Gender, Race And Culture

With the reference to classical western feminism and the relevant theories on criticism of American black women writings, racialism and post-colonialism, the author has selected the English writings of Chinese American women as the target and endeavors to explore their subjectivity as females and the unique construction of their cultural identification. This dissertation, focusing on interrelationship between gender, race and culture within the writings of Chinese American women, analyzes the multi-construction of the subjectivity of Chinese American women and its connection with cultural tradition and further illuminates its significance as to western classic feminism as well as cultural criticism.The twentieth-century feminists are known for their strong sense of gender and of subjectivity in liberating women, however, their background as white middle-class women has led to the divergence of the canonical feminism. Different from western classical feminism that emphasizes gender as the only factor of subjectivity, the writings of colored minority women are recognized for various factors such as race, culture and class that are involved in the construction of female subjectivity. Thus it is believed that the study of Chinese American women's writings will be of great help to enrich our cognition for women, and will be beneficial to both western and Chinese feminist theory and criticism.Cultural criticism arose in the 1950s in Britain. Along with the search for substantial identity in post-colonialism are the possible value crisis and racial resistance. It comes to be realized that a wise choice would be to establish an ambulatory cultural identity and to reorient the conventional cultural identity as well as to write about the multiple identity. The study of Chinese American literature has provided new perspective for re-recognizing cultural identity and identification. Different from the current cultural research and criticism that restrict to nation and nationality, the study of Chinese American literature should be concerned with its miscellaneousness. The subject of the study is no longer stable and uniform, rather their "multi-position" as well as "multi-situation" in culture have gone beyond the limit of nation and nationality, which reflect the cultural identification problem within a global and imperialistic context. Meanwhile, gender is a rather important factor as to cultural identity. The study of Chinese American women literature also calls for attention on the relationship of gender and cultural identity and the research from an ethnical and sexual perspective will undoubtedly amplify cultural criticism.The dissertation can be divided into three sections.' Section one is an introduction of Chinese American women and the historical background of their writings, of which, chapter one is a brief history of Chinese American women. Due to the existence of centrism in culture, race and gender,Chinese women are actually deprived of the right and freedom of speaking. Therefore, to find the "self and to construct the identification is a linchpin to break the silence and utter their own voices. Chapter two explores how Chinese women resist the hegemony of race and culture through their own writings. Since the ethnical, sexual and cultural elements are indivisible with one another in the construction of the subjectivity of Chinese women, their subjectivity is therefore established in the interaction of these factors.Section two mainly analyzes the influence of ethnical politics on gender experience. Of which, chapter three points that, due to their unique ethnical identity, Chinese women's conception of and relation with the male, both Chinese and white males, are influenced by this very identity. The keynote of Chapter four is how Chinese women perceive their female identity. Because of the particular social practice, Chinese women have become the nucleus of their family, who suffer from racial discrimination but are tough and diligent, who take care of the family with men and always back their childr...