China The New Woman of China began to emerge off of the pages of Chinese literature beginning mostly in the 1920s. However, ideas surrounding
feminism, gender equality, and modernization began in China long before the 1920s New Woman emerged from its context. The New Woman of China and the movement itself went through various incarnations, changing with the social and political landscape it emerged from.
Fall of the Qing (1911) to pre-May Fourth Era (pre-1920s) It was during the early years of the
New Culture Movement and pre-
May Fourth era that the term "New Woman" first emerged in China. This term, used by
Hu Shi (1891-1962) during a 1918 lecture, suggested that women were more than just "
good wives and wise mothers" and instead pushed for women's freedom and individuality in the larger national framework. However, Hu Shi along with a handful of other male intellectuals, were the minority pushing for women’s involvement in society. Influenced heavily by the New Culture movement, which emphasised condemning the “slavish Confucian tradition which was known to sacrifice the individual for
conformity and force rigid notions of subservience, loyalty, and female chastity," the New Woman who emerged in the 1910s were far less progressive than their later 1920s counterparts. New Women during the
early Republican period had to contend heavily with the ‘woman question’ a question regarding how to "address issues of modernity and the nation" and women's role in both. During this period, women's education was promoted, but as a tool to create women who would be equipped to “raise healthy and morally sound sons”, who would then help build a new China. So even though education was encouraged for women, it was not for their personal benefit but instead for the state and nation. Early New Women such as
Hu Binxia, an early editor for
The Ladies Journal, promoted in her articles the ideas of education to learn how to support a family and participate in the
cult of domesticity. However, like minded male reformers to Hu Shi,
Chen Duxiu promoted a very different kind of women for China’s changing political, social, and economic landscape pre-May Fourth era. Founder of the
New Youth journal, Chen Duxiu called for gender and family reforms and pushed for the emancipation of women and the dismantling of the restrictive Confucian family system. Chen, like other radical-minded male intellectuals of his time, believed “women’s equality to be the hallmark of a modern civilization” and the strength behind a nation. Thus “customs of
concubinage,
foot binding,
widow chastity, and female seclusion”, from these male intellectual's view points, needed to be eliminated to allow women to freely participate in the nation's rebuilding. While Chinese men at this time backed the idea of the dismantling the Confucian system, they did not do so solely for women to be freed from it. Chinese male intellectuals backed women's emancipation from the system, but not their emancipation as individuals. So while they had a connection to these original works, they featured both larger global struggles of women, such as free love relationships, and more individual problems for Chinese women, such as dealing with the Confucian family system and filial piety. The New Women in China, both as women living in China and literary figures in books, still faced pressures in the 1920s and 1930s to "exemplify familial and national devotion" however. There are a few reasons Kahn stands out as an early archetype of the eventual 1920s New Woman. The first is the education she received. Kahn received two degrees. The degree she received was in medicine, which she put to work back in China when she became a doctor in the early nineteen hundreds. The New Women in Germany was closely connected to the
lesbian subculture in Weimar Republic.
Korea In Korea in the 1920s, the New Woman's Movement arose among educated Korean women who protested the
Confucian patriarchal tradition. During a period of
Japanese imperialism, Christianity was seen as an impetus for
Korean nationalism and had been involved in events such as the
March 1st Movement of 1919 for independence. Hence, in contrast to many Western contexts, Christianity informed the ideals of Western feminism and women's education, especially through the
Ewha Womans University. The New Woman's Movement is often seen to be connected with the Korean magazine
New Women (), founded in 1920 by
Kim Iryŏp, which included other key figures such as
Na Hye-sŏk. Originally, the term ‘New Woman’ was associated with education, enlightenment, and social consciousness, while the term ‘Modern Girl’ carried connotations of frivolity and excess. While these terms continue to carry some of these original meanings, they eventually came to be used interchangeably. New Women included female students and workers, and as women started working, they formed a new urban working class, endowing them with economic power, the ability to participate in modern
consumerism, independence from their families, and the opportunity to engage in more social contact with men. While these changes led to greater female freedom, Modern Girls and New Women drew severe criticism from male intellectuals who argued that these modern women were consumed with Western capitalism, were consumer-oriented and hypersensitive to trends and fads, morally depraved, and sexually promiscuous. However, more moderate authors like Yu Kwang-Yol and Song So-In described the Modern Girl as an embodiment of the transition from old traditions to new practices and recognized that, while the trend could focus on material consumption, New Women and Modern Girls also strove to cultivate a moral vision and higher knowledge. Nonetheless, the majority of representations of New Women and Modern Girls in mass media reduced them to caricatures with short hair, make-up, and Western clothing, while ignoring their strides in knowledge, skill, and identity. According to a study by Na Kyong-Hui, more than 230 editorials on the “women question” appeared in the Choson Ilbo and the Tonga Ilbo, two of the most widely circulated newspapers during the colonial period, from 1920-1940. One of the main characteristics of Modern Girls criticized in these newspapers was New Women’s trend towards consumerism. Who who, unable to prioritize necessary items and exercise self-control in their shopping, wore expensive clothing beyond their means, perhaps to the detriment to their families were ridiculed. Modern Girls were also seem as being hypersensitivity to fashion trends, and there was a shift in the power dynamic between husbands and wives, with men now groveling to meet their wives’ demands. However, this condemnation of consumerism went beyond gender: it was rooted in Korea’s relationship with Japan. Consuming Japanese goods was believed to inadvertently contribute to Korea’s colonial subordination to Japan while framing Japanese oppressors as progressive and Korea as a remote, pre-industrial land. Authors like Yu Kwang-Yeoul argued that the Korean masses were so “blinded by the glittering, seductive products” of Japan that they failed to recognize Japan’s “assault on Korea’s economy.” Criticisms of female consumerism also reveal men’s underlying fear of losing their status and social position, for women’s economic involvement challenged traditional gender roles and centuries of Confucian practice. This exploration of changing gender roles was further debated in cartoons, particularly around the departure from the
hyeonmo yangcheo (wise mother and good wife) rhetoric and women’s increased participation in public life. It was believed that as women became educated and entered the workforce, they also became masculinized while men became feminized, leading to ambiguity between the sexes. Women's bobbed hair and short skirts also represent another form of rebellion against cultural norms and traditional gender roles. Despite male opposition to the new fashion styles, modern women held their own ideas of what was attractive, comfortable, and functional, particularly in the work setting, and defined their beauty, sexuality, and identity for themselves. It was also thought that women could not simultaneously be New Women and good mothers and wives. The final topic frequently represented in the Modern Girl debate was the issue of female sexuality. In contrast to women in the Joseon dynasty who covered their heads and could not go outside without a male chaperone, changes in fashion and ideology led to more exposed female bodies. New Women argued that the new trends were stylish and comfortable, but male intellectuals criticized Modern Girls for being unvirtuous and bringing inappropriate attention to their sexuality. Furthermore, during the Joseon dynasty, men were the pursuers. However, New Women were shown to be proactive and aggressive in their quest for a husband. New Women and Modern Girls were depicted in art in many different ways. Kim Eun-Ho’s
The Gaze features a beautiful woman standing in a field of wildflowers under a weeping willow.
Atarashii Onna was used with derision by critics to denote a woman who was promiscuous, shallow, and unfilial, the opposite of Meiji Japan's ideals of
ryōsai kenbo. Despite this members of
Seitō, a woman's magazine which became a symbol of Japan's New Women, such as
Hiratsuka Raichō and
Itō Noe, proudly embraced the term. Educated women who functioned as both literary and political figures embodied the concept of Japan's New Women in the 1910s, using literary platforms such as
Seitō to circulate their ideas amongst the public. Another revolutionary female writer,
Yosano Akiko, wrote a poem celebrating the women's movement in
Seitō's inaugural issue, entitled "The Day the Mountains Move". What made
Seitō simultaneously controversial and powerful was how it rallied against Japan's existing family system based on patriarchy, instead championing romantic love and a woman's independence. Like
Hiratsuka Raichō,
Seitō writer
Ito Noe similarly practiced the ideals she preached in writing in her own life, leaving an unsatisfactory marriage to study in Tokyo and marrying twice more.
Alexandra Kollontai,
Nadezhda Krupskaia and
Inessa Armand established the
Zhenotdel in 1919, a government department devoted to establishing a new culture of female expectations. According to historian Barbara Evans Clement, the New Soviet Woman was a Superwoman who took on the burden of multiple roles: Communist citizen, full-time worker, wife, and mother. The Zhenotdel was dissolved in 1930, without having been able to resolve the layered identities expected of this ideal-type Soviet woman. == See also ==