of health and their household abilities

132 The CCP considered local condition carefully in the Jiangxi period. The method that the Party used for propaganda was firstly proposed by Peng Pai in his construction of the Hai-Lu-Feng Soviet. See Fernando Galbiati, Peng Pai and the Hai-Lu-Feng Soviet (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1985)，310-314; lipyong J. Kim, The Politics of Chinese Communism: Kiangsi under the Soviets (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 118-�51 Wa; n Zhenfan 万振凡，Lin Songhua 林颂华，ed. Jiangxijindaishehiti 型研究(The Study of Jiangxi Society in Modern Period) (Beijing: Zhongguo she hui ke xue chu ban she, 2001), 284-286.

Agnes Smedley, China 's Red Army Marches (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1977)，xviii.

Anne Louise Strong, China's Millions: Revolution in centra!China (Peking: New World Press, 1965), 396-411,

76 to better arrange their families, the Communist womanhood was shaped for the benefit of the

CCP's military survival. From the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, one of the most realistic targets of the Party was the development and strengthening of the Red Army. The need for complete military competence shaped the structure of the soviets. In this regard, rural women in Jiangxi area were encouraged to take up military activities in order to have the ability to fight on the front line.

The initial and essential step for the CCP to change rural women to female soldiers was the participation in military training and activities. All the practices were believed to be important and helpful when women were in battle. According to the record of the Jiangxi Women's Association

{Jingxi shengfunii /ianhehui,江西竹妇女联仓会），women's military training achieved marked effect during the war. When the Red Army opposed the KMT troop's invasion, rural women shouldered the responsibility of protecting their regime and land with men. They encountered the enemy, aided the wounded on the front lines, worked in transport units, and formed entertainment units to boost the spirit.In the description, women were not considered the weaker and the disadvantaged, but strong, brave, disciplined and passionate soldiers who ensured the solidarity, stability and success of the Chinese Soviet Republic. The public image of women in Jiangxi rural area changed in the 1930s. And this change depended on the satisfaction of two conditions.

The first condition referred to the training of women's bodies to be strong and healthy. From

1927 to 1934, the idea of fostering women (and men) with iron muscle and steel bone was popularized by the whole machinery of formal and informal propaganda. Physical exercise, at that time, was considered an effective way to strengthen people's bodies and a prerequisite of a strong

revolutionary fighting force. This concept was firstly proposed in the Party's Gutian Conference in

135 Jiangxi sheng ftinu lianhehui 江 i•、妇女联合会(Jiangxi Women's Association), ed. Jiangxi fimii _^£^/>7_§^(/0//--力^^7左识/«5’/?/江西妇女革命斗争故事(Stories of Jiangxi Women's Revolutionary Struggle) (Beijing: Zhongguo fu nu chu ban she, 1963), 2.

77 December 1929. The Resolution of this conference showed the Party decided to establish physical training programs and a club system in the Red Army.'^'^ The name "Red Sports Movement" was adopted officially in 1932, and physical exercise was promoted and suffused into the Red Army, the soviet formal educational system (including lower primary schools and higher primary schools), colleges and universities, factories, peasant and youth organizations, counties and villages.137 The physical activities contained in athletics like football, basketball, tennis, gymnastics, high jump, long jump, horizontal bars, long distance running, and military activities such as unarmed combat, shooting and bayonet drill.

The plan of physical activities in the Red Sports Movement indicated that the Party tended to link sports fields firmly to battlefields. As True Words of Youth (口/>7例/；^7" jV^/》""'青年实话)， the periodical of the Central Bureau of the Young Pioneers and the Youth League, once commented, the Red Army soldiers (both male and female) who were brave and strong on the playground would show these qualities on the battlefield as well.'^^ The linkage between women's performance in sport and their achievement in battle in fact contributed to the particularity of

Communist ideas of womanhood. As discussed in the previous chapter, the promotion of women's

136 Mao Zedong 毛泽东’ "Zhongguo gongchandang hongjun disijun dijiuci daibiao dahui jueyi'aii"中国共产 党红军笫四军第九次代表大会决议案(The Resolution of the Ninth Congress of the Fourth Division Red Army), in Mao 玄y/毛泽东集（Mao Zedong's Works), 2 vol. (Xianggang: Jin dai shi liao gong ying she, 1975)’ 77-126.

137 In the Red Army, the Red Sports Movement was organized through the club and Lenin rooms. Every division of the Red Army should set up a club and Lenin room was under the control of the club. Both male and female soldiers were asked to participate in sport. In primary schools, physical education was an obligatory course of the curriculum. Students in lower and higher primary schools have to spend eight hours on games and physical exercise. In colleges and universities such as the Marx-Communist University, the Bank Special Training School, the College of Education, the Red Army Academy, the Drama School and the Agrarian Culture School, women attended physical education classes and did a great deal of physical exercise after school. Various mass organizations in the soviet areas that included children, adolescents, and adult female and male peasants and workers also promoted the Red Sports Movement. For instance, the Young Pioneers established a Sports and Physical Exercise Committee to tend to propagate the Movement in every branch. For more details, please see Smedley, China 's Red Army Marches. 199-200; Fan Hong, Footbinding. femmism, and freedom, 157-174.

"Jiangxi Wuyi qiulei da bisan"江西五一球类大比赛(Jiangxi Provincial Ball Games Competition on the First of May), 々炉/々"j*/"/?""宵年实话(True Words ofYouth) vol.2, 15 (1933): 14.

78 physical exercise was also an important task of the reconstruction of western "Robust Beauty." For both critical intellectuals and the KMT government, the propaganda was conducted for the sake of rebuilding women's beauty and protecting women's health. This purpose of publicity shared little common ground with the goal of the Red Sports Movement. In the words of the CCP, the

Movement aimed at training strong soldiers in order to form an iron force for military defence.

In this sense, women's participation in physical exercise in Jiangxi period was mainly made in the interest of the CCP's military survival.

The second condition that filled the requirement of constructing Communist womanhood pointed to the Party's emphasis on women's equal participation in social life. When the soviets were established, the Party set down several policy documents to protect women's rights. As mentioned, these innovations varied from equal pay for equal work to freedom of marriage and child brides. The intention of all these efforts was to turn indoor women to become active members of society and shared the material and cultural achievement of society. In the Red Sports

Movement, for instance, the Party's promotion of women's physical exercise was also appreciated as a powerful means for realizing women's involvement outdoors because it challenged the traditional culture of the Jiangxi rural areas that women were not allowed to appear in public to show off their physical form and athletic ability.

At the point of encouraging women's equal participation in social life, the creation of

Communist womanhood and the reconstruction of western "Robust Beauty" were different in several degrees. As discussed in the previous chapter, urban women in the 1930s were no longer

i39Guojia tiwei tiyu wenshi gongzuo weiyuanhui 国家体委体育文史工作委 w 会（The State Sports Commission), Zhongguo tiyushi xuehui 中国体竹史学会(Chinese Sports Society), ed. Zhongguojindaitiyushi 中 国近代体育史(The history of physical education in modem China) (Beijing: Beijing ti yu xue yuan chu ban she, 1989), 367.

79 restricted in their homes, many of them spending their time on working outside, shopping, sightseeing, attending parties and going to concerts. The reconstruction of western "Robust

Beauty" was proposed because of the tendency that an increasing number of urban women turned to "Modern Girls" and wallowed in material pleasure and comfort. In this regard, critical intellectuals and the KMT government put forward the necessity for women to improve their household abilities and defined this capacity as an important part of ideal womanhood. Although women's contribution to the nation was also promoted, the ways were normally carried out through purchasing domestic products and helping the New Life Movement. As a result, women's importance was mainly manifested in the area of family reform. For the CCP, however, the key point of constructing Communist womanhood rested on freeing women from patriarchal family and feudal autocratic order. Women were encouraged to walk out of their families to attend to the economic, social and political struggle side by side with men. The laws to protect and emancipate women, as the Party insisted, were implemented to stimulate women's participation in social and political life in order to ensure the success of the revolutionary war，The fight against both the strong KMT army and powerful provincial warlords thus was always the most essential goal of the

CCP during the Jiangxi period. Women, through fitness training and entering society, were asked to be prepared physically and psychologically to achieve that goal.

The Women's Steering Committee and the Wartime Womanhood

The Jiangxi Era ended in October 1934 when the Chinese Soviet Republic failed to against

the KMT's fifth encirclement. The majority of the Communists attended the Long March and the

I卯"Linshi Zhongyang zhengfti wengao, renmin weiyuanhui xunling (di 6 tiao): giiaiiyu baohu funii quanli yu jianli ftinii shenghuo gaishan weiyuanhui de zhuzhi he gongzuo"临吋中央政府文稿，人民委w会训令（第 6 条):关于保护妇女权利与建立妇女生活改善委员会的主旨和工作(The Decree of Central Government (No.6): On Protecting Women's Rights and Establishment of Women's Life Improvement Committee), Hongse Zhongguo 红色屮国，June 26，1932.

80 survivors arrived in the northwest of China in October 1935. The military antagonism between the

KTM and the CCP continued until the intensified invasion of Japan in 1937. By that time, the sphere of Japanese influence extended to the entire and Beijing region. Arguably the result of the 1936 Xi'an kidnapping of Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT government agreed to stop the civil war and to establish a United Front embracing the KMT, the CCP and all liberal elements to resist

Japan. From then on, national restoration became the chief theme of Chinese revolution. Chinese people regardless of race, sex, age, class and district were all encouraged to assist the coming national war.

Women were not excluded. In December 1936, Women's Resonance {Funiigongming,

共鸣)published an article to show up the main shortcoming of current women's movement.

Through the example that four women's communities held different commemoration meetings in

Shanghai to celebrate March Eighth, the author pointed out that the women's movement in China had lacked unified leadership for a long time. Each women's community followed its own principles and worked for its own interests. Under such circumstances, the author believed a leading women's organization needed to be established.'^' The aggression of Japan in 1937 offered a national excuse for the realization of this conception. In August 1937, Song Meiling set up the General Assembly of Chinese Women in Appreciation Anti-Japanese Soldiers {Zhongguo fumi weilao ziwei kangzhan Jiangshi zonghui,中国妇女慰劳自卫抗战将士 总会）in Nanjing. In the inaugural meeting, Song defined the General Assembly as the supreme organization to direct women's movement and appealed to all women's groups to follow its guidance. The main tasks of

⑷ The author is Zhu Gaoxiu and the article was entitled "Tan dnagqian xuyao de fuyim :i/zhiyu fuyun //>7_§T/�"谈当前需要的妇运组织与妇运领袖(丁 he needed organization and leadership of women's movement at present). See Xia Rong 复蒋’ Funii zhidao “竹夕；;/历;少//力fv?玄妇女指导委 W 会与抗日战争(丁he Women's Steering Committed and the anti-Japanese War) (Beijing: Ren min chu ban she, 2010), 101.

81 the Assembly rested on mobilizing women to collect materials and money for the national army and to go to the front and bring gifts and greetings to the soldiers.【42 in December of the same year, Deng Yinchao 又P 颖超，who was in charge of women's work in the CCP's Bureau in Wuhan, proposed a similar plan to found an unified women's organization. Deng argued that current women's movement in China should be conducted under the anti-Japanese United Front. In order to mobilize women of all works of life to join the national war, leaders of various women's communities had to establish a United Front among women.⑷

The famous Lu Shan Conference 庐山会议 held by Song Meiling 宋美龄 in May 1938 indicated the beginning of the idea to set up a Chinese women's United Front during the anti-Japanese war period. Directors of women's groups belonged to different Parties, communities and districts were invited to Lu Shan in Song's own name.【44 The organization that was about to be founded was requested to satisfy four fundamental principles- permanent, apolitical, influential and reputable. Through discussion, the Women's Steering Committee of the New Life Movement was finally elected as the national organization to unify all Chinese women.The Committee

⑷ Song Meiling 宋美龄，"Gao quanguo ftinii tongbao shu"告全国妇女同胞书(To All Chinese Women), in Jiang furen Song meiling mishiyanhm xuanji 蒋夫人宋突龄女士 言论选集(The Selected Speech of Madam Chiang), edited by Chen Pengren 陈鹏仁.(Taibei; Taibei jindai zhongguo chu ban she, 1996), 215.

Deng Yingchao 邓颖超，"Dui xian jieduan flmti yundong de yijian"对现阶段妇女运动的意见 (Suggestions to the Current Women's Movement), Funii shenghuo 妇女生活 vol.5, 5 (January 1938), 35.

The meeting was composed of the CCP representatives - Deng Yinchao(邓颖超）and Meng Qingsliii(孟 庆树)；the KMT representatives - Shen Huilian(沈忠莲)，Tang Guozhen(唐国 t贞)，Chen Yiyun(陈逸云)，Zheng Yuxiu(郑硫秀)’ etc.; the representatives of the Organization for Saving the Nation(救国会)-Liu Qingyang(刘清 扬)，Shi Liang(史良)，Shen Zijiu(沈兹九)，Peng Daozhen(彭道真)，etc.; the representatives of the Young Women's Christian Association(基督教女宵年会)-Zhang Aizhen(张说真)，Deng Yuzhi(邓裕志)，Liu Yuxia(刘玉観)，etc.; well-know people, scholars and workers of local organization - Li Dequan(李德全)’ Wu Yifang(吴贻芳)’ Lei Jieqiong(雷洁琼），Xiong Zhi(熊正）’ Gu Bojun(顾柏箱），Zhang Suwo(张素我），etc.. "Jiangxi sheng fiinii shenghuo gaijinhui dongshi guwenji sheji vveiyuan xingming yilan"江西省妇女生活改进会黄事顾问及设计委 员姓名一览(The Name of people who were on the Committee of the Jiangxi Women's Life Improvement), Jiangxi funii 江西妇女(Jiangxi Women), March 8，1937.

In the first day of the conference, Song Meiling put forward the idea that the establishment of a national unified organization could depended on the New Life Movement. Some delegates doubted the previous faults of the Movement, while others believed mistakes of the past year might be corrected if new ideas were added. Meanwhile, many delegates of the conference were members of the Women's Steering Committee or the directors

82 emphasized women's main work at present was the assistance of the anti-Japanese war. On the one hand, women shouldered the responsibility of propaganda, medical aid, collection, childcare, combat service, investigation and social production. On the other hand, the promotion of women's literacy and the improvement of women's lives were proposed as the precondition of women's mobilization，in July 1938，according to the plan made out in Lu Shan Conference, the

Women's Steering Committee was reorganized in Hankou. This newly established Committee that consisted of Nationalists, Communists and independent progressives indicated the official establishment of Chinese women's anti-Japanese United Front.

Different from the reconstructed "Robust Beauty" and the Communist women's image during the Jiangxi period, a new version of Chinese womanhood was created by the Women's

Steering Committee in the wartime. The fresh meaning of this womanhood derived from the

Committee's main propaganda: to mobilize all Chinese women to assist the anti-Japanese war.

Being a typical Chinese woman at this time meant for her to make a contribution to support the national war. According to the working scheme of the Women's Steering Committee, women's contribution included three aspects and it was these three aspects that constituted the basic qualifications of the wartime Chinese womanhood.

Firstly, women shouldered the responsibility to educate and mobilize themselves to assist in

of local New Life women's groups, such as Wu Yifang, Tang Guozhen and Gu Bojun. The delegates of the CCP agreed the decision to see the Women's Steering Committee as the general organization of Chinese women's movement. But Deng Yingchao and Meng Qingshu expressed clearly that the new organization relied on the participation of all social sectors and under the guidance of the anti-Japanese United Front. See Shen Zijiu，"Funii da tuanjie huiyi de huiyi (xu)"妇女大团结会议的回忆（续）（The memory of women's unity conference (continued)), Funii shenghuo 妇女生活 vol.6，5 (July 1938), 27; Jiang Song Meiling 蒋宋美龄’ "Funii tanhuahui yanjiangci"妇女谈话会演讲词(The speech of women's talk), Funii shenghuo 妇女生活 vol.6, 5 (June 1938): 23; Deng Yingchao 邓颖超 and Meng Qingshu 孟庆树’ "Women duiyu zhanshi funii gongzuo de yijian"我们对于战士 妇女工作的意见(Our ideas on women's work during the war), Xinhua ribao 新华日报(Xinhua Daily), June 7， 1938.

146 "Dongyuan fiinu canjia kangzhan jianguo gongzuo dagao"动员妇女参加抗战建国工作大纲（The outline of mobilizing women to join the works of resisting Japan and building China), Shenbao 中报(Sheiibao)’ July 24, 1938.

83 the war. The capacity of war propaganda achieved through two steps. The first step was female cadre training. On May 25, 1938, Song Meiling published an essential article "To All Chinese

Women (Gao quanguo funii tongbao shu,告全国妇女同胞书)"in the closing ceremony of the Lii

Shan Conference. In the article, the education of female cadre was particularly emphasized as an indispensable condition for the mobilization of all Chinese women.】47 As shown in the working scheme of the Women's Steering Committee, there contained three types of training courses. The first type focused on women's political consciousness and educational level; the second type concentrated on women's practical service in the battlefield; and the last type revolved around women's production technique in agriculture, industry and handicraft.'''^ The first and the second female cadre training programs were held in Hankou from July to October in 1938. Most learners received high school education or above when they were admitted to the training program. One hundred and forty students were educated, but the number of graduating students was one hundred and twenty four.'"^^ The fall of Wuhan in October caused the Women's Steering Committee shifted from Wuhan to and finally to in November 1938. In order to broaden the range of women's work, the Committee held the third and the fourth female cadre training programs in June and October. Trainees' educational level at this time varied from middle school

14' "Jiang ftiren faqi zliaoji de funiijie tanhualiui biimi bing fabiao gao quanguo funii tongbao shu"蒋夫人发 起召架的妇女界谈话会闭蘇并发表告全国妇女同胞书（The Women's Conference closed and Madam Jiang published To All Chinese Women'), Xinhua ribao 新华曰报(Xinhua Daily), June 8，1938.

"Dongyuan ftinu canjia kangzhan jianguo gongzuo dagao"动 w 妇女参加抗战建国工作大纲（The outline of mobilizing women to join the works of resisting Japan and building China), Shenbao 申报(Shenbao), July 24’ 1938,

The first training class ''Xinyim Widmnfiuitiganbitduanc]ixtinlianbaif^、^^SMt——�tm\\Wim (The short-term female cadre training class in Wuhan) started on the 25"' of July 25 in 1938. Fifty-nine students were enrolled with high school or normal school degree. Two-third of them were teachers in primary schools in Wuhan. The class closed on the 25"' of August in 1938 with forty-seven graduates. The second training class "Xinshenghuo yundogn cujin zonghui funii zhidao weiyuanhui ganbu xunlianban"新生活运动促进总会妇女指 导委员会干部训练班（The female cadre training class for the Women's Steering Committee of the New Life Movement Promotion Committee) began on the ”' of October in 1938. Eighty-one students were enrolled and seventy-seven of them graduated on the 20出 of October in 1938. "Zhandi fuwuzu gongzuo zhi kaizhan"战地月艮务 组工 fl^ 之开展(The work of Army Service Group), Ftmii xinyiin 妇女新运,December 20, 1938.

84 to university. And the total number of graduating students increased to five hundred and ninety one. At the same time, the Women's Steering Committee organized another two types of training program for supplement. One aimed at cultivating advanced female cadre and the other revolved around training female rescue workers.'^®

After learners graduated from these training programs, they were arranged in groups to promote women's work in both rural and urban areas. This is the second step took by the Women's

Steering Committee in the wartime to improve women's capacity of war propaganda. The forty-seven trainees of the first training class were formed into a rural service team and distributed to four counties near Wuhan. In October, this team mingled with seventy-seven graduating students in the second training program. They were arranged in seven teams and sent to counties in the western and southern part of province”' In December 1939, the Wartime Service

Team {Zhamhifuwu “〉战吋服务队）was established. Learners of different training programs were organized in this team. To improve the livelihood of rural and urban women and to educate them to assist the anti-Japanese war were the two main focuses of the team's work. Various short-term training classes and night classes were founded to impart revolutionary spirits, cultural knowledge and technical skills to female peasants and workers. Household cooperative societies and nurseries were also set up to relieve women's burden and to join the national war.'^^

150 The third female cadre training class lasted for one month from the of June to the P' of July in 1939. The number of trainee was four hundred and forty-four and the number of graduate was four hundred and thirty-one. The fourth female cadre training class was held from the of November to the 30"' of December in 1939. One hundred and eighty-eight women participated and one hundred and sixty of them graduated at last. Meanwhile, the Committee conducted the advanced female cadre training program from the P' of February to the 2nd of May in 1940 and two rescue worker training programs in January and October of the same year. "Xinyun funu zhidao weiyuanhui lijie ganbu xunlianban renshu tongjibiao"新运妇女指导委员会历届干部训练班人数统 计表(The Statistical Table of the number of people who attended the New Life Women's Steering Committee's cadre training classes), quoted from Xia Rong, 163.

151 Xinyim ftinii zhidao weiyuanhui 新运妇女指好委 w 会(Women's Steering Committee of the New Life Movement), ed. Gongzuo banian 工作八年(The Eight-Year Work) (Nanjing: Nanjing yin shii guan, 1946), 164. 152 The Group of Guiding V：職Shenghiw Zhidao Zu.生活指导组）took the charge of improving women's lives. Its work in rural area focused on women's basic education, the cooperation of household duties and the

85 Serving anti-Japanese soldiers was the second aspect of women's work. In July 1938, the new Women's Steering Committee set up a Group to be in charge of conveying greetings to soldiers in the front line {IVei Lao Zu,慰劳组The new Group proposed four working objectives for both work in the front and work in the rear. They performed veterns care, spiritual comfort, fund raising and family member condolence.Firstly, in order to mitigate the shortage of hospital workers, women were organized into rescue teams and assigned to hospitals in the battlefield and at the base. The range of work varied as refreshing bandage, chatting with soldiers, war propaganda and washing soldiers' clothes. On September 18，1938, for instance, Song Meiling and the whole staff of the Women's Steering Committee visited the Sixty-fourth hospital in

Hankou. Song played an exemplary role in delivering gifts to the wounded, talking to the wounded warmly and helping to bind the wound with gauze. From then on, the Women's Steering

Committee organized its members to go and see the wounded and sick every Sunday”，Another example happened in November 1939. Song Meiling led other members of the Committee went to the front line to encourage soldiers in Hunan province. According to the editorial comment of

Zhongyang Daily {^Zhongyang ribao,中央日报），Song made an on-the-spot investigation of medical instruments, listened to the needs of soldiers and gave awards to service staff.Besides, reform of superstition. For the urban part, the Group concentrated on female workers' education, the foundation of women's clubs and information desk to solve family problems. "Shenghuo zhidaozu de gongzuo jihua yu gongzuo jingguo"生活指导组的工作计划与工作经过（The vvroking scheme and progress of the Group of Guiding Life), />〃"/_r/"少”"妇女新运’ December 20，1938; Xia Rong, 133-134, 177-179,

1" As mentioned. Song Meiling established the General Assembly of Chinese women in appreciation anti-Japanese soldiers {Zhongguo funii weilao :iweikangzhanJiangshizonghui,巾国妇女慰劳自卫抗战将士总会） in Nanjing on the P' of August in 1937. This Assembly merged into the new Group {Wei Lao Z",慰劳组）in mid-July 1938.

"Weilaozu qi ba yuefen gongzuo baogao"慰劳组七八月份工作报告(The working report of the Group of conveying greetings to soldiers in July and August), Funii xinyun 妇女新运，December 20, 1938.

"Fuwu houfang yiyiiaii"月艮务后方医院(Serving the hospital in the rear area), Funii xinyun 妇女 f?运’ December 20, 1938.

丨56 "Liuqianli wai de weilao: du Jiang furen 'Cong xiangbei qianxian guilai"六千里外的慰穷 读蒋夫人

86 the new Group launched four widespread movements in 1939 and 1940 to raise funds for Chinese soldiers. The goods included cotton padded coats, thin clothes, shoes, socks and medicines. By the end of May in 1941, the Committee received more than three thousand shoes, one hundred thousand pieces of clothing, twenty categories of drugs, and five hundred /iang(^) of gold.'" In addition, serving anti-Japanese soldiers also meant to take care of their family members. The assistance was done in two ways. The first way was to set up special working teams to investigate the living condition of soldiers' families and help them over the difficulties. Team members helped to settle disputes and dealt family matters, offered financial support and imparted knowledge to children and women. The second way was to found various factories to provide works for soldiers' family members. In the Chongqing period, the Committee established two textile mills and several sewing factories. The purpose was to improve the soldiers' relatives' sills to earn their livings and to help the war's

The third aspect of women's contribution to the anti-Japanese war was the participation of social production. In order to enhance the forces for the national war, the re-organized Womens'

Steering Committee set up a Production Group to take the responsibility of training women's productive skills and promoting women's manufacture in the rear area. When the Committee was

forced to move to Chongqing, the Production Group decided to go in for the textile industry and

sericulture. Through investigation, the Song Gai textile experiment area {Song Gai fang=hi

‘从湘北前线归来'(Greetings from the six thousand li--Reading Madam Chiang's ‘ From the front line in the northern part of Hunan province'), Zhong}'ang ribao 屮央曰报(Zhongyang Daily), December 1’ 1939.

‘“"Sannian lai de vveilao shiye"三年来的慰劳事业（The greeting career in the previous three years), Xinyun funii zfiidao weiyuanhui sanzhowiian Jinian tekan 新运妇女指导委员会三周年纪念特刊(The Special Issue for the third anniversary of the Women's Steering Committee), July 1, 1941,

158 In the first place, soldiers' family members have to be trained for several months before they could work ill the factory. Take the textile mill in Bai Sha 白沙 as an example. New employees should take the training classes for four months. The training contained two parts: technique training and theoretical education. After graduation, they were distributed to different departments according to employees' own wishes. For more information about the operation of the textile mill, please see Xia Rong, 195-196.

87 j7">7"《",松溉坊织实验区）and Le Shan sericulture experiment area {Le Shan cam/'shiyanqu, ^

山香丝实验区）were set up in October 1938.'^^ The textile experiment area was in charge of providing enough clothes for soldiers in the front line; and the sericulture experiment area worked for the increase of the export trade figure in the wartime. The two experiment areas were mainly for rural women and soldiers' family members. At first, newcomers were organized into part-work and part-study schools. After graduation, they were arranged to work in factories or work at home. 160 For urban housewives in Chongqing, the Production Group established a Women's

Crafts Society in April 1939. Women were encouraged to use their spare time to make embroidery products for export.'^'

Under the guidance of the new Women's Steering Committee, Chinese women made efforts to assist the national war in the above three aspects. Upholding war propaganda and education, serving soldiers and their family members and carrying on social production became the three basic conditions for wartime Chinese womanhood. Compared with the previous two public women's images - the reconstructed "Robust Beauty" and Communist womanhood, the new one created during the anti-Japanese war period has two particularities. The first special point of the wartime womanhood is that it was a national model set for all Chinese women to learn from. It was neither revolved around the criticism of "Modern Girls" in urban cities nor focused on the education of countrywomen in the Jiangxi Soviet area. The new Women's Steering Committee

159 Pan Daochang, "Song Gai san zliounian"松溉三周年（The third year of Song Gai Textile Experiment Area), in the supplement oiZhongyangribao【I'央日报(Zhoiigyang Daily) - /"""〃"义/>7少/"7--//(?"/议"妇女新运周干丨], December 8，1941.

160 "Shengchan shiye de yiban"生产事业的一斑（The segment of social production), Xinyun funii zhidao weiyuanhui san±oimian jinian tekan 新运妇女指导委员会三周年纪念特刊(The Special Issue for the third anniversary of the Women's Steering Committee), July 1，1941.

"•‘ Zhang Aizhen, "Sannian gongzuo zongjie"三年工作总结(The summary of work in the previous three years). Xinyun funii zhidao weiyuanhui sanzhotmian Jinian tekan新运妇女指导委员会三周年纪念特刊(The Special Issue for the third anniversary of the Women's Steering Committee), July 1’ 1941.

88 attempted to bring both urban and rural women into the general structure of its work. Under the

national theme of resisting the Japanese invasion, women of different backgrounds and districts

were encouraged to help the victory of the national war. The mass mobilization was conducted

through women's training programs that were held by the Committee. In the previous discussion,

women with middle school education or above were the earliest group of trainees. They were

taught by leaders of women's organizations, independent scholars and college graduates，After

graduation, they were distributed to different places and shouldered the duty of educating and

mobilizing rural women and urban housewives to assist the anti-Japanese war.

The second exceptional point of the wartime womanhood refers to women's wide

participation in social and political works. After the shattering of the political alliance between the

KMT and the CCP in April 1927, women's mobilization receded.'" Radicals lost their political

backing as both parties imposed constraints on women's active agency. On the one hand, the new

Nationalist government that was established in Nanjing closed down its Women's Department and

worked quickly to distance itself from the radical policies of the "Communist bandits." Immorality

was used by the KMT as an effective weapon to criticize Communist radical female organizers

162 According to Liu Qingyang's memoir, workers who took the primary responsibility to hold training classes and educate leaners were progressive female students. Guo Jian'en, a student of the Qinghua University, acted as a section chief of the Training Group {Xim Lian Zu,训练组）.Other staffs included Li Zhiqing from Yanjing University, Xia Yingzhe from Zhongguo University and Zhang Ruizhi from Qinghua University. Meanwhile, the Training Group hired leaders of different women's organizations and independent scholars to serve as instructors. For instance, Deng Yinchao, Song Meiling, Lei Jieqiong (famous sociologist) and Shen Zijiii were all invited and gave lectures to learners. Liu Qingyang, "Huiyi xinyun ftinu zhidao weiyuanhui xunlianzu"回忆新 运妇女指导委员会训练组(The memoir of the Training Group of the Women's Steering Committee), in Wenshi _-///� .17/^7/?//o 文史资料选扔(The Selected Cultural and Historical Data), edited by Zhongguo remnin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi quanguo weiyuanhui wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui 屮国人民政治协商会议全国委员会文史资 料研究委员会（The Committee of Cultural and Historical Data of the People's Political Conference), 85 vol. (Beijing: Wen shi zi liao chu ban she, 1983), 60.

163 Xie Bingying described a whole generation of young women's shock and disappointment to the breakdown of the two parties in the dairy. She wrote "why should we be demobilized? Our hopes, out ideals, and they finished after such a short appearance?... So we are to leave the school tomorrow. Tomorrow is the time when we shall go into hell, for going back to our old-fashioned homes is as bad as going to hell." Xie Bingying 谢冰空’ Niibing =i:hnan 女兵自传(Autobiography of a Female Soldier) (Chengdu; Sichuan wen yi chu ban she, 1985), 130-131.

89 and participants.164 in its reconstruction of "Robust Beauty", women's morality was regulated as one of the most necessary conditions of being a Chinese "Robust Beauty Girl." As mentioned, the morality was mostly manifested in the KTM's emphasis on women's plain appearance and their domestic duties. On the other hand, the CCP abolished the Women's Association in late 1931.

Based on the "Resolution of Women's Work in Xiang-Gan Border Soviet Area" issued on 26

March 1931’ the Soviet government declared that there was no need to set up independent organization exclusively for women because the government represented both men and women of the worker-peasant class. Women's work was incorporated in other mass organizations.'^^ The change exposed the CCP's expectation to avoid the confrontation between the sexes and to unify all soviet institutions to against the KMT's and warlords troops. Unlike the New Life Movement, the CCP encouraged women to walk out of their home and insisted on women's mobilization. But the mobilization should be conducted under the guidance of other mass organizations instead of independent women's one，In the Jiangxi period, rural women were mobilized under the party's grand objective to achieve military survival and future success of the revolution. In this regard, the wishes and needs of the two parties shaped the construction of "Robust Beauty Girls" and

Communist womanhood. It was based on these facts that the reorganization of the Women's

Christina Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution: radical women, communist politics, and mass movements in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 212,

"Jiangxi sheng zhengfu tonggao diyihao: guanyu chexiao funii gongzuo weiyuanhui wenti"江西竹政府 通告第一号：关于ffli销妇女工作委员会问;题(No.1 Announcement of Jiangxi Provincial Government: on the issue of abolishing the Women's Work Committee) and "Xianggangbian suqu funii gongzuo jueyi'an"湘賴边苏区妇女 工作决议案(The Resolution of Women's Work in Hiinan-Jiangxi Border Soviet Area), in Zhongguo funii yundong lishi ziliao 国妇女运动历史资料（The Historical Archives of the Chinese Women's Movement), edited by Zhonghua quanguo funu lianhehui ftinu yundong lishi yanjiushi 中华全国妇女联合会妇女运动历史研究室(The Institute of the History of Women's Movement of the National Women's Federation, 2 vol. (Beijing: Zhongguo funu chu ban she, 1991), 157-160, 161-162.

The CCP government in Jiangxi Soviet area set up two women's agencies - the Women's Life Improvement Committee and the Working Women's Congress to study women's issues. But they were not women's mass organizations. The Women's Life Improvement Committee was a department of the government and the Working Women's Congress was a kind of worker-peasant women's meeting. Fan Hong, Footbinding, feminism, and freedom, 162,

90 Steering Committee in 1938 and the creation of wartime womanhood became particular. In responding to the call of national salvation, Chinese women, in the words of the Committee, acted as an apolitical and independent group to take part in both political propaganda and social production.167 Women were no longer encouraged to put household affair at the top of the agenda; instead, they became the educators of themselves and walked out of their families to support the national war.

The New Outlook of the Communist Womanhood in the Yan'an Period

The Long March ended in October 1935. The Communists began to expand its territory in the northwest part of China and established the "Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area" where Shanxi,

Gansu and Ningxia provinces intersect in July 1936. Yan'an was its capital city. Over the next eight years, the Border Area entered a period of relatively stable development compared with the time of the Jiangxi Soviet. The partial peace and calm resulted largely from the mitigation of the military confrontation between the CCP and the KMT. The invasion of Japan in 1937, outwardly at least, formed the Civil War into a National War. The second political alliance of the two parties established in order to fight against Japan. Although internal friction continued, the relatively tranquil circumstance in the Border Area provided the CCP with an opportunity for reconstruction.

1" In the Lu Shan Conference, participants emphasized the new created Women's Steering Committee was to be an apolitical and independent women's association. But because of every member's different political believing and background, internal confrontations continually appeared within the Committee. The most obvious one happened between the representatives of the KMT and the CCP. According to Liu Qingyang's memoir, the contradiction of the two parties firstly reflected in operation of the second female cadre training class in 1938. For instance, Deng Yingchao was not allowed to give lectures. School hours were occupied by medical service in hospitals and Song Meiling's speech. Under such circumstance, the education of rural work was rearranged in the evening. Besides, the KMT and the CCP members held different ideas to celebrate the March in 1939 and 1940. The KMT representatives focused on the promotion of collecting material and money, while the CCP delegates proposed the plan to mobilize more and more labour women to assist the war. Liu Qingyang, 64; "Zhoi^gong zhongyang wei 'sanba'jie gongziio gei geji dangbu de zhishi"中共中央为’三八'节工作给各级党部的指示(The CCP Central Committee's instruction on the March 8th), in Zhongguo fmniyundong lishiziliao 中国妇女运动历 史资料(丁he Historical Archives of the Chinese Women's Movement), edited by Zhonghua quanguo ftinii lianhehui llinu yundong lishi yanjiushi中华全国妇女联合会妇女运动历史研究室(The Institute of the History of Women's Movement of the National Women's Federation, 2 vol. (Beijing: Zhongguo funii chu ban she, 1991), 259-260. For more information, please see Xia Rong, 222-233.

91 The reconstruction work aimed primarily at the consolidation of the Shan-Gan-Ning Border

Area. Two tasks were placed by the Party at the top of its working agenda. The first task was to restore the Party's strength through winning wider support from the local people. After the Long

March, only eight thousand Party members and Red Army survivors arrived in the Northwest.

Through combining with the local soviet governments that were established in the early 1930s, it is estimated that the Party membership in 1936 was little over 20,000 and the Red Army had a mere 30,000 men.'^^ Given the small size of the Communist membership, the CCP in Yan'an used various means of propaganda - operas, songs, wall newspapers, public lectures, mass meetings, family visiting and so forth - to explain to the masses about the current situation and to build up the party's presence in the area. The second task was to promote economic development by organizing village people to participate in production. The Border Area, especially northern

Shanxi, was one of the most impoverished regions of China. Its adverse natural conditions and the shortage of cultivated land and water resource were unsuitable for agricultural production. The output was very low，When the Border Government was established in Yan'an, many efforts were made to spur people's labour enthusiasm, to improve people's productive skills and to encourage people to develop household sideline production.

The reconstruction of the Border Area influenced the Party's policy on a wide range of

刷Liu Zhidan and Gao Gang organized a mutiny against the feudal authorities and set up the Shanxi People's Red Army and a soviet government at Yan'an in 1931. They welcomed Mao's Comnnmists at the end of their Long March. Claire and William Band, Two Years with the Chinese Comnnmists (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), 237; For the number of people who joined the Party and the Red Army, please see Carl E. Dorris, "Peasant Mobilization in North China and the Origins ofYenan Communism." The China Quarterly 68 (December 1976): 697.

脚 Mark Selden, The Yen'an JVay in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1971), 15; Yang Zhanhua 杨占华，ed.厂/,评.iv加-•府谷.H-志(The Agricultural Annals of Shanxi County) (Xi'an: Shanxi ren min chu ban she, 1994), 152; Qin Yan 秦燕，•？力以“力“^/？^“力“/清末民初的陕北社会 (The Society of Northern Shanxi during the late Qing and the early Republic) (Xi'an: Shanxi ren min chu ban she, 2000), 31-35.

92 issues including women's emancipation. It should be stressed that at first that in the early years in

Yan'an, the Party continued its policies and procedures concerning women that had worked out in

Jiangxi rural area. As discussed, women's lives in the Jiangxi rural area in the late 1920s and early

1930s remained much the same as the old days. Regarded as machines for bearing children and engaging in production, women's positions in family and society were quite low. Similarly, people ill Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area held conservative attitudes toward women. As a remote area, the

Border Area never developed modern concepts and ideas about women's liberation and rights.

When the CCP and the Red Army moved into the northwest area in the late 1930s, the use of footbinding, wife-beating, concubine and the sale of women were prevalent. Under such circumstance, the CCP began with the introduction of laws and regulations similar to those instituted in the Jiangxi Soviet in order to safeguard women's legal rights and interests in the

Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area. Changes in women's lives included the prohibition of footbinding, the practice of free marriage and divorce, the enjoyment of right to vote and stand for election, the implement of equal pay for equal work and the promotion of women's education. 口。However, the

Party's adoption of previous experience was far more than simple duplication. Compared with the

1™ For instance, the document "Shan-Gan-Ning bianqu xuanju tiaoli"陕甘宁边区选举条例（Election Ordinance in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area) endowed women with political rights. It regulated that both men and women of eighteen and above have the right to vote and stand for election. In councils at every level, the required percentage of female senator was twenty-five. Besides, in order to propagate and enforce the provisions in a better way, the CCP established two new women's organizations in December 1937 and March 1938 respectively -the Party's Central Committee of Women's Movement {Zhonggong zhongyang funii yundong 中共中 央妇女运动委员会）and the Federation of Women in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area {Shan-Gan-Ning bianqu gejie funii lianhe/wL 陕 H.宁边区各界妇女联合会）.These two organizations formed the base of dire^ing women's movement in the Yan'an period. Zhongguo kexueyuan lishi yanjiusuo disansuo 中国科学院历史研究所 第三所（The third Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Science), ed. Shan-Gan-Ning bianqu canyilmi i(^ev7;t7�"//"夕 陕廿宁边区参议会文献汇菜/ (The collected councils' document in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area) (Dongjing: Da'an zhu shi hui she, 1968)，53; "Shanganning bianqu diyijie canyihui siio tongguo de shierjian zhongyao ti'an"陕甘宁边区第一屈参议会所通过的十二件甫要提案(The Twelve Proposals Passed in the First Council of the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area), in Shan-Gan-Ning bianqufunii yundong M'enxian ziliao hiiibian 陕甘 宁边区妇女运动文献资料汇编(The Collected Materials of Women's Movement in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area), edited by Shanxisheng fulianhui funii yundongshi yanjiushi 陕西将妇联会妇女运动史研究室(Shangxi Research Centre of the history of women's movement) (Xi'an: Shangxisheng fulianhui funu yundongshi yanjiushi, 1982), 46.

93 short-lived and turbulent Jiangxi Soviet, the Border Area experienced a relatively long and stable development. The calm environment provided the Party with more opportunities to hone its women policy. During the Yan'an period, women's emancipation and their contributions to the

Chinese revolution achieved sharper theoretical and practical definitions than in the Jiangxi Soviet period. And these changes helped to construct a new outlook of the Communist womanhood in the

Border Area.

The first modification of Communist womanhood in the Border Area is embodied in the

Party's policy of women's rights to land. In the Jiangxi period, the CCP's women policy focused on achieving personal freedom from patriarchal family and feudal autocratic order. Through promulgating new principles and laws to protect women's social, political and cultural rights, women were encouraged to hold independent personality and defend the Jiangxi Soviet side by side with men. A fundamental prerequisite to truly put these thoughts into effect was the realization of women's economic independence from their families. According to "The Guiding

Principle of Labour Women's Struggle," one indispensable way for women to have the ability to support them was to their rights to land. Land was believed as the basic means of subsistence for people in the Jiangxi rural area. It was only when women have enough land for cultivation could they depend on themselves for living and win economic independence. In the Jiangxi period, the

Land Law further stated that men and women, hired farm hands, and coolies or toiling labours shall enjoy equal rights to land allotments.'^'

During the Yan'an period, however, women's rights to land were not guaranteed. In fact, the

Party's radical land reform policy that was formerly undertaken in the Jiangxi Era was not adopted

171 See the discussion in thefirst-section o f Chapter Three.

94 in the Border Area. Instead of distributing the lands that were taken from the landlords to the peasants, the Party gave up land allotment and persuaded landlords to reduce their rents and interests to a reasonable figure in the Yan'an period. Characterized as necessary retrenchment, the change of land policy indicated the Party's strategic concession made on the matter of women's economic independence. There were two reasons for the concession. The first reason was the formation of the second alliance between the KMT and the CCP to fight the Japanese invasion. On

22 September 1937，the KMT (the party of the bourgeoisie and landlords) and the CCP (the party of workers and peasants), reached a consensus about forming an anti-Japanese United Front.

According to the agreement, the CCP should support the Nationalist government in the plans to hasten peaceful unification under Chiang Kai-shek. Areas under the CCP control had to establish a democratic government, which included landlords, merchants, capitalists, workers and peasants.'"

In order to maintain the United Front, the CCP backed down on its radical plan in the Yan'an period. Land policy was one of the Party's retrenchments. Its aim was to relax the tension between landlords and peasants and to unite all forces to support the anti-Japanese War. In this situation, women's rights to land were subjected to the necessary retrenchment of the CCP.

The second reason referred to the CCP's own priority to win wider support and sustain the stability of the Border Area. As mentioned, the numbers of Party members and the Red Army soldiers were quite small when the "Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area" was first established. The acute shortage of people caused the Party's desire for enlisting more local people for the Party and the

172 Harrison Form an. Report From Read China (New York: Henry Holt, 1945), 178-179. The author spoke with Mao Zedong at Yan'an. Mao admitted that the CCP gave up its land reform policy according to the agreement with the KMT on 22 September 1937.

Snow, Red Star Over China, 460.

95 army. Under such circumstances, the CCP attempted to unite with all the forces that could be united among the rich and the poor, the progressives and the conservatives, and nationalists and communists. Women, as important revolutionary force, were also included in the scope of unification. But the method employed to achieve realization of this incorporation was seen not in sexual terms. During the Yan'an period, the CCP was aware the difficulty to transform people's conservative attitudes toward women in a short period of time. Deng Yinchao once pointed out that women in the Border Area were seen as men's appendages for a long time. The fight to overcome the idea that women should only be concerned with household affairs was extremely difficult. 174 In order to avoid the resentment from men and to strength the Party's power, women's personal freedom and economic independence were not considered as the first priority of the

Party's work.

Land allotment was no longer a practicable way to win women's economic independence during the Yan'an period for the sake of social cohesion. But this change did not imply that the

Party took its mind off raising the status of women. To tip the balance between women's demand and the principle of social unification, the Party in the Border Area tried to make a new interpretation to women's economic freedom and liberation. And this new turn initiated the second modification of the Communist womanhood in the Yan'an period.

The first aspect of the new interpretation made by the CCP to match the circumstances in the Border Area emphasizes that emancipating women from their families was not the focus of the

Party's current work. On the 3「」of March 1939, the Central Women's Committee of the CCP proposed the new direction and work of women's movement in the Yan'an period. In the article,

口4 Dymphna Cusack, Chinese IVomen Speak (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959), 198.

96 women left home in quest of seeking freedom and independence was no longer encouraged.

Instead, the Committee intended to raise the status of women starting from their families. In this context, a new family concept that stressed harmonious family relations was advocated.'''^ This statement did not mean women were asked to play their old inferior images at home again. An important character of the "harmony family relations" was that women were to be counted in the family as a human being rather than a slave. In other words, women's freedom and independence in the Yan'an period was conducted through obtaining equal position in the family. The Jiangxi slogan of leaving patriarchal family and having the capability to live became an unrealistic plan in terms of the fact that women have no right to land in the Border Area. Meanwhile, the Party's concentration on constructive family relations was conductive to the stability of the Communist base. Compared with the Party's radical policy concerning women in the Jiangxi Soviet that education of women was to be active, important and respected in the family and community during the Yan'an period was not a drastic action. Also, women's essential domestic roles as wives, mothers, daughters and daughter-in-laws were not ignored by the Party.「6 in this sense, the Party in the Border Area met with less opposition from male peasants than in the Jiangxi Soviet.'??

The second aspect of the new interpretation of women's freedom and independence refers to the Party's understanding that raising the status of women depended not on how much land they owned but on whether they took part in production and how good the productive capability they

175 The Central Women's Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, "Zhonggong zhongyang fliwei guaiiyu muqian funii yundong de fangzhen lie renvvu de zhicixin"屮共中央妇赛关于目前妇女运动的方针和任 务的致辞信(A Letter on the Direction and Work of Present Women's Movement from the Central Women's Committee of the CCP), in Zhongguo funii yundong lishi ziliao 中国妇女运动历史资料(The Historical Archives of the Chinese Women's Movement), edited by Zhonghua quanguo funii lianhehui ftinii yundong lishi yanjiushi 中 华全 _ 妇女联合会妇女运动历史研究室(The Institute of the History of Women's Movement of the National Women's Federation, 2 vol. (Beijing: Zhongguo funii chu ban she, 1991), 138-143.

讯 周恩来，"Lun xianqi liangmu yu niuzhi"论贤耍良母与 BJ：职(On the Virtuous Wife and the Good Mother and their Responsibilities), Xinhuaribao 新华日报(Xinhua Daily), September 17，1943. C.K.Yang, Chinese Communist Society： the Family and the Village (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1959), 135. ‘

97 had. Women's right to land used to be considered as an essential requirement of achieving women's economic freedom and liberation in the Jiangxi Soviet. But this thought changed in the

Yan'an period due to the Party's necessary retrenchment on the issue of land distribution. Women's participation in production became the new prerequisite to the improvement of women's status in their families as well as in the society.'''^ According to Deng Yinchao's description on women's movement in the Border Area in 1938, women's essential role in production was emphasized because of the shortage of labour power. The article stated that women's production groups were

established in every village to instruct women the skills in production. These groups were under

the guidance of the Production Committee {Shengchan weiyimtihui,生产委员会）of The

Federation of Women in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area {Shan-Gan-Ning bianqu gejie funii

陕廿宁边区各界妇女联合会).口9 In 1941, economic development became the Party's

primary consideration. Women, who made up half the population in the Border Area, were

encouraged to join economic construction at this time. Wang Ming 王明，the secretary of the

Party's Central Committee of Women's Movement (Zhonggong zhongyang funii yundong

weiyuanhui,中共中央妇女运动委员会），laid stress on women's responsibilities to take part in

production and to improve the economic environment of the Border Area in 1941. He also

believed women's participation in production was benefit to uplift their status in the family and

thus to realize women's liberation.'^® In his words, the rise in women's status was intimately

This policy also matched the CCP's request of mobilizing more and more rural women to take part in production during the national wartime. When the KMT asked urban women to support the war through financial donation, the CCP favoured the mobilization of rural women for production.

Deng Yinchao 邓颖超，"Shanganning bianqu funu yundong de gaikuang"陕甘宁边区妇女运动的概况 (The Survey of Women's Movement in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area), in Yan 'an shi funii yundong zhi Ji T|J 女运动志(The Annals of women's Movement at Yan'an), edited by Kou Xuelou 寇雪楼(Xi'an: Shanxi ren min chu ban she, 2001), 281. _ Wang Min 王明，"Shan-Gan-Ning bianqu fulian gongzuo de renwu he zuzhi wenti"陕甘宁边区妇联工 作的任务禾口组织问题(The Task and Organization of Women's Association in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area), Zhongguo funii 屮国妇女(Chinese Women) 9(1941): 3-4.

98 connected to women's production. This connection was propagandized by the leading article of

Liberation Daily、Jiefang ribaoM傲日报）on the of March in 1942. The article declared that the mobilization of women to join production was an important task of the current women's movement. Based on this work, women's social status would be improved.⑶ Similar propaganda appeared in the document that was issued by the Party's Central Committee in 1943. According to the Party's determination on the principles and orientation of women's work in the anti-Japanese base area, the idea that economic development had essential impact on the realization of women's liberation was re-emphasized. Women were called for redoubling their efforts to push production in the Border Area to a new high.'82

The propaganda over women's participation in production was carried out through the

Party's introduction of mutual-aid teams, production groups and study programs. Directed by women's associations at all levels, women in the Border Area were organized to learn skills of production and exchange their manufacturing experiences and problems. In order to stimulate a high degree of enthusiasm, the Party widely promulgated the hero-emulation movement in 1942 and women who achieved high production records were honored as labour heroines. At that time, the Party asked Border Area government, the Red army and work units to designate production heroes annually.'^^ In 1943, the First Border Region Labour Hero/ Model Worker Assembly held

Jiefang ribao 解放日报(Liberation Daily), 8 March 1942. On the 26"' of February in 1943’ Jiefangribao further claimed that women in production would not only play a big role in developing the economy of the Border Area, it would also provide women with the material conditions they need to overthrow feudal oppression gradually. Cadres were now directed to organize women for production.

i82”Zhongguo gongchandang zhongyang weiyuanhiii guan>ai ge kangri genjudi muqian fonii gongziio fangzhen dejueding"中国共产党巾央委员会关于各抗Fl根据地目前妇女工作方针的决定（The Party's Central Committee's Decision on the Current Direction of Women's Work in the Anti-Japanese Bases), in Zhongguo funii yimdong zhongyao wenxian 中国妇女运动重要文献(The Important Material of Chinese Women's Movement), edited by Zhonghua quanguo ftinii lianhehui 中华企闻妇女联合会(The National Women's Federation) (Beijing: renmin chu ban she, 1979)，8. Patricia Stranahan, "Labor Heroines of Yan'an." Modern Chi/7aVo\.9, 2 (April, 1983): 229-230.

99 in Yan'an. Seven out of one hundred and eighty-five representatives were women, including Liu

Guiying, Chen Min and Hei Yuxiang. The number of labour heroine in 1944 and 1945 swelled to forty-four (the number of both male and female model workers was four hundreds and seventy-six). It is estimated that most of labour heroines were engaged in the fields of agriculture, livestock breeding, spinning and weaving.These labour models represented part of the new outlook of Communist womanhood in the Border Area.

First and foremost, the image of labour heroine satisfied the Party's new interpretation for the realization of women's economic freedom and liberation. As mentioned, the Party's policy concerning women emphasized two related points in the Yan'an period. The first point was the rise in women's status in their families to construct harmonious family relations; and the second point further explained women's participation in production was the way to elevate women's positions in families. Labour heroines were typical examples. Their glorious deeds reported by newspapers demonstrated that women were capable of increasing production and their families' standards of

living. Liu Guiying, a well-known Yan'an heroine who was honored specially for textile work,

supported her family by herself since her husband died in 1937. According to the report in

Liberation Daily (Jiefang ribao,解放丨：：丨报乂 Liu spun over 58 jin (斤，a jin equals one and

one-third pounds) of high-quality yarn in 1943 and earned more than 70,000 少而“（元 J)沾

Although the terrible inflation in the Border Area caused 70,000 yuan sounded greater than they

really were, the money greatly improved the living standard of Liu's family. For instance, family

members ate bread everyday in 1943, comparing with around 10 days and sometimes only 4 to 5

Kou Xuelou, 146; Elisabeth Croll, Feminism and in China (Roiitledge & K. Paul:: London; Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1978), 202. I" Jiefang ribao 解放日报(Liberation Daily), January 9，1944; January 20, 1945.

100 days in 1941 and 1942.'^'^ Another example is the spinning heroine Zhang Jinhua. She was able not only to provide her family with food and clothes, but also to buy sheep and new spinning wheel. From July to November 1942, Zhang spun 75 Jin of yarn to earn 5570 yuan. Once she learned to use the new wheel, the reporter estimated, she would spin 6 jin a day and earn a daily

336 J/續.187 Through hard work and the usage of new techniques, labour heroines of Yan'an made profits to support their families and better their lives. The money that was earned effectively advanced women's roles and worked in the process of constructing a better family. Also, the profits did contributed both materially and psychologically to a growing sense of economic freedom and liberation for women.

In addition, labour heroine played an exemplary role in making great contribution to the stability and development of the Border Area. The northwest part of China was a remote area with penurious land and frequent natural disaster. Before the arrival of the CCP, the agricultural production stayed at a low level. The grain output was very little and the area for cultivating industrial crops was small.^^^ From the late 1930s onward, the CCP put many efforts to improve the economic environment. Besides the construction of irrigation works, local people were mobilized by the Party to take part in production. Women became the main constructors because their husbands and sons were enlisted in the army to assist the anti-Japanese war. In the early

1940s, a note of discord crept into the seemingly steady alliance between the KMT and the CCP.

When the KMT tightened its blockade of the Border Area in late 1941, the economic situation the

CCP faced became even worse. The Party put the need to survive on the top of its agenda and

186 Patricia Stranahan, "Labor Heroines of Yan'an." Modem China Vol.9, 2 (April 1983): 238.

如o 解放日报(Liberation Daily)，April 4，1943.

Qin Yan, 31-35.

101 further encouraged women to attend the economic development of the Border Area. It was at this time that labour heroines were selected as shining examples for all Border Area women to follow.

Heroines' great passion for production was one of the most essential focuses of the Party's attention. In most cases they were portrayed as hardworking and perseverant. For example, Li

Fenglian, who was elected as a "model woman" at the March 8 Women's Day Celebration in 1940， spent half the time of training as an apprentice and quickly became a full worker in the central printing factory.Han Fengling, who attended the Border Region's Fourth Annual Women's

Meeting, was one of the hardest working and most studious member of the women's association in her village. She worked in the fields during the daytime and spun by lamp at night.'^ The agricultural heroine, Zhang Qingming, insisted on greater workload though her standard of living was high enough to support her family. Day and night Zhang continued to farm and expanded the area of cultivation from three to ten mii ([if, a mu equals one-six acre).'®' The conducts of these labour heroines set the pace for all the women in the Border Area. Women were called for to redouble efforts to push production to a new high. In this sense, labour heroines were helpful to the stability and development of the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area.

Last but not the least, labour heroines assisted the Party to establish and spread its popularity in the Border Area. On the one hand, the appearance of labour heroine came from the direction of the CCP's women policy. In the Yan'an period, women's participation in production, as the Party promulgated, was conducive to the raise of their standards of living and their statuses

both in families and society. As model workers, the experiences of labour heroines confirmed that

宏/7力卯解放日报(Liberation Daily), January 29，1944.

Jiefcmgribao 解放日报(Liberation Daily), April 27, 1943.

Jiefangribao 解放日报(Liberation Daily), January 9，1943.

102 the Party's policy did make sense. According the stories mentioned above, heroines made profits and were able to improve their living standards and support their families through hard work.

Some of them were the sole supporter of their families. Considered the poor economic situation in the Border Area, the increase of material wealth, with little doubt, was what people desired. From this perspective, the successful deeds of labour heroines largely enhanced local people's confidence toward the CCP. On the other hand, many labour heroines, as model workers honored by the Party, set the standard of excellent production for others in their own communities to follow，As Mao Zedong reminded in November 1943’ the duty of labour heroes and heroines rested on mass organization. Through sharing their own experiences and skills in production, labour heroes and heroines ought to lead the people and get more and more of them organized，

Liu Guiying was an example who began her organization work as early as in March 1943. As the principal organizer of the textile movement in the southern section of Suide, Liu started her duty with the establishment of spinning groups to attract women to join and instruct them in spinning methods. By 1943, there were more than 300 women spinning in Suide with 1700>》of yarn，

Another typical example was Han Fengling who continually encouraged village women to answer the Party's call for increasing production. For spinning, she organized women into a production

unit and invited them to work in her house at night. For the rise of livestock, she arranged women

to buy 500,000 eggs to hatch. According to the report, many villagers agreed that family lives

'52 Not all of labour heroines answered the Party's call for mass organization. According to Patricia Stranahan's survey on 16 labour heroines of Yan'an period whose stories appeared in 1943，1944 and 1945’ only six of the 16 heroines appeared to be involved in organizing work of any kind, "This ranged from participating in labour-exchange groups, to teaching others to spin and weave, to mobilizing women for production, to running village government." Stranahan, "Labor Heroines of Yan'an," 247.

iw Mao Zedong 毛泽东，"Zuzhi qilai"组织起来（Get Organized), in Mao 论"毛泽东集（Mao Zedong's Works), 9 vol. (Xianggang: Jin dai shi liao gong ying she, 1975), 94-95. The first day 7 came, the next day 5, the third 9, until in one section of the city there were 34 women spinning by the end of May 1943. Stranahan, "Labor Heroines ofYan'an," 238-239.

103 improved substantially because of Han's efforts.Representing the Party, labour heroine acted as communication device both upward and downward. They helped the Party to spread its policy concerning women in the village life and this was essential to the Party's plan to restructure the

Border Area.

Except for the re-adjustment of the women's rights to land and the new interpretation of women's economic freedom and liberation, the change of the purpose of women's physical exercise was the third modification of the Communist womanhood in the Border Area. Compared with the physical tradition of the Jiangxi period, the new start began with the establishment of the

Yan'an Physical Education and Sports Committee on 4 May 1940 and the New Sports Society in

January 1942. Their main concern was to develop a new sports movement under scientific direction in the Border Area. The Yan'an Physical Education and Sports Committee directed physical education programs for clubs and groups, approved the regulations of sports organizations and sent its message to every workplace and school to encourage people to exercise regularly. And the New Sports Society focused on promoting research, introducing the latest theories of physical education and publishing physical education textbook. i恥 The aim of the Party was to construct a new and healthy mass physical culture to get everyone into the habit of doing exercise. 197 The improvement of people's personal well-being gradually replaced the intensive military training in the Jiangxi period and became the major task of physical education in the

朋玄"�"^ 7解放日报(Liberation Daily), April 27, 1943.

Zhang Yuan, "Yan'an tiyu shenghuo piandiian"延安体—fT 生活片段（Recollections of Yan'an's Physical Culture),彻"新体育 7 (1957); 5-7.

197 Zhang Yuan, "Ruhe tuidong jiaiishen yundong"如何推动健•运动（How to Promote Physical Education and Sport), Jiefangribao 解放日报（Liberation Daily), March 21，1942; "Yan'an tiyuhui jianyi ge jiguan xuexiao J laqiang tiyu"延安体育会建议各机关学校加强体育(The Suggestion of Strengthening Physical Exercise in Every Workplace and School), Jiefang ribao 解放日报(Liberation Daily), June 23，1942.

104 Border Area. The syllabus of primary schools in the Border Area is a good example. On 6 March

1938, the Educational Committee of the Border Area continued its claim that primary schools should pay attention to the strength of military training in order to prepare strong soldiers for the anti-Japanese war. But according to the new Decree issued in February 1941, the main purpose of physical education turned to nurture active, strong and healthy citizens.‘卯

The orientation of physical education during the Yan'an period changed. And this change has a direct influence to the direction of women's physical exercise. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the Party linked sports fields firmly with battlefields in the Jiangxi period. Women's participation in sports activities was seen as the prepared work of their fighting in the front.

Except for athletics such as football, basketball, tennis, gymnastics, horizontal bars and long distance running, women were also asked to take part in military activities like unarmed combat, shooting and bayonet drill. But the requirement of women's participation in military training no longer occupied the central position of women's physical exercise in the Yan'an period. In the

Yan'an colleges, for example, military training was separate from physical education. As Fan

Hong recommended, female students now developed their bodies not only for the war, but also in the interests of their personal health.例

111 fact, the transformation of women's physical exercise related closely to the other two

modifications of the Communist womanhood that occured in the same period. For one thing,

similar to the policy of land allotment, joining the army used to be considered by the Party as a

1 卯"Shanganning bianqu kangzhan shiqi xuexiao yinggai zhuyi de jige gongzuo de tonggao"陕付宁边区 抗战时期学校应该注意的儿个工作的通告(丁 he Work of Primary Schools of Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area during Anti-Japanese War), "Shanganning bianqu xiaoxue guicheng"陕if 宁边区小学规程（The Regulation of Primary Schools of Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area) and "Shanganning bianqu xiaoxue kecheng"陕甘宁边区小学课程(The Curriculum of Primary Schools in the Border Area). See Fan Hong, Footbinding, feminism, and freedom, 198-199. 199 Fan Hong, Footbinding, feminism, andfreedom, 200.

105 way to liberate women from their feudal families. But this idea was quite the opposite in the new

Party's policy in the Yan'an period as to construct harmonious families. As discussed earlier, women in the Border Area were encouraged to be important wives, respected mothers and active daughters. They were educated to abandon their old inferior images in the family, but the change should not to the extent of becoming a threat to family solidarity.-®® For anther thing, the central task of women's movement in the Yan'an period was not to mobilize women to join the army, but to organize them to take part in manual labour. Women's participation in production became the new precondition of achieving women's economic freedom and liberation. At the same time, as

Cai Chang, who took the job of leading women's movement from Wang Min in July 1941, claimed, with the able-bodied men at the front, women's responsibility for the Border Areas' economic development became particularly important.'"' In this regard, it was unnecessary for women to take too much military training and have military skills. Women were only needed to be healthy and strong enough to take part in production, which could simply be satisfied through taking regular sports activities and physical exercises. In this regard, the three modifications that shaped the new outlook of Communist womanhood in the Yan'an period were interactive.

200 Chen Ruoguang, "Zhonggong Shandong fenju guanyu Shandong funii gongzuo de zongjie yu jinhou funii yundong de xin renvvu"中j!�山东分局关于山东妇女工作的总结与今后妇女运动的新任务（丁丨记CCP Shandong Committee on Women's Work and New Tasks), in Zhongguo funii yundong lishi ziliao 巾国妇女运动历 史资料(The Historical Archives of the Chinese Women's Movement), edited by Zhonghua quanguo funii lianhehui funti yundong lishi yanjiushi巾华全国妇女联合会妇女运动历史研究室(The Institute of the History of Women's Movement of the National Women's Federation), 3 vol. (Beijing: Zhongguo fiinu chu ban she, 1991), 768-769.

2"! Cai Chang 蔡畅，"Y(jie fiinii gongzuo de xin fangxiang" 一届妇女工作的新方向（On A New Task of Women's Work), Jiefang ribao 解放日报(Liberation Daily), March 8，1943.

106 Chapter 4

The National Communist Womanhood: the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s

Yan'an labour heroines set the basic pattern for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to shape the national female model worker in the following decades. As discussed in the previous chapter, Yan'an propaganda highlighted the importance of women's production to the improvement of their standards of living and the stability of the Border Area. After 1949, this ideology was adopted nationwide. Women's participation in production, according to the new CCP government, was an essential step both for the realization of women's ultimate liberation and the construction of a socialist country. In order to bring women's initiative into full play, the CCP continued its hero-emulation movement across the nation. With the expansion of national economy and the reorganization of agriculture and industry, an increasing number of labour heroines who were engaged in various domains appeared from the 1949 onward.

Ill the early 1960s, "Iron Maiden" came to be the new title of labour heroine. The term was originally used to describe female members of the Da Zhai People's Commune、Da Zhai renmin

玄^?/7玄^7^6,大寨人民公社）.They assisted the restoration work of the Da Zhai village after it was hit by an unexpected deluge in August 1963. In December 1964’ they were entitled as national labour

models during the first meeting of the Third National Congress by the Prime Minister Zhou

Enlai.逝 in the next year, a series of articles that published in Women of China (Zhongguo funii,中

国妇女严 began to introduce and propagate Da Zhai women's glorious deeds to the whole nation.

202 "Zhou Enlai zongli de zhengfu gongzuo baogao: zai disanjie quanguo renmin daibiao dahui diyici huiyi shang"周恩来总理的政府工作报告：在笫三屈全国人民代表大会第一次会议上(Prime Minister Zhou Enlai's governmental report in the first meeting of the Third National Congress), Zhongguo funi沖国妇女（Women of China) 1 (1965): 1-14.

203 The title of the magazine changed from IVomen of New China to Women of China in 1956. It is the official magazine of the All-China Democratic Women's Federation.

107 From then on, the term "Iron Maiden" was widely used to point to all honorable female workers in

Chinese society until the end of the Great Proletarian Culture Revolution {JVenhua da geming, ^

化大革命，1966-1976)}'''

This chapter is going to explore the historical continuity and discontinuity between the

Yan'an labour heroine in the 1940s and the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s. As exemplary model workers, both the images were created by the CCP to refer to the group of women who made excellent performances in production. But this does not mean that these two images that were born twenty years apart have no relation. An apparent contrast rested on the fact that compared with

Yan'an labour heroine, "Iron Maiden" embraced the CCP's assumption of building a national

Communist womanhood rather than a local one. This chapter deals with two particular characters of the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s. The first particularity was the expansion of the term "Iron

Maiden". In the Yan'an period, labour heroines were used to mainly point to women who were specialized in farming, weaving and spinning. With the liberation of urban cities and the development of industrial production, "Iron Maiden" referred to women working in various spheres, including the sphere that used to be taken up by male workers. The second particularity was the form of collective spirit and national view. In most of the propaganda of "Iron Maidens", they sacrificed their own interests to serve the people and were proud of their contributions to the construction of a socialist country.

The chapter consists of two parts. The first part of this chapter concentrates on the two

20"" There have two ways to define the temporal span of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. One way defines the revolution started in 1966 and ended in 1969. The official definition after 1978 sees the revolution began in 1966 and finished in 1976 (the so-called "ten-year disaster"). Since the image of "Iron Maiden" continually been mentioned until 1976, this paper regards the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976. See Bonnin, Michel, Shi hio deyi dai: Zhongguo de "shangshanxiaxiang "yimdong, 1968-1980 失落的一代:中国的“上山 下乡”运动，1968-1980 (The Lost Generation: the •'Going up to the mountain, going down to the village" movement in China, 1968-1980), trans. Annie Au-yeung (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2009), preface.

108 categories of the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s. The first category of the "Iron Maiden" was engaged in the domains that were similar to that of Yan'an labour heroines. They set the production records through hardworking and technical innovation. The second category of the

"Iron Maiden" took up the occupations that were traditionally male preserves. They were propagated by the Party as typical examples to prove the slogan that women and men could do same work. The second part of this chapter investigates the shift in the Party's propaganda from personal interest to the national construction. The transformation was manifested both in organization form and the re-shape of "Iron Maiden's" political consciousness. The political consciousness showed in three aspects: the learning of Mao Zedong's 毛泽东 thought, the priority

of women's public working, and the mode of women's appearance.

National Model: Two Categories of the "Iron Maiden"

Different from the Yan'an labour heroines of the 1940s, "Iron Maiden", the new title of

labour heroine in the 1960s-70s, referred to a large amount of working women across the country.

In terms of the domains that they were engaged in, the new national model could be divided into

two categories. The first category of the "Iron Maiden" inherited the tradition of Yan'an labour

heroines. They worked in the fields that were conventionally considered as women's

responsibilities, such as crop farming and textile production. Ji Chunmei 姬春梅，for instance, was

a cotton picker of the Yang Tan People's Commune in Shanxi province and Wu Guixian 吴桂贤

was a weaver of the Xiangyang First National Textile Factory in Shanxi province. In the Party's

propaganda, these "Iron Maidens" were praised due mainly to the high yields they achieved in

production. Ji Chunmei could pick 262 jin (斤，one Jin equals to 500 grams of cotton per day,

while the previous best record was 250 Jin) by holding the cotton branch by her mouth. Also, Wu

109 could weave five and a half looms at once, compared with the average of three.

The Party's emphasis on the high productivity for the first category of "Iron Maiden" indicated two social circumstances in the 1960s-70s. The first circumstance was that women's participation in agricultural and light industrial productions in the 1960s-70s was nothing new. It is calculated that in 1959, 80-90 percent of rural women worked outside home, compared with

60-75 percent in 1956 and 30-50 percent in 1930.挪 And the portion of the total urban workforce made up of women increased from 7.5 percent in 1949 to 13.4 percent in 1957 and to 20 percent in I960. Among these working women, most of them took jobs such as handicraft, paper-cutting, netting, planting and animal husbandry.:。？ In this sense, the point that made "Iron Maidens" different from other women rested on their greater and higher production records. The second fact was concerned with the Party's stress on the high productivity in agriculture and light industry for the development of heavy industry in the 1960-70s. In 1957, Chairman Mao Zedong explained the way of industrialization in China should place heavy industry at the central position, although a harmonious cooperation among agriculture and light and heavy industry was also suggested. The function of agriculture and light industry, in Mao's words, was to provide heavy industry with enough raw materials and funds that it needed to thrive.The first draft of a third five-year plan was presented to the CCP Central Committee in May 1964. The document sought to promote the

205 Wei Rill an. "Yanzhe geminghua daolu qinjin de yangtan flmti"沿希革命化道路亲近的杨谈妇女(Yang Tan women moving forward on the revolutionary line), Zhongguo funii 中阐妇女(Chinese Women) 4 (1965): 4-11; Roxane Witke, "Wu Kuei-hsien: Labour heroine to vice-premier." The China Quarterly 64 (December 1975): 730-741.

2恥 Kay Ann Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 162,

抓 State Statistics Bureau, Office of Social Statistics, Zhongguo laodonggongzi tong/i =iliao, 1949-1985 中 国劳动工资统计资料，1949-1985 (China Labour and Wage Statistics Data 1949-1985) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chu ban she, 1987), 32.

細 Mao Zedong 毛泽东’ "Guanyu zhengque chuli renmin neibu maodun de wenti"关于正确处理人民内 部矛盾的问题(The Contradictions Among the People), in Afao Zedong :hu:uo xuandu 毛泽东著作选读 (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), 2 vol. (Beijing: Ren min chu ban she, 1986), 796.

110 integrated development of agriculture, light and heavy industry in order to meet the needs of national development. Between 1966 and 1975, the percentage of agricultural share in national income decreased from 46.2% to 38.7%, compared with the increase in industry from 36.4% to

45.6%. But the average growth rate of agriculture during the same period slightly increased from

3.14% to 3.I70/0.209 In this regards, the pursuit of high productivity in agriculture caused the increase in the amount of production, though the portion of its share in national income decreased.

With the aim of developing heavy industry, working women who increased the productions of agriculture and light industry rapidly were praised as "Iron Maidens".

The second category of "Iron Maiden" referred to the group of women who took the occupations that were traditionally considered as male occupations, such as pilots, train drivers, lathe operators, road women, transport workers, and iron and steel women. For example, Song Li

Ying 宋立英 was the tough-minded leader of the Da Zhai women's team who worked with male member of the People's Commune to rebuild village roads after the deluge in August 1963. And

Xiao Sun 小？小，a sent-down youth from Chengdu, was not content about her duty as a health worker in a rural chemical factory and asked for working in mines. The Party's propaganda of these women focused not on the quantity of output they produced as it did for the first category of

"Iron Maiden", but on their tougher and more tenacious characters than their male counterparts. In

Song's report, she did not stop working even though her two fingers were cut down by the Hay cutter few days before. When male members persuaded her to take rest, Song replied that "my fingers are painful, but I could carry soil by my shoulders. It is difficult for me to stay at home

朋 Ouangiiogesheng, zizhiqu, zhixtashilishitongjiziliao hmbian 全_各竹，0 治区,直辖市历史统计资料 》[编,1949-1989 (Compilation of Historical Statistics fro Every Province, Autonomous Region and Directly-Administered Municipality, 1949-1989) (Zhengzhou: Zhongguo tongji chu ban she, 1990), 57.

Ill without doing anything.“之川 In the case of Xiao Sim, her positive decision to work in mine shaped a big contrast to male workers who reluctant or unwilling to go down mines.^"

The propaganda of the second category of the "Iron Maiden" relied on two preconditions.

The first one was the expansion of women's working fields to those that used to be dominated by men. Most of these new occupations related to the development of the heavy industry sector of the national economy, such as train drivers, tractor drivers, rail dispatchers and mine workers. As early as in the early 1950s, the Party planned to establish a complete national industrial system and gave the priority to heavy industry.212 The decision caused the organization of women (as well as men) to take up jobs women had never done before. Training schools were set up at that time to equip women with requisite technical skills. The most prominent examples were the establishment of the first all-women train-drivers' team and tractor-drivers' team in the early In the Great

Leap Forward {Dayuejin yundcmg’ 大跃进），even housewives in urban cities were organized in street or neighbourhood collective factories to take part in heavy industrial production.^''' Within the first decade of the People's Republic of China, many women broke the traditional division of labour and entered into broader spheres of working. The Party's promotion of the second category of "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s aimed at encouraging more and more women to take part in

210 "Da Zhai fiinii daduizhang Song Liying"大寨妇女大队长宋立英(The leader of Da Zhai women Song Liying), Zhongguo funii 中国妇女(Women of China) 3 (1966): 12.

2" Emily Honig, "Iron Girls Revisited: Gender and the Politics of Work in the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76," in Re-drawing Boundaries: Works, Households, and Gender in China, ed, Barbara Entwisle and Gail E. Henderson, 97-110 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 105.

212 Kong Hanbing, "The Transplantation and Entrenchment of the Soviet Economic Model in China," in China learns from the Soviet Union, 1949-present, ed. Thomas P. Bernstein and Li Hua-yu, 153-166 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), 160-161,

213 Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China, 242-243; Yu Minling, "Ntiren fuli? Nu tiiolajishoii zai Zhongguo"女人扶帮？ 女拖拉机手在中国（Female tractor drivers in China), in Liang'an fentu: leng:han chuqidejmgjifa=han 两岸分途:冷战初期的政经发展(Parting Ways: Politics and Economics across the Taiwan Straits since 1949)，edited by Chen Yung-fa 陈永发.(Taibei: Zhong yang jiu yuan jin dai shi yan jiu suo’ 2006)， 177-206.

Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China’ 264-266.

112 heavy industry and construction works.

The second precondition was the Party's ideological support to the change of the old definitions of women's duties and rights. From the establishment of the All-China Women's

Federation in 1949 to the launch of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s-70s, the redefinition of women's roles mainly contained three phases. In the first phase, a series of questions concerning women's new positions in society were discussed and analyzed. For instance, should housewives go out to work? Should women try to do "men's jobs"? Even what should women wear in daily life? The newly founded Women's Federation attempted to deal with these new questions by setting new standards and introducing new solutions. It proposed that the traditional division of labour was not a biologically determined phenomena but a culturally determined one.^'^ In other words, the physical differences between men and women did not necessarily mean they had to take different jobs if the traditional value system was destroyed. This belief allowed for the possibility of the change of women's roles in society. In the second phase, the cases of labour heroines in the 1950s and early 1960s proved the assumption that women could enter the domains that used to be accomplished by men. These heroines normally held the idea that women have the same ability to build a socialist country as men did. Dian Guiying, a member of the first all-women train-drivers in China, stated that it was the prejudice of male workers that excited her determination to be a train driver.^"^ Fan Xiuyong, a housewife who joined the neighbourhood factory in the Right East Street of Shijiazhang, said women should take part in heavy industry to prove that we were equal to men.^''^

Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China, 228-229.

Ibid., 242-243.

217 Ibid,, 265.

113 The third phase was the period of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s-70s. As mentioned in the previous examples, the second category of the "Iron Maiden" was propagated as having tougher spirits than men. The propaganda did not stay at the level to show women were able to do

"men's jobs", but went further to express the fact that the image of "Iron Maiden" was also the model for male workers to learn from. Seen from the numerous reports published during the

Cultural Revolution, women across the country were immersed in the enthusiasm of creating a new modern nation. "Iron Maidens" felt proud that they took the works they never imagined. They believed their bodies were strengthened and they became confident in taking the same jobs as men.2is However, articles published in the newspapers after the Cultural Revolution revealed an opposite picture. The high request on women in doing the same tasks as men was the point that most women complained about. Many interviewees showed their unhealthy conditions as evidence to prove the hardships they endured in the past. As Xiangqin, the ex-director of an oil female team said "I used to believe the equality between men and women could be achieved in competing physical strength. And at last, I got my waist broke."^'' Physically speaking, it is reasonable to believe that women more easily protracted illness than men when they took heavy workloads and suffered tough working environment.

From Person to the Nation: Organization Form and Political Consciousness

The propaganda of "Iron Maiden" tended to present a fixed mode: a woman overcame

difficulties in production and in the process developed a deep commitment to serve the masses and

socialist construction. Song Liying, a member of the first group of "Iron Maidens" in 1963, is a

Emily Honig, "Iron Girls Revisited," 103.

Jin Yihong 金一虹’ '"Tie guniang' zai sikao: Zhongguo wenhua geming qijian de shehui xingbie yu laodong""铁姑娘"再思考：中国文化革命期M的社会性别与劳动（Rethinking 'Iron Maidens': Social gender and labor during the Chinese Cultural Revolution), Shehuixueyanjiu 社会学研究 1 (2008): 12.

114 vivid example. According to the report, she always picked up the hardest task to do as a team leader. She has boundless energy to solve problems in production and was praised by other members as a restless worker. In her words, the source of her hardwork derived from her strong determination to help the construction of a socialist country.^^° However, the propaganda of

Yan'an labour heroines focused on women's great strides made toward self-sufficiency. Although revolutionary spirit was mentioned in the idealized picture of what the Party wanted Yan'an labour heroine to be, women in the Border Area seemed more interested in bettering the standards of their family lives.^^'

From personal interest to the national construction, this change was influenced by two factors. The first factor was the transformation of the form of organization from individual to collective production. It began with the destruction of family as an obstacle to women's participation in social production. Early in the Jiangxi Soviet period, the Party adopted progressive land policy to help village women walk out of their homes and earn their own bread. Because of the formation of the second alliance between the Kuomintang(KMT) and the CCP, proactive Land

Reform did not implement in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area. Moreover, rural women were asked to shoulder the responsibility of building up harmonious families. After Japan declared surrender in August 1945，the cooperation between the KMT and the CCP broke up. The KMT began a new round of military attacks to the Border Area and at the same time, the CCP re-introduced its radical Land Reform to break the economic power of the landlords and richer

220 -'Da Zhai flinu daduizhang Song Liying"大赛妇女大队长宋立英(The leader of Da Zhai women Song Liying), Zhongguo ftmii 屮 _ 妇女(Women of China) 3 (1965): 12.

221 Patricia Stranahan, "Labor Heroines of Yan'an," A^odern China, Vol.9, 2(April, 1983): 237.

115 peasants in the liberated areas.222 The Agrarian Reform Law was issued in 1947, which stated that land in rural area was to be equally distributed to the poor peasants irrespective of age and sex.

Women were entitled to separate land deeds at this time. Each of them was given a land certificate in her name or wrote her name alongside that of her husband's on one certificate.'^^ For most village women, the ownership of land meant they would be able to stand up for their own rights and would regain economic independence from their husbands and families. As Deng Yingchao 邓

颖超 concluded in 1952, the position of rural women was firstly improved by the redistribution of land. And the land reform had a most far-reaching effect on the political, economic, social and domestic status of women in the future.^''^

When the CCP became the National Government of the People's Republic of China in 1949, it predicted that the involvement of women in social production was of the utmost importance to women themselves as a precondition to their liberation. As a vast reserve of labour power, all

Chinese women were encouraged to tap into the struggle to build a great socialist country. In the

1950s, the reorganization of agriculture and industry effectively reduced the private ownership of the means of production. Women were now encouraged to take up new occupations in joint production, such as in agricultural cooperatives and state-owned factories. As Cai Chang 蔡畅，the president of the Women's Federation, admitted just prior to the Great Leap Forward that

Although the two parties signed an Agreement on October 10"' {Shuangshixieding, Mi ' W^) and agreed to sustain their cooperation, the conflict began just one month after the meeting when Chiang Kai-shek decided to assault the CCP army on their way to the Northeast from Shan Hai Pass {Shan Hai Guan,山海关From then on, small clashes between the two parties happened continually. In 1946, both the KMT and the CCP expressed their discontents to each other openly and one year later, the American Embassador George Marshall who was responsible for military mediation left China. Spence, Jonathan, ZhuiximxiandaiZhongguo 追寻现代中国(Search for Modem China), trans. Wen Qiayi (Taibei: Shi bao wen hua chu ban qi ye gu fen you xian gong si, 2001), 646-650.

2" Kay Ann Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China 76-77.

Deng Yingchao 邓颖超，"Xin Zhongguo funii qianjin zai qianjin"新中国妇女前进再前进(Women Move Forward in New China), in Deng Yingchao wenji 邓颖超文集(Deng Yingchao's Works), edited by Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi 中共屮央文献研究室.(Beijing: Renmin chu ban she, 1994), 99.

116 productive relations of a small producer economy was changed and women were provided with new opportunities to enter social production.^^^

The Party's measures to collectivize agricultural and industrial production was further accomplished during the Great Leap Forward. In the light of the experiences gained in the past few years, Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇 declared in May 1958 that the task of the next five-year plan was to exert utmost efforts to achieve greater, faster, better and more economical results.226 In rural area, cooperatives were replaced by the rural People's Commune, a new form of economic, social and political organization that was first established in 1958. Compared with previous cooperatives,

People's Commune represented a further step toward the development of common ownership. One commune was normally formed by several cooperatives. They diversified their economy to include forestry, animal husbandry, fisheries, industry, trade and other occupations. Besides, members were paid not according to the amount of land or tools, but based on the amount of their labour.227 in urban areas, expect for female workers who took part in industrial production in factories, housewives were organized in street or neighbourhood factories. The scales of these production units were relatively small and they were featured by low capital investment and labour intensive. Housewives were took part in special handicraft-works, such as embroidery, tailoring, shoemaking, paper boxes, toys, glassware and heavy industry.^^®

The second factor that resulted in the change of the propaganda from personal interest to the

225 Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China, 260.

Liu Shaoqi, "A Blueprint for the Great Leap Forward," in Communist China 1955-1959 Policy Documents with Analysis, ed. Robert Bowie and John Fairbank, 416-438. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), 427-428.

Croll, Feminism and Socialism m China，261-262.

Ibid., 264-265.

117 national construction concerned with the Party's efforts to remold women's ideology. The first upsurge happened as early as in the Civil War period when the Party put the enhancement of women's political consciousness at an important place. On the one hand, women were encouraged to take part in land reform meetings to help protect their land rights and to add support to the class struggle. Through criticizing landlords and rich peasants, women's initial class consciousness was shaped.229 On the other hand, women participated in the guerilla war themselves. They took turns at guarding the villages and crossroads, tearing down walls or destroying roads before oncoming armies, nursing the wounded, acting as secret messengers, and preparing food provisions.:〕。

Another peak in remolding women's political consciousness occurred in the Cultural

Revolution. Officially launched in 1966，the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was inspired by

Mao Zedong's concerns that the people's fruit of revolution was under the threat of the "capitalist road." The "Sixteen Points", known as the decision of the Chinese Communist Party Central

Committee made toward the progress of the Cultural Revolution, clearly explained the purpose of this revolution is to "struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic authorities and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes.The statement indicated the urgency to undercut the privileged positions of some power-holders within the Communist Party.

And more importantly, the revolution implied the recurrence of the class struggle as the mean to overturn the established structures of bureaucratic power. In this regard, class consciousness played a dominant role in remolding women's ideology during the Cultural Revolution.

229 Kay Ann Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China, 77-79.

230 Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China’ 205-206.

231 Mao Zedong 毛泽东’ "丁 he Sixteen Points", in CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966-1967{Wow^ Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968)，46.

118 With the rhetoric of class struggle dominated the mainstream political discourse in the

Cultural Revolution, women were reminded that there was no possibility of women's liberation without the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat.^^^ It was thus necessary for women to master their class consciousness and to understand the forces that threatened the continued existence of the proletarian revolution and women's liberation. The image of "Iron Maiden" at this time played an exemplary role. Their intensive class consciousness was manifested in three aspects.

First and foremost, Mao Zedong's thought was the spiritual motive force for "Iron Maidens" to overcome difficulties. The main expression was from the reading of Mao's works. In 1965, for instance, the Women of China published an article to introduce three model film projectors in Lai

Sliui village in province. Mao's works acted a decisive role in directing and remolding their minds. According to the report, the three film projectors at first complained that work environment was too strenuous and decided to quit. But after reading Mao's two famous papers, "Wei Renmin

Fufu “ {Sendingfor the People,为人民服务）and "Shi Jian Lun" {On practice,实践论），they rectified their thinking and threw themselves into their work actively?" Wu Guixian, a well-known labour heroine, expressed her loyalty to Mao's thought in two articles published in the

People's Daily (Renmin ribao.人民日报乂 and the Red Flag (Hongqi,红旗乂”斗 Reading from the titles, "Listen to Chairman Mao's Words, Be a Model in Revolution and Production" and "Fighting

Elisabeth Croll, "A Recent Movment to Redefine the Role and Status of Women." The China Quarterly 71 (September 1977); 597.

233 "Nongye zhanxian shang de wenhua jianbing; ji laishuixian 'sanjiemei' dianying fangyingdui"农业战线 上的文化尖兵：记涞水县‘三姐妹’电影放映队(Cultural pioneer on the agricultural line: the 'three sisters' film-projection team in Lai Shui village), Zhongguo fimii 中国妇女(Women of China) 1 (1965): 21-22.

"Ting Mao zhuxi de hua, zuo geming he shengchan de bangyang"听毛主席的话，做革命和生产的榜样 (Listen to Chairman Mao's Words, be a Model in Revolution and Production), Renmin ribao 人民日报(Renmin Daily), May 19, 1969; "Jianjue baowei Mao zhuxi de geming luxian"坚决保卫毛主席的革命路线(Fighting All One's Life for Defending Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line), "所/红旗(Red Flag) 3 (January 1970): 23-25.

119 All One's Life for Defending Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line", the two showed Wu's definite belief in Mao's thought and the Cultural Revolution. As Wu stated, compared with her rare reading in fiction and poetry, she had to read Chairman Mao's essays every night before sleep. She believed Mao's works gave her great energy to solve any problems in her daily life.^^^

The stress of "Iron Maidens" in Mao's thought and in the Party's propaganda depended on two events that happened at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. The first event was the ideological conflict within the Party between Liu Shaoqi'a revision line and Mao's revolutionary line. Among many different opinions related to the further construction of a socialist country between Liu and Mao, the issue of how to deal with the relationship between the Party and the masses was emphasized particularly. Liu disagreed with Mao's consideration to let the people to educate and liberate the Party and warned gigantic troubles would be caused by this call. His statement was criticized by Mao as a capitalist ideology that suspected and distained people's power.236 丁he conflict finally ended with the purge of Liu Shaoqi in 1966. Mao's thought, from then on, set its dominant status within the Party.

The second event was the act of seizing leading power in cultural sphere to criticize the capitalist ideology in intellectual and educational domain, journalism, art and literature, and the publishing field. On the 25* of May in 1966, the editorial board of Beijing Daily and Beijing

Evening Paper were reorganized. On the 3P' of May, Chen Boda 陈伯达 became the chief editor

of People 's Daily {Renmin ribao, A K 0 报).The previous editor Wu Lengxi 吴冷西 was criticized

as revisionist. The Central Propaganda Department oversaw newspaper editorial policy and, when

Roxane Witke, "Wu Kuei-hsien: Labour heroine to vice-premier," 735.

For more information about the ideological conflict between Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong, please see Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shaoqi and the Chinese cultural revolution (Armonk, N.T.: m.e. Sharpe, 1998)，220-230.

120 needed, delivered and supervised the production of Party propaganda. In the following years, local newspapers were reorganized one after another and attempted to mirror the "correct" page layout of People's Dai/y, the official party newspaper of the Mao regime. Many local papers called the editorial department of the People's Daily every day to ask about the lead story, second story, the working of headlines, number of columns used by each story, size of the typeface, type style

(boldface or standard), the size of photos, and the total number of articles and their arrangement on the page.237 Neale Hunter once commented, "mainland newspaper editorials will never contain independent opinion. There have a strict editing system: The Central Committee Secretariat inspects important manuscripts at People's Daily 滋 the provincial CCP secretary or the secretary ill charge of supervising propaganda work inspects provincial newspaper articles.In this sense, the newspaper functioned as political bulletin boards and propaganda trumpets during the Cultural

Revolution. Political slogans and quotations by Marx, Lenin and Mao became the bulk of the content.

Another result of the act of seizing power in cultural sphere was the sharp decrease of the category of newspaper in nationwide. The data shows the number of the variety of newspapers in the year of 1958 was 1,776. In 1960，the number was 1,274 and then quickly dropped to 343 in

1965. There were only 49 types of newspapers in 1966 and kept 42 from 1968 to 1970. A slight recovery happened in 1971 with the number up to 195 and 236 at the end of the Cultural

Revolution.239 In 1966, the All-China Democratic Women's Federation was disbanded, together

237 Yu Xiulu, "The role of Chinese media during the Cultural Revolution (1965-1969)" (Pli.D dissertation, Ohio University, 2001), 28-29.

Neale Hunter, Shanghai Journal: An Eyewitness Account of the Cultural Revolution (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 21.

239 Zheng Baowei 郑保卫，ed. Zfe"玄炉似炉"级7玄.r/>7)r£V7 jvitycw^g""^"》/中国共产党新闻思想史（The history of the Chinese Communist Party Press) (Fuzhou: ren min chu ban she, 2004), 372.

121 with its official magazine, the Women of China, was forced to close. The previous editor of the

Women of China, Dong Bian — 逛边，was accused of revisionism. The target of criticism was the two correspondences "What Do Women Live For?" and "On What Criteria Should One Choose A

Husband?." They were criticized because they turned women's attention away from political and

revolutionary issues and focused on women's biological and domestic roles.•

The second aspect of "Iron Maidens'" class consciousness was showed by the fact that they fully devoted to their public works and social revolution. In the Party's propaganda, much emphasis was placed on reporting labour heroines' hardwork and production records, but little was said about their domestic roles as mothers and wives. This mode applied to the stories of Song

Liying and Ji Chunmei. Sometimes, family was described as an obstacle for women to enter social production. In the case of Dian Guiying, who was the first women train driver in China, her father was the first person to oppose her decision to be a train driver.24i i^i the 1960s-70s, another mode to propagate "Iron Maiden" was to praise their political way of dealing with family relations. That was, they re-defined their relationships with their husbands and children as "revolutionary couples" and "revolutionary mothers." In doing so, "Iron Maidens" extended their political consciousness to family sphere. As Wu Guixian explained, taking care of children was an important task not because they were related, but because they were the successors of the revolution. But women's domestic responsibilities should not affect women's normal works since the revolution must always be handled first.^''^ What needs to be highlighted is that the

2 扣 Benshe quanti geming gongzuo renyuan 本社全体革命工作人员(The whole revolutionary staff of the magazine), "Jiefa heibang fenzi dongbian de zuixing"揭发黑帮分子责边的罪行(Exposing Dong Bian's crime), Zhongguo 冲国妇女(Women of China) 7(1966): 27-29.

2Croll, Femmism and Socialism in China, 242.

242 Roxane Witke, "Wu Kuei-hsien: Labour heroine to vice-premier," 736.

122 construction of the "revolutionary family" meant husbands should also shoulder the responsibility of family chores. As the husband of a labour heroine in Shenyang Transformer Factory said "every

Sunday, I wash clothes... some men can sew and knit too... now why do we do such work? because we listen to Chairman Mao, and we share the work in the factory and in the home."243 In the story of Wei Fengying, a worker engineer of the Northeast Machinery Plant who was a famous model women worker, she and her husband drew up a four-point plan to study, share the housework, budget and plan their family.''^'*

The third aspect to show the class consciousness of "Iron Maidens" was the abandonment of female beauty. In the Party's propaganda of "Iron Maiden", no particular attentions were paid to their appearances and clothing. In photos, these labour heroines looked as plain as ordinary workers. This is because women who stressed on their external looks would be criticized as

"laggard" with bourgeois thinking and needed to be re-educated. For instance, a young female courrier in the Nanjing "March Eighth" female transportation team enjoyed dressing in beautiful clothes and was referred to "demon" {yaoj'/'ng’跃賴、and asked to write a self-examination.^'^^ Also, one propaganda posters that gave a prominent position to an elegant and bourgeois woman caused problems because the woman was well-dressed.""^^

In the 1950s and early 1960s, the regulation on women's appearance was not as rigid as during the Cultural Revolution. Seen from the posters for political propaganda that published before the Revolution, women's dressing style varied from qipao (旗袍）to forms of jackets with

Mitch Meisner, "The Shenyang Transformer Factory -- A Profile," The China Onarter/y 52 (Oct.-Dec., 1972): 736.

244 Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China, 311-312.

245 Jill’ "Tie guniang"铁姑娘(Iron Maiden)’ 15.

Stefan R. Landsberger & Marien van der Heijden, Chinese posters: the IISH-Landsberger collections (Munich; New York: Prestel, 2009), 121.

123 buttons on the right side and in the front. The colors used for women's clothes were mostly red, pink and yellow.247 In the early 1960s, there were articles to instruct women in the way to make stylish clothing for themselves.248 However, during the Cultural Revolution, the official media reminded women to put aside the pursuit of self-adornment, but to take part in political struggle and enhance their class consciousness. The image of "Iron Maiden" again acted as a good example in the following three points.

Firstly, "Iron Maidens" have natural hair without decorations such as bows, ribbons or flowers.The plain hair style matched their images as model workers and was considered more convenient for them to do social production. Compared with modern girls' dazzling styles of hair in urban area in the 1920s-30s, the hairstyle of "Iron Maidens" was rather ordinary. Moreover,

"Iron Maidens" did not care about their facial appearances. They did not use cosmetics and their skill looked coarse and swarthy because of daily work. But we can still read happiness and confidence in their faces.顶 Last but not least, "Iron Maidens" normally wore crudely tailored jacket and pants that covered almost every part of their bodies. Except for the padded winter coats, women's jackets were featured by western-style collar, buttons at the breasts, and long sleeves reach to the wrist. In most pictures, the sleeves were not pulled up above their elbows. Pants were long enough to cover the ankles and were fastened at the side. The uniform pattern gave no exceptions for additional ornaments and the colors used were limited to black, dark blue, dark

247 Stefan R. Landsberger & Marien van der Heijden, Chinese posters, 90, 115, 135.

Ip Hung-Yok, "Fashioning Appearances: Feminine Beauty in Chinese Communist Revolutionary Culture." Modern Chmayo\19, 3 (July 2003): 352.

"Tie guniangmen zai tuitu"铁姑娘们在推 土（Iron Maidens are bulldozing) and "Tie guniang dui duizhang Zhao Sulan"铁姑娘队队长赵索兰(The Leader of the Iron Maiden Team: Zhao Sulan), Zhongguo fimii 今 国妇女(Women of China) 3(1965): 8,14.

25" "Da Zhai ftinu daduizhang Song Liying"大恭妇女大队长宋立英(The leader of Da Zhai women Song Liying), Zhongguo funii 屮国妇女(Women of China) 3 (1%6): 13.

124 green and deep gray.

The abandonment of feminine beauty not only indicated the full victory of political consciousness over the idea of personal affair, but also echoed the CCP's efforts to break the traditional division of labor. As mentioned, many "Iron Maidens" in the 1960s-70s took up the occupations that used to be done by men. The heroic deeds of these "Iron Maidens" were quoted by the CCP to prove that women could do the same work as men did. With little doubt, this plain and asexual appearance fitted the CCP's construction of the "Iron Maiden".

Meanwhile, the prohibition of women's adornment in the 1960s-70s reminds us the regulations on women's dressing style of the New Life Movement. Both the KMT and the CCP attempted to make a connection between women's outward appearance and their national responsibilities. But they both chose different strategies. The KMT placed strict control over women's appearance in the first place and believed that women's morality would be enhanced through this method. Thus, the New Life Movement put extreme efforts on regulating women's hairstyle, clothing and shoes in the 1930s-40s. Such governmental behavior was criticized because it paid too much attention to trivial things. In contrast, the first thing that the CCP focused on was the improvement of women's political consciousness. The CCP did not formulate detailed regulations on women's appearance as the KMT did. The abandonment of feminine beauty was just regarded as one of the expressions of women's devoted spirit to the socialist construction.

25' Antonia Finnane, "What should Chinese women wear?: A National Problem." Modern China Vol.22, 2 (April 1996): 121-123.

125 Conclusion

This thesis attempts to reveal the complexity and diversity of Chinese national narrative in the twentieth century. The narrative is not represented through certain military reform, political revolution, or cultural movement, but visualized by the juxtaposition of two public women's images of "Robust Beauty Girls" and "Iron Maidens." The thesis not only contains visual sketch of the two images, focusing on different concepts of women's bodies, appearances, and apparel, but also carries on a detailed analysis of the constructing process of the two images. When we put these two ideas of public womanhood within one framework, we discover that firstly the meanings of the two images are not fixed; and secondly the two images are not unrelated.

First of all, the intentions of the two women's images changed consistently. These changes related to the various national circumstances in different periods, such as the prosperity of urban popular culture in the late 1920s, the eruption of the Anti-Japanese War in the late 1930s, the break of the alliance between the KMT and the CCP in the late 1940s, and the urgent national request of building a socialist and powerful country in the 1950s-70s. As illustrated in the first two chapters, the construction of the image "Robust Beauty Girl" experienced four steps. The initial step refers to the acceptance and admiration of western "Robust Beauty Girls" by editors and writers of popular publications. Photos of Hollywood film stars were published in pictorials and newspapers as visual examples to define the meaning of the western "Robust Beauty." The second step

concerns intellectuals' profound reconsideration of the western standard of "Robust Beauty",

especially after the invasion of Japan in 1931. The criticism of the "Modern Girl" led to the

redefinition of the term "Robust Beauty." Except for having a robust body, intellectuals insisted

that the true women's beauty rests on women's domestic responsibilities and their contributions to

126 the national salvation. In the third step, the image "Robust Beauty Girl" was endowed with clear political meaning by the KMT government. In the New Life Movement, women were encouraged to be virtuous housewives and good mothers. The fourth step coincides with the third period. It points to the shape of the wartime womanhood during the Anti-Japanese War. Under the general direction of the Women's Steering Committee, previous emphasis on women's domestic responsibilities has been replaced by the propaganda of women's participation in social work to support the War.

The third and fourth chapters delineate the construction of the "Iron Maiden" from the

Jiangxi Soviet period in the late 1920s to the end of the Cultural Revolution. The constructing process had three phases. In the Jiangxi Soviet period, the rudimentary Communist womanhood was created according to local conditions and the threat of the KMT's military attack. It refers to the group of women who earned the same basic rights as men did and had the capabilities to fight

against enemies. During the Anti-Japanese War and the Yan'an period, the shape of the Communist

womanhood paid more attention on women's productive skills. The reasons lie to the alleviation of

the relationship between the KMT and the CCP in the late 1930s and the shortage of labour power

in the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Area. In the 1950s-70s, the "Iron Maiden" was famous not only for

the high productivity achieved; but more importantly, for their tough and devoted characters to the

construction of a socialist nation.

In addition, the construction of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Iron Maiden" are the

outcome of various social and political forces. It is a tortuous and complicated process that

embraced the introduction of foreign culture, the intermediation of both male and female

intellectuals, the intervention of political parties, and women's own understanding of the two

127 images. For instance, the redefinition of the term "Robust Beauty" depended on the efforts of both

urban intellectuals and the KMT government. The retrenchment of the CCP provided the backdrop of the creation of the Communist womanhood in the Yan'an period. Each of these forces offers a

particular perspective to interpret Chinese national allegory in the twentieth century. Sometimes they collaborated with each other; while in other times they opposed to each other. But they all

serve the grand national interest of building a modern and powerful country.

Last but not the least, the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Iron Maiden" are constructed jointly rather than separately. Such connection has double meaning. Firstly, the connection is

shown by the opposite relation of the two images. In other words, the existence of one image is the

premise and reference of the emergence of another image. For instance, the Communist women's

image in the 1930s-40s conveyed the information that the CCP encouraged women to join the Red

Army and participate in social production. In order to create a different women's public image, the

KMT government reconstructed the "Robust Beauty Girl" and emphasized the importance of

women's domestic responsibilities. The second meaning of connection refers to the mutual

supplement of the two images. In the period of 1930s-40s, the construction of the "Robust Beauty

Girl" and the "Iron Maiden" were specified for different groups of women. Urban women showed

more interest in emulating the "Robust Beauty Girl", while most rural women were inclined to

follow the example of Communist womanhood. During the Anti-Japanese War period, the two

images worked together under the general request of national salvation.

Two examples are added in the following paragraphs as additional factors to prove the

complex construction of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Iron Maiden" images and the diversity

of the narrative of twentieth-century China. The first example is the leftist intellectuals'

128 reconstruction of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Modern Girl" in the 1930s. In 1933, for instance, the film "Three Modern Women" {Sange modeng mixing, H 0 S ：^ '14) demonstrated the leftist film-makers' conception of the true "Modern Woman". Among the three typical female images - the hedonist Yu Yu 虞玉，the pessimist Chen Ruoying 陈若英 and the revolutionary Zhou

Shuzhen 周淑贞，the film made its choice by explaining the most modern woman in the 1930s should devote herself to the revolution like Zhou Shuzhen. This new interpretation of the "Modern

Girl" not only enriched the meaning of the reconstructed "Robust Beauty Girl" in the 1930s, but also paralleled Communist womanhood in the Jiangxi and Yan'an periods in some aspects. The most obvious connection between the "Modern Girl" created by the leftist film-makers and the

Communist womanhood shaped by the CCP was that they both emphasized the necessity of

organizing women (both urban and rural women) to take part in Chinese revolution. In this regard,

it is reasonable to believe the revolutionary image of "Modern Girl" has some potential relation

with the appearance of the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s. This relation deserves further detailed

study.

The second example is the impact of the Soviet Stakhanovist movement and Soviet women

laborers in the 1940s-50s on the construction of the "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s. The Soviet

Stakhanovite movement was named in Aleksei Stakhanovite's honor in 1935. Aleksei

Stakhanovite was a young miner worked at the Irmino pit in the Donbass region of Russia. He was

reported as being able to extract 102 tons of coal in one six-hour shift, which was 14 times more

than the general norm. In November 1935, his high productivity and positive attitude toward work

were praised by Stalin at the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovite Workers.^" The Soviet

Yu Miin-ling, '"Labor is glorious': model laborers in the PRC." in China learns from the Soviet Union, 1949-present, edited by Thomas P. Bernstein and Li Hua-yu, 231-258 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), 232.

129 Stakhanovite movement inspired the CCP to formulate similar hero-emulation campaign in the

Yan'an period. In 1942，Liberated Daily {Jiefang ribao 解放日报）proposed “the Soviet Union has

a Stakhanovite, we have a Zhao Zhankui today. The Soviet Union has a Stakhanovite movement;

we have a Zhao Zhankui movement, too/'^^^ Zhao Zhangkui 赵占魁 was a studious worker in an

agricultural tool factory. He was entitled as "labor model" in 1942 and propagated as a Chinese

Stakhanovite during the Yan'an period”^ in the early 1950s, Soviet women laborers played a

vivid exemplary role to encourage Chinese women to participate in socialist construction. Women

of China {Zhongguo fmm 中国妇女）set up special columns between 1950 and 1955 to introduce

the beautiful and happy life of Soviet women, such as "Follow the Good Example of Soviet

Women，，and "The Soviet Union's Today Is Our Tomorrow." According to the description of the

report, Soviet women were living in an equal socialist system for they had opportunities to receive

education, choose their favorite jobs, and earn equal working payment as men. Through taking

part in social production, women's status in both family and society were improved.^^s

Unfortunately, with the alliance between China and the Soviet Union finally broken around

mid-1950s, Soviet models were no longer used by the CCP for propaganda. However, we could

not dare to assert the construction of "Iron Maiden" in the 1960s-70s had no relation with the early

propaganda of the Soviet Stakhanovite movement and Soviet women laborers. The connection

between the Soviet model and the "Iron Maiden" needs to be further explored.

"Non&ju gongchangjianli mofan gongren Zhan Zhankui"农具工厂速立模范工人赵占魁(Agricultural t2。9。\f二。" awarded to the model laborer, zhao zhankui)." Jiefangrihao 解放日报(Liberation Daily)，September

""About Zhao Zhankui, See Xie Anbang, "Zhao Zhankui yundong de zuoyong jiqi jingyan," (The function and experience of Zhao Zhaikui campaign) in Zhongguo gongrenyundongshiyanjiu i/'e-zy/(Collected research works on the history of Chinese labor movement), ed. Cao Yanping, 156-162 (Beijing: Zhongguo gongren chubanshe, 2000).

Zang Jian，"The Soviet Impact on 'Gender Equality' in China in the 1950s," in China learnsfrom the Soviet Union, 1949-present, edited by Thomas P. Bernstein and Li Hua-yu, 259-274 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), 261-263. ’

130 This thesis focuses on the image construction of the "Robust Beauty Girl" and the "Iron

Maiden" from the late 1920s to the late 1970s. The essence of the two images, shaped by multiple related forces, changed consistently in accordance to various national circumstances. Meanwhile, the relation of the two images is both opposite and complementary. The complex process of constructing the two images shows the diverse powers that existed in the manufacturing of the

Chinese national allegory and the various narratives of this national allegory.

131 Appendix

體格體的美而健 % ,.

IlmtXthy body, h<-^tthy mixiil ^^ 渗\\ ？、 喝 |M/ff I I

I * * •胃f I •打 * ^ i^u 能洛水海 •蓬警I丨丨：丨 ，i •慮仏…、^

Figure 1. Healthy Body, Healthy Mind 健而美的体格

Source: Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) no. 45 (1930), 24.

132 I ( 着 一 ftwMl

: .. F i *

^ s r

玲

3 4：學育職之上板跳

Figure 3. Swimming class of the Liangjiang Female Physical School 两江女子体育学校学生之 泅泳生活.

Source: Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) no. 49 (1930): 32.

134 _

Figure 4. Ms. Hu Ping 胡萍女士.

Source: Liang You Huabao 良友画报(The Young Companion) no. 102 (1935): cover.

135 鋼 f : _ /

. ....赛

J 一

i 邏二

.F s 酬:_ i

鈇餘娘.们在推土 越贵保摄

Figure 7. "Iron Maidens" are bulldozing 铁姑娘们在推土.

Source: Z^拟"玄炉中国妇女(Women of China) no. 3 (1965): 8.

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Zhuo Ying 卓影，ed. Lirenxing: minguo shanghaifumi zhi shenghiw _ 人行：民国上海妇女之生 活(Li Renxing: the life of Shanghai women in the Republic). Suzhou: Gu wu xuan chu ban she, 2004.

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