Girls And Change In Modern Society Of Southern (1850-1931)

This article sets the historical context of the survival and expansion condition ofthe modern female-schools in Jiangnan as the basic clue and further analyzes howthe female-schools have been developing in the age of opportunities and how theyregulated and guided the people dominated by female students, thus makinginfluence on the daily life, morality and ethics, economic and political activities inthose regions. Female students are not only plastic, but also in the process ofconstant self-development. The self-consciousness in some female students enabledthem to make breakthroughs in social roles that female-schools had set up for them.Those awakened female students entering into the society became activists for socialrevolution, which pushed the social influence of the modern female-schools into itspeak.As Western gunboats breaking into China, the Christianity has made extensivecultural transmission in Jiangnan. In order to further spread their doctrine in China,the western missionaries have set up schools and hospitals in those regions. Theearliest modern female-school in Jiangnan was established by Western missionariesin the context of transmitting Christian gospel. Born in the1850s, the church femaleschools in those regions, as a new cultural phenomenon in the traditional Chinese,although faced with many obstacles, still continue to spread the concept that womenshould receive knowledge and education. Jiangnan was known as a land ofprosperous humanities.Along with the in-depth exchanges between Chinese andWestern cultures, Church female-schools went through twists and turns, finally at theend of the19th century, got recognition from part of the intellectual elites and wereable to enroll the female students from upper class. In its first40years, the churchfemale-schools were dominant in those regions and systematically transferredWestern culture and Western life styles to female students, making them penetrateinto their family, which significantly changed the daily life in some aspects.Western missionaries are the sowers of the modern female-schools, while thebreeding and promotion for the female-schools is mainly relied on the patriots led by the Reformists. In order to mobilize more forces to save the nation from peril, LiangQichao and other reformers began to promote women social education fromtheoretical and practical aspects. The first female-school run by Chinese people-theChinese Female School was founded in1898in Shanghai.Shanghai is a modernfemale-education center, female education began to flourish. In the long-termdispute in the court and the whole society of establishing or abolishing women’sreceiving education, female-schools established by non-governmental organizationswere becoming more and more flourishing, which broke the situation that churchfemale schools being in the dominant position. The growing female-schoolspolymerized the missionaries’ religious fervor and the patriots’ passion for theirpeoples salvation. The female-schools set their classrooms as their practice platform,their academic associations as their organization platform, and their press as a mediaplatform, making their influence spread to every corner of the society to achieve itsstated objectives. Female students were the core strength under this influence. Theyhave been shaped into various kinds of roles under the school disciplines and wereinvolved in the flood of times.Late Qing dynasty was forced to make a change in the early20th century andimplemented new polices and lifted the ban on female-schools. Since then, thegovernment-run female-schools have become prosperous throughout the country,while the female-schools in Jiangnan were always the leader. From the early churchfemale-schools to the people founded female-schools, from modern female-schoolsdominated by male to the autonomy of women in female-schools, fromnon-governmental schools to government-run female-schools, from women beingbanned to go to schools to coeducation, we witnessed the improvement of the statusof women and dissemination of the notion that women should receive education. Inthe traditional era, women basically depended on men and under the three cardinalguidelines, women enjoyed a low social status. In modern times, with the continuingspread of Western culture, the concept of gender equality was gradually established.To improve the status of women, women should be first entitled the right to receiveeducation. The growing and development of the modern female-schools in Jiangnan not only shaped a new image of women, but also, to a large extent, changed thefeatures of the society in those regions.After the establishment of the Republic of China, social changes have beenconstantly made. Female-schools and female students were inevitably drawn into thetide of history, rewriting their own destiny, as well as creating the history. Femalestudents were awakened with self-consciousness after experiences in the society,thus group-consciousness was gradually germinated. Some female students in schooland female graduates were unwilling to be labeled as "other" identity and theybegan to fight for the future of "female profession". Modern female-schools in thoseregions initially were to wake up women to take responsibility, but accidentallywomen got the “self”. From1930s, we can see the outstanding contributions fromwomen in almost every aspect in the society. The quondam female students brokethrough the constraints the female-schools had imposed and walked into a brighterfuture.