Chapter 10 New Women of the 50th and 20th Century

Indeed, the twentieth century was an era in which Chinese society, politics and culture were turned upside down, and among them, the most changed and deeply felt were women. The six to seven hundred years before the twentieth century, that is, the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, were the darkest centuries for Chinese women, and women in the Ming and Qing dynasties were the most oppressed.Some scholars even believe that the inhuman life of Chinese women had reached its peak in the Qing Dynasty, and its contempt had increased (Chen Dongyuan's "History of Chinese Women's Lives").In other words, revolution is no longer necessary.

The revolution happened suddenly when Chinese women were unprepared.By the middle of the last century, the restrictions, discrimination, oppression, and imprisonment of Chinese women by feudal ethics had already developed from the general requirements of "good wife and mother", "three obediences and four virtues", and "not being close to each other" to "keeping chastity", The prohibition of "no talent and virtue" and "staying at home" has seriously suppressed and distorted women's psychology, and women's bodies have long lost their freedom.However, in the so-called modern, modern, and contemporary centuries in history, what happened on the land of China was too abrupt and dramatic: the Opium War, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Westernization Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898, the Eight-Power Allied Forces, the Revolution of 1911, the Five The Four Movements, the Northern Expedition, Jinggang Beacon, the Long March, the Eight-Year War of Resistance, the War of Liberation, the Three Antis and Five Antis, the Public-Private Joint Venture, the Anti-Rightist Four Cleanups, the Cultural Revolution, bringing order out of chaos, reform and opening up... a series of live dramas have been staged one after another. The contents, forms, plots, themes, purposes, and orientations are different or even contradictory, which makes people dizzy. Even men who react slowly are inevitably "left behind", let alone women who have been imprisoned for a long time.

However, the benefits brought by the revolution to Chinese women were also unexpected and overjoyed by them. "No Footbinding" liberated their bodies, "Prospering Women's School" liberated their hearts, "Abolished Arranged Marriages" freed them to fall in love, "Practice Monogamy" freed them from slavery, and "Equal pay for equal work" improved their lives. "Women's participation in politics" improves their political status, while "men and women are equal" legally guarantees that they become independent, autonomous, and inviolable of personal personality, just like men, with civil rights and obligations. people.

This is something that has been unimaginable for thousands of years, but the revolution has been realized almost overnight.The iron chains that had been imposed on women for thousands of years, which they tried to break but could not break free, were shattered almost overnight by the revolution.Chinese women cannot but appreciate the revolution, support the revolution and love the revolution.As direct beneficiaries of the Chinese revolution, they, like the majority of workers and poor and lower-middle peasants, are also the most ardent supporters and staunchest supporters of the Chinese revolution.This is one of the reasons why there are so many women in the Chinese revolutionary ranks.

Perhaps it is for this reason that revolutionaries, especially female revolutionaries, have become idols and models for Chinese women in the twentieth century, especially after the founding of New China. The names of such female revolutionaries, revolutionaries and revolutionary heroes are familiar to almost every woman in New China: Qiu Jin, Song Qingling, He Xiangning, Xiang Jingyu, Liu Hezhen, Yang Kaihui, Zhao Yiman, Jiang Jie, Liu Hulan, Xiang Xiuli ....They are not only the pride of Chinese women, but also role models for Chinese women.The power of role models is infinite. It is driven and inspired by role models that new Chinese women manifest and establish new virtues that are different from traditional virtues, including:

1. The spirit of patriotism.Patriotism is a glorious tradition of the Chinese nation, but in traditional society, women seem to have little qualifications to be patriotic.Except for Hua Mulan, Mu Guiying, Liang Hongyu and a handful of heroines who can serve their country with their own bodies, most of the other women have no way to serve their country.Only in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation did Chinese women have the opportunity to show their patriotic enthusiasm.After the founding of New China, women had the right to participate in and discuss state affairs, and were no longer bound in the small circle of the family, so they became concerned about state affairs. "The rise and fall of the world" is no longer just "everyone is responsible", but "men and women are responsible".Of course, concern for state affairs is mainly reflected in urban women (especially Beijing), professional women (especially cadres) and intellectual women (especially students), but after all, it has begun to become a new trend of the times.

2. The spirit of heroism.This is mainly manifested in the challenges to traditional male occupations and the transcendence of female physiological limits.Because "times have changed, men and women are the same", what men are capable of, women must still be capable of.As a result, "hero images" such as female tractor drivers, female drivers, female pilots, and women who work at heights with live wires emerge in endlessly.This is actually a manifestation of female heroism.It even exceeds the requirement of "men and women are the same", and marches towards the goal of "women are better than men", and the results are brilliant.For example, in sports, following the rise of the Chinese women's volleyball team, women's football, women's wrestling, women's weightlifting, women's judo, women's race walking, women's long-distance running and other events have made their male counterparts ashamed.Women are not as good as men in terms of physical strength. So, isn't the "prosperity of yin and decline of yang" in the sports world enough to prove the heroism of Chinese women?

Three, positive spirit.This is mainly manifested in learning.It is proved by data that women in New China are generally more enthusiastic about learning than men.There are three reasons for this: one is that learning opportunities are not easy to come by and they are cherished; the other is that the low status of women in the old society is related to illiteracy; the third is that most of the above-mentioned female revolutionaries are educated women.This spirit has been running through from the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China to the present.In recent years, the phenomenon that the average score of girls' college entrance examinations is higher than that of boys, or that there are more "female champions" than "male champions" is proof.It seems that women not only "show off" in terms of physical strength, but also "overwhelm men" in terms of intelligence.

These phenomena are indeed very encouraging.Because they prove that Chinese women have indeed become the masters of the country, that the inner potential of Chinese women has indeed been developed, their excellent qualities have indeed been reflected, and their own qualities have indeed been improved. At the same time, they also prove that "women's liberation" is indeed not empty talk. But something real. Worry is not without it, however. The most worrisome thing is the tendency of "asexuality" and "masculinization" of women at the same time. As I have said before, Chinese women ushered in their own emancipation without any mental preparation.They don't know what they should look like after liberation (in fact, no one knows), so they can only set two frames of reference and one standard for their image creation.These two frames of reference are the heroine and the gay man, and this one is revolutionary.

It is natural for new Chinese women to take revolution as the standard, because without revolution, there will be no liberation of women.Yet revolution itself is genderless.It is not primarily concerned with issues such as relations between the sexes and the respective gender roles of men and women, but sociopolitical issues.On these issues, the Revolution treated both men and women "equally".What it wants to talk about is only sociality, people's nature, class nature and party spirit.In other words, it only distinguishes between class, enemy and party, parties, etc., and does not distinguish between men and women.Therefore, in the revolutionary struggle, the gender differences between men and women are often "smoothed" and become "asexual".

Second, revolution is, after all, the violent act of one class overthrowing another, and it needs masculine masculinity more than feminine femininity.In fact, in the revolutionary ranks, the number of male comrades always outnumbers female comrades by a large margin.Moreover, for the victory of the revolution, lesbians are always required to be on par with gay men, and lesbians are also willing to do so, because this can reflect the spirit of women's liberation that "men and women are the same".As mentioned earlier, this can indeed bring many benefits to women, such as enhancing self-confidence, improving combat effectiveness, becoming aggressive and able to do social work, etc., but the unintentional loss of certain gender characteristics of women and even "masculinization" ", is also a fact. Therefore, when a turmoil billed as a "revolution" swept across the country, a ridiculous female image also appeared on the stage of history. This is the female red guard in the "Cultural Revolution". The female Red Guards appeared on stage in this image: short hair, wearing military uniform, eyes wide open, feet spread apart, one hand on the waist, one hand waving an armed belt, and the first thing she said was "fuck".This appearance can well represent their character traits: martial, aggressive, rough, and tyrannical, none of which is what a girl should have. The female Red Guards in Beijing are the most typical and standard of this kind of image, and the instigator of it is the so-called "linkage". The "linked" female Red Guards were originally "tomboys" and "crazy girls" living in the compound.Their childhood was not lacking in the influence of collectivism, revolutionary heroism, fighting spirit and rebellious spirit, but there was little so-called "female nurturing" education.Therefore, once "martial arts" became the spirit to be advocated by the society at that time, it was not difficult to be the first to stand out from the general male tendency at that time, with a posture of walking in the forefront of the trend of the times, as the most embodying the spirit of the times. Image and leader.At the end of the 1960s, this image became popular all over the country for a while, and had a lot of influence in various places. A large number of "heroes" who rebelled against teachers and Lao Tzu and thought they were "little aunts" appeared.The vigor of the limelight is really overwhelming and invincible. Even the "sisters" in the south are ashamed of themselves and scramble to imitate, even though they don't learn it well. From a historical perspective, the image of female Red Guards was only a flash in the pan.The coquettishness he led lasted about two or three years, just like the so-called "flick of a finger", but its significance is not small because of the short time.In a sense, the female red guards are a complete rebellion against the traditional female image, and they have lost each other inside and out, which can really make people happy for a while.It's a pity that this kind of happy background is a national historical tragedy of the times, and its image itself is obviously of the nature of "acting" and "performance" (and it is a Chinese-style stylized performance), so that later generations It seems ridiculous to people.Of course, it is fair to say that deep down in their hearts, these "performers" really love revolution and yearn for revolution.They don't think of their performances as performances.Many female Red Guards "sacrificed heroically" or "sacrificed justice" in the fighting, which is the proof.It's a real tragedy, serious absurdity, and mad rationality.The lessons it left behind are still worth pondering. But in any case, the image of the female Red Guards is really not cute.At first, the male students who calmed down didn't find it cute, then they themselves found it boring, and finally the people of the whole country announced their farewell to him.The process is roughly like this: at the beginning, as the educated youth went to the mountains and went to the countryside, this highly performative image suddenly lost its stage (the majority of poor and lower-middle peasants do not need or appreciate this image).Later, it was Shanghai under the control of the "Gang of Four", where "petty bourgeois sentiment" began to rise, and "outlandish clothes" walked quietly on Nanjing Road and Huaihai Road (this once made the "Gang of Four" very angry, and inexplicably counted it It was one of Deng Xiaoping's "crimes").Finally, with the collapse of the "Gang of Four", almost overnight, the image of the female Red Guards disappeared forever. What followed was an era of diversity. The last two decades of the 20th century were an unprecedentedly open and active period in Chinese history.In this era of blooming flowers, it is not surprising that all kinds of female images have appeared on the stage one after another. The first thing that is refreshing and delightful are those images of women without the Red Guards' martial arts and combativeness, such as "Worried Laugh", "Sweet Career", "Small Street", "Under the Bridge" and other films. Those roles played by Pan Hong, Li Xiuming, Zhang Yu, Gong Xue, Yin Jinru and others.These "positive characters" are very popular with the audience because they have begun to show the unique beauty of women. Among them, Gong Xue, Yin Tingru and others are very charming and charming, and these few happen to be "authentic" Shanghai girl.Although Liu Xiaoqing is a bit "spicy", she still has the sweetness of a Sichuan girl."Little Flower" co-starred by her and Chen Chong is still talked about by many people. The song "My sister looks for my brother to shed tears", of course, was also popular for a while. Later, the "Northern Rouge" Gong Li became popular, and the images on the screen became more and more "outrageous": not singers, dancers, bar girls, but female bandits, female spies, female thieves, even prostitutes are unwilling Lonely, making a comeback, making frequent appearances.Even the "title" of "sexy star" has been used, and it is quite "optimistic".Correspondingly, the speech, behavior and social interactions of girls in the 1990s have become more and more "bold and reckless".It's not uncommon to go to and from the dance hall, and it's not a problem to dress stylishly; smiling without showing your teeth is a thing of the past, but it's almost commonplace to speak wild words.What is especially puzzling is that girls in the 1990s didn't seem to take issues such as sex, love, and marriage seriously.In the 1950s and 1960s, girls were ashamed to say those words, such as "love", "marriage", etc., they could blurt out nonchalantly. The words made the older generation dumbfounded and shook their heads. The problem is not what they said, but the indifference and calmness, the calmness, indifference, detachment and casualness when they said it. See Now, the new generation of women is really different from the previous ones, and the changes in the past ten or twenty years are by no means less than at the beginning of the century. Just to give an example, it is said that there is a point of view among girls in the 1990s. Popular: It is best to find two men, one to be a husband and cook for oneself; the other to be a lover and have sex with oneself. This is really a "complete break with traditional concepts", but its content and form are very different from those of the female Red Guards That's all. Yet the power of tradition remains.On a night when people seemed to be unprepared, Liu Huifang, played by Kaili, suddenly became a big hit, and almost occupied the national TV channels overnight.People were surprised to find that after a long time, it seems that our traditional Chinese women who are virtuous, gentle, kind, and tolerant are better. Almost at the same time or shortly thereafter, a wave of "female craze" also quietly emerged on the university campus, and became a hot topic of current discussion.History has turned a big circle, and it seems to have returned to the same place.This is really dumbfounding! It seems that it is obviously too early to draw conclusions on this series of vicissitudes. Indeed, it is undoubtedly too complicated to describe and comment on the changes of Chinese women in the past one hundred years; and of course, the previous descriptions are inevitably careless, inaccurate, or even absurd.But one thing is certain: after all, this is a century of women's liberation, and after all, it is also a century full of hardships, twists and turns, and thus turmoil and danger.In such a century of exploration and advancement, any problem may be encountered and anything may happen. Therefore, all phenomena are normal and all changes are reasonable.The important thing is to hold an objective, calm, rational and scientific attitude towards this, which will definitely benefit our future career. What's more, we should also see that compared with the old China, the men and women in the new China should be said to be more like men and women.Compared with the "sick man of East Asia" and "the obedient people of the dynasty", they have undergone qualitative changes and leaps, both physically and psychologically. In particular, they have the ability to understand and reflect on themselves. Women are less and less women" or "men are less and less men".In other words, the raising of these questions does not mean how bad our situation is, but only means that we have higher and higher requirements for our own personality shaping, which shows our satisfaction with the status quo.Undoubtedly, this is a performance of progress. Similarly, looking forward to the future of Chinese women is too complicated a question.We'll save that for the end of the book.What I want to say here is that "women are becoming less and less like women" is by no means a unilateral matter for women, just as "men are becoming less and less like men" is not a unilateral matter for men.As the two sides of the unity of opposites and opposites, the reshaping of the images of men and women both depend on themselves and on each other.Without able-bodied men, there can be no able-bodied women.In the same way, without healthy women, there will be no healthy men.Of course, there can be no healthy humanity without healthy men and women, and there can be no healthy society without healthy humanity.Today, when spiritual civilization is vigorously advocated, this is undoubtedly a very meaningful topic. The problem seems to be relatively clear: since men and women can only show their own characteristics in the other party, and only in the other party can they obtain their own generation, then it is necessary for us to examine the relationship between men and women in Chinese society first. Examine its history and its gains and losses. Obviously, this must talk about the various relationships between men and women that have existed in Chinese society. Of course, we can't help talking about sex.