"Modernity" Construction Of Urban Female Body Under The Semi-Colonial Language Enviornment

Under the special and complex semi-colonial language environment in Shanghai in 1920s and 1930s, three famous journals were published, they were:Linloon, The Young Companion and The Womans Pictorial. Influenced by the western culture and foreign settlement culture, they provided a genealogical, authoritative reference standard by which Shanghai urban female bodies constructed their "modernity". Through those journals, by integrating, imitating and reforming the western modernity, urban women formed their lifestyle, which was not exactly the same as the western modernity and obviously different from the Chinese traditional lifestyle and concept, they also learnt to shape themselves into the "modern bodies". Further, they realized the transgression of the male/paternal authority discourse which is used to be predominance in the sexual relationships. Besides, they also appropriated more discursive power in a powerful nationalism derived in the course of saving the nation from extinction and strive for survival. Therefore, those journals are very important for us to study the reconstruction of urban female bodies under of the influence of western culture. Moreover, through the guidance and description of western women’s modern body and modern life, through observing how the female readers unconsciously accepted, integrated and jointly participated in this process, and how they reflected in the mass media and real life, we can see in depth the core of society and political connotation of the whole process.Chapter 1:Through researching the influence the western "modernity" and "body" to the female journals in the 1920s and 1930s, we can see that through some pictures with western elements, such as cover girls, fashion shows, beauty special column and fashion appliance advertisement, those journals brought the Shanghai women with western lifestyle and new life concept and permeated the modernity into every corner of the daily life. Meanwhile, female cared, recognized and even controlled their body with no precedence, thus help the journals realized the reconstruction of urban female body from "media built" (imagination) to the "life application" (practice)Chapter 2:In those journals, the advertisement with the theme of family were usually full of (western) modern elements. Those advertisements often accompanied by the weakness, even the castration of male. In fact, in the pincer attack from "modernization" and "national calamity", male/paternal authority discourse began to low their heads to the national language, female obtained the chance of surpassing the regimes of truth established by men under such language recontextualization. As a result, family became the place where such power were appropriated unconsciously. Urban women, more or less, overturned and transgressed the discursive power over male/paternal authority discourse. Meantime, accompanied by the gradual increase at the modern family position, there appeared some articles and pictures in the journals, in which women expressed their misandriac complex and modern sexual awareness. That not only reflected the influence the western marriage view brought to Shanghai urban female, but also showed that the latter dispelled the traditional male/paternal authority discourse.Chapter 3:Western upheld female body health and modern aesthetic standard, under the influence of which, the journals published a lot of pictures advocating women to go out of door and do physical exercises. The western women were displayed as an idol in the journals, meanwhile, it challenged the traditional view of beauty that Chinese held "female sickness and weakness". Besides, reports about female athletes in modern female journals made the former replaced the male and became new media of modernization, which helped readers to accomplish the imagination of "China, which was under semi-colonial language environment, was not inferior to the western big powers. Moreover, The journals strategically combined the bodybuilding and "New Life Movement" in the aim to promote and guide the urban women to motivate their body, to gain (even realize) their body right via the attemption of transgression of the national interest and national policy.