User:Teresaaau/sandbox

This is a user sandbox of Teresaaau. You can use it for testing or practicing edits. This is not the sandbox where you should draft your assigned article for a dashboard.wikiedu.org course. To find the right sandbox for your assignment, visit your Dashboard course page and follow the Sandbox Draft link for your assigned article in the My Articles section. Get Help

Philosophy

He-Yin Zhen had a different approach to the "Women Question" (funü wenti) and women's oppression that was raised in China in the late 19th century. She believed that gender and class inseparable, and she unraveled the reason for the misery Chinese women had endured for millennia from the perspective of labor. He-Yin was distinctive from her contemporary feminist thinkers in that she considered anarchy as the one possible condition where women could be fully liberated. Unlike many of her contemporary thinkers such as Liang Qichao, who viewed liberating women as a means to an end of reviving China, He-Yin put women's oppression as her ultimate goal to resolve.^[1] He-Yin Zhen's feminism was also formed through her critiques of capitalism, especially its inhumanity. In her opinion, women would never be free if capitalism persisted. This line of critique provides a logical and powerful philosophy against the mainstream western feminism at the time, which prioritized women's suffrage as the ultimate liberation of women. He-Yin criticized not only the social forms women were subjugated to but also the political and cultural suppression that limited the freedom of women.^[2]

Labor Theory

He-Yin Zhen approached the concept of labor theory from a historical point of view. She argued that throughout history, Chinese women were restrained to a closed quarter and were prohibited to have any connection with the outside world. They could not provide economically for themselves which made them dependent on their husband, thus subjected to his power and authority.^[3] She argued against other male thinkers who denounced women for dependence on their husbands, thus blaming women themselves for their inferiority to men. He-Yin criticized them for hypocrisy. She argued that since women were not allowed to leave their inner quarters, it was unthinkable for them to find a job to support themselves. Although the lower-class women were part of the workforce, they were forced into labor because they had to subsidize their family income, thus their labor was not viewed as their own production but something insignificant for a society dominated by men.

One popular proposal to solve the purported problem of women’s unproductivity was to call women into the labor force.^[4] However, He-Yin saw the flaws in this solution promulgated by male feminists at the time. She pointed out that under capitalism, women were still exploited even if they achieved professional independence. They remained exploited in factories as workers or in offices as secretaries. In different workplaces, women had to listen to their bosses and follow their orders, because they were still dependent on their bosses for wages. The capitalist system puts women in a system where their works are exploited, thus even if they received their full wages, the wages are still set low for the benefits of the capitalists. Women will never rise up and earn a fair share in a capitalist society.^[5] Ultimately, joining the labor force would not liberate women from their shackles, because regardless of their job type women’s bodies and labor were still exploited.

He-Yin Zhen thus saw the solution for the "Women Question" as the liberation of the working class. Concerned with the commodification of women’s body，she emphasized labor as an autonomous and free practice among all humans, contrasting with its commodified notion in classical and neoclassical political economy. Labor should represent both economical liberation and intellectual liberation as women became free in their actions. But in a capitalist society, women were commodified as their body and their labor were forcedly labor a value by others in which they had no control over. For He-Yin, labor is not only an economic concept, but it also has a fundamental impact on human society. She refused the commoditization of labor, and insists to see labor in an ontological notion instead of as a mere economic concept.^[6] As long as there exists an exploitation system that monopolizes production where women remained as dependent commodities to society, the so-called "professional independence" also remains as "professional enslavement." Thus, in order to liberate women from their subjugation, He-Yin concluded that the capitalist system must be broken and a communal system must be established.^[7]

Anarchism

He-Yin also argued against any type of established government. In her anarchical writing, her anarchical ideas are evident in her criticism of the parliamentary government system in the west. She did not believe in the women's suffrage movement, although she praised suffragists for their courage. He-Yin cited the Norwegian women’s suffrage movement as an example, and argued that since only women from a noble background or a wealthy family could become elected in the parliament, how could one ensure that the elected women would not act against her fellow lower-class women, especially those from the lower class, and only act in favor of her fellow members from the upper-class?^[8]

He-Yin believed that electing women into the offices only added a third tier of suppression upon working-class women, apart from the suppression from men and from the government. For the same reason, she did not believe that leftist parties, such as the Social Democratic Party in the United States, would act in favor of the common people. Once they were in the parliament, the governmental system would lure these leftist parties towards power and authority thus neglecting their fellow suppressed commoners, including the working-class women.^[9] Then, these leftist parties would diverge away from their original goal of liberating the lower class and abolishing capitalism. He-Yin concluded that women’s liberation could only be achieved through the action of the common people alone, without the intervention of the government. She provided an example of how the working class in the United States did not benefit even when the Social Democratic Party was elected, needless to say about the situation of women who were barely represented in the party.^[10] He-Yin did not agree with the agenda of many of the leftist parties as to how they listed their end goals to be elected to the government. She believed that without the government, men and women from the lower class can focus on improving their livelihood instead of diverging the concentration into other fields the government and the upper class are interested in.

Instead of endorsing participating in a society governed by bourgeois elections, He-Yin proposed an ideal communal society in which women and men are equal as they share the same responsibilities and production. Her ideal society would be similar to a socialist or communist country in the 21st century, but without a central government to rule over the people. In this ideal society, children would be brought up in "public child care facilities," therefore freeing women of their motherly duty and leveling the playing field for women. Thus, women could assume responsibility equal to men.^[11] He-Yin also proposed that if men and women were raised and treated equally, and the responsibility assumed by both genders are equal as well, then the distinction between "men" and "women" will become unnecessary. Hence, neither men nor women will be oppressed by their assumed duties.^[12] He-Yin attempted to rebuild a system where women could actively participate in society and have real power to decide their future. Her solution to gender inequality and oppression of women was a will to liberate women from any form of suppression, including the suppression from an established governmental system regardless of its ideology.

Influence

Most of He-Yin Zhen’s feminist writings were written when she and her husband resided in Japan, and the influence of her feminism in the early Chinese feminist community was unclear. However, her feminist views were influential during the May Fourth movement, especially picked up by female communists.^[13] Her influence on the development of anarchism among Chinese scholars was also significant. Anarchism was first documented and introduced to the Chinese international students in Tokyo in the Japanese translations of the western anarchical works. Chinese students in Japan soon took it as a solution to the contemporary Chinese problems and sought a solution for China after the 1911 Revolution in China. Among the scholars who were developing their own understandings of anarchism was He-Yin Zhen. Her works, including articles in her journal, Natural Justice (Tianyi Bao)Chinese: 天意报 influenced the development of anarchism in China. It is also in Natural Justice, the first Chinese translated version of the Communist Manifesto is published.^[14] Her husband was also a supporter of the ideology, despite being closely engaged with the military personages of the warlords in China.^[15]

Notes

References

• Hershatter, Gail (2019). Women and China's Revolutions. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 83-86. ISBN 978-1-4422-1569-6.
• Sudo, Mizuyo (2006). "Concepts of Women's Rights in Modern China". Gender & History. 18 (3): 483-486.
• Karl, Rebecca E. (2012). "Feminism in Modern China". Journal of Modern Chinese History. 6 (2): 235-55.
• Zarrow, Peter (1988). "He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China" (PDF). Journal of Asian Studies. 47 (4): 796–813. doi:10.2307/2057853. JSTOR 2057853.
• Liu, Lydia H.; Karl, Rebecca E.; Ko, Dorothy (2013). The Birth of Chinese Feminism : Essential Texts in Transnational Theory. New York: Columbia University. ISBN 978-0-231-16290-6.