The Construction of Women as National Body in Twentieth Century China: "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 Hong Kong 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 Kuomintang (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 Chinese Communist Party (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.