University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2008 A Comparative Philosophical Feminist Identity Study of Chinese Women Intellectuals and the Educational Implications Yan Cao University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Cao, Yan, "A Comparative Philosophical Feminist Identity Study of Chinese Women Intellectuals and the Educational Implications. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2008. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/479 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Yan Cao entitled "A Comparative Philosophical Feminist Identity Study of Chinese Women Intellectuals and the Educational Implications." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Joy T. DeSensi, Miriam L. Levering, Diana K. Moyer Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Yan Cao entitled “A Comparative Philosophical Feminist Identity Study of Chinese Women Intellectuals and the Educational Implications.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Joy T. DeSensi Miriam L. Levering Diana K. Moyer Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) A Comparative Philosophical Feminist Identity Study of Chinese Women Intellectuals and the Educational Implications A Dissertation Presented For the Doctor of Philosophy Degree University of Tennessee, Knoxville Yan Cao December 2008 Copyright © 2008 by Yan Cao All rights reserved iii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my beloved parents, Zhiren Cao and Lianfang Chen, my sisters Qian Cao and Jin Cao, my lovely nieces Yuqi Zhong and Linnan Fan, and my husband Chengdu Liang, for their endless love, care, and support. It is also dedicated to my lovely baby William for all of the happiness and joy that this new life brings to me during working on this dissertation. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful to Dr. Barbara Thayer-Bacon, who is my major professor, academic advisor, and mentor. Her passion for research and life always inspires me as I work on this degree at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. I would like to thank Dr. Joy DeSensi, Dr. Miriam Levering, and Dr. Diana Moyer for their profound insights and consistent caring encouragement throughout the research process. I would also like to thank Dr. Lynda Stone for her generously serving as my committee member and her valuable comments for this project. I also want to thank all of my colleagues in the cultural studies of educational foundations program and other friends who helped me get through this process for their assistance and encouragement. v ABSTRACT As a female cross-cultural educator and scholar in the third space, I am deeply concerned about issues related to Asian Americans and especially Chinese women intellectuals. Problematic misinterpretations of Chinese women from Euro-western perspective center on Orentalism and newly arising problems during the post-Mao era in China such as problems with rising gender consciousness, invisibility issues of homosexuality, ethnic minorities, rethinking of class, and added social contexts in Chinese indigenous works. These problems demonstrate the need to pay attention to Chinese feminist scholarship and Chinese women’s academic contributions. A better way to theoretically understand Chinese women and their scholarship from a philosophical perspective is suggested through this work. The researcher's perspective as a philosopher and cultural studies scholar is pragmatist, post-modern, and socialist feminist. I develop Chinese feminist identity theory on the basis of an interdisciplinary reflective critical analysis of Euro-western and Chinese feminist literatures and Euro-western identity theories. The academic identity of Chinese female intellectuals is represented as an ensemble of multiple factors including their gender/cultural/social selves that interplay with each other. I develop my own gender perspective – “relational gender perspective” – as an alternate to the “separate gender perspective” in Euro-western feminist Julia Kristeva’s problematic argument. Relating theory to practice, I suggest educational vi implications about how to create more inclusive multicultural learning communities. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 ...........................................................................................1 Introduction.......................................................................................1 Research Objectives 1 Significance of This Project 4 Theoretical Framework of This Project 7 Reading Chinese Women and Chinese Philosophy as Erotic “Other ”--- Euro- western Perspective 15 Problems in Chinese Feminist Perspectives 29 Differences between China and the United States Feminist Scholarship 38 Overview of This Project 46 Chapter 2 .........................................................................................47 Academic Identity of Chinese Women Intellectuals ....................47 Gender Relationships of Chinese Women Intellectuals and Their Academic Identity 50 Social Interaction of Chinese Women Intellectuals and Their Academic Identity 62 My Chinese Feminist Identity Theory 70 Chapter 3 .........................................................................................78 Critique of Euro-western Identity Theories ..................................78 Judith Butler and the Gendered Self 79 William James and the Introspective Self 85 George Mead and the Social Self 92 Charles Taylor and the Modern Self 99 Knowledge, Power, and Identity 105 Chapter 4 .......................................................................................109 Conclusion: Theoretical and Practical Contribution of My Theory ........................................................................................................109 Analytical Comparison of My Identity Theory and Julia Kristeva’s Argument 110 Relating My Identity Theory to Practice 123 Cultural Implications 124 Educational Implications 130 Conclusion 139 List of References.........................................................................145 VITA................................................................................................156 viii Chapter 1 Introduction Research Objectives My own cross-cultural educational and teaching experiences in mainland China (PRC) and the United States (USA) have motivated my thoughts on issues involving cross-cultural comparative education. I received my kindergarten through undergraduate education in mainland China and then worked as an English as Second Language (ESL) teacher for undergraduates in a Chinese university and as a volunteer Chinese teacher for adult students for about three years. I have attended graduate school in the USA since 2002. I have served as a volunteer Chinese teacher for Chinese American children in the local area for one year and worked for two months as a camp counselor for a Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) camp in Louisville, Kentucky. Besides working with children, I also acquired teaching experiences with American undergraduates at the University of Tennessee by working as a teaching associate for a social foundation course for pre-licensure teachers, and working as a Chinese language teaching assistant for the Modern Language department of my current university for one year. As a female cross-cultural educator and scholar, I am deeply concerned about issues related to Asian Americans and especially Chinese women 1 intellectuals. My curiosity for learning the story of the Chinese feminist movements and feminism scholarship was triggered by taking courses concerning American feminism and feminist scholarship during my graduate studies stage. However, Chinese women’s images are not fairly and fully portrayed in the Euro-western feminist literature. Chinese women’s scholarship is still often marginalized. The problematic misinterpretation of Chinese women from the Euro- western perspective centered on Orentalism and newly arising problems during the post-Mao era in China such as problems with rising gender consciousness, invisibility issues of homosexuality, ethnic minorities, rethinking of class factor, and added social contexts in Chinese indigenous works. These problems demonstrate the need to pay attention to Chinese