Politics, Gender And Identity

The modern female newspapers and magazines as well as the newspaperwomen are an important page in the history of Chinese journalism and it is worth exploring. As far as the newspaper women and female newspapers and magazines in the early Republic era are concerned, some researches have been done, most of which are concerned with the elite newspaperwomen's activities of running newspapers and the publicity content of the female newspaper. However, the studies, combining with the developing process of modern feminist movement, on the development of the changing feminist narration in modern female newspapers, the newspaperwomen's direct motive of running newspapers and the divergence of stance of the presiders resulting from gender differences are rare. This paper can be divided into four chapters. It takes the elite newspaperwomen's self-identity as an entry point and discusses these aspects.The first chapter roughly summarizes the political and cultural context in the early Republic era under which the elite newspaperwomen run newspapers and magazines. Compared to the women newspapers in late Qing Dynasty, it aims at presenting that the emphasis of the narration on women's rights is transformed from "equal responsibilities" to "equal rights" under the stimulation of the democratic and republican political atmosphere and women's political participation. The newspaperwomen in early Republican era have the consistent appeal for the recreation of the social identity of the female. This identity consciousness is rooted in the political environment of modern China and it is eventually established by referring to the traditional "the other" and the western "the other".Chapter two and chapter three take women's participation in political activities in the early Republic era, an important event in the history of feminist movement, as a core and show the different appearances of the elite newspaperwomen's political activities, newspaper running activities and their discourse orientation. During the period of women's participation in political activities, the elite newspaperwomen, such as Tang Qunying and Zhang Zhaohan, ran female newspapers and magazines radically criticized the political situation in the early Republic era and advocated that the female as well as the male should enjoy the political rights, which reveals the degree of the elite intellectual female's awareness of gender and their attempts to recreating their social identity. After the failure of women's participation in politics, the elite newspaperwomen were forced to secede from the area of the public voice under the situation of the high pressure of the politics. From then on, the female literary periodicals and business publications dominated by the male won an upper hand in the female newspaper field. These publications re-affirm the value of women's family identity and critique the feminist movement in a repulsive tone. In this atmosphere, the elite newspaperwomen in the early years such as Hu Binxia began to reflect on their robust feminist discourse before and contributed to reconciling the conflicts between the family and the society.On the basis of the historical materials presented above, the fourth chapter makes a theoretical analysis on the history of the creation and development of the modern female newspapers and magazines as well as the newspaperwomen. In the political context of the salvation, the gender discourse of modern female newspapers and magazines is limited. Only beyond this historical limitation, can the elite newspaperwomen's attempts of recreation of identity be acknowledged.The elite newspaperwomen's activity of running newspapers and speech orientation in early Republican era reflect the conscious intellectual female's difficult attempts to rebuild the relationship of traditional gender and to look for a new identity. These attempts are depressed by the transformation of political situation, what's more, the authority of the intellectual male limits their possible approaches of developing from tradition to modern times. Until now, the female media have still been an important approach to recreate their identity, however, how the snarled relationship between gender and authority behind media should be clarified is a question worth thinking over.