Creating Beauty:Beauty Of Female Body Shape Of The Republic Of China

The image of the healthy and beautiful woman in modern west countries as a more modernized experience has motivated Chinese people, which the requirement of times about national rejuvenation and preservation of Chinese nationality followed. So the standards of beauty-appreciation towards women during the period of the Republic of China has transformed from the pre-modern gentle and frail-looking image into the healthy and beautiful image. The healthy beauty became the topic about the beauty of women’s bodies under the circumstances in 1930s, but concerning the question about how to get the healthy beauty, the national discourse and consumer market offered two ways that were absolutely opposite. The ruling party hoped that the health and beauty of women were natural and inartificial, which was required by New Life Movement that aimed to build the new nation of industry, thrift and frugality, while the bourgeoisie in industry and commerce who ruled the consumer market created the demand in order to sell goods and advocated that women could acquire the life of happiness and healthy and beautiful bodies by buying their goods to nourish bodies or remedy the limitation of bodies. Women themselves, however, did not attain the real feminine liberation through the national democracy movement, and as the objects of beauty-appreciation, women also faced the double pressure of political and consuming discourse. But in the same time, they participated as well in the process which the beauty-appreciation towards women themselves was built.