Communications in Humanities Research

- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences


Communications in Humanities Research

Vol. 1, 21 December 2021


Open Access | Article

Comparison and Analysis of Feminism in China and the West: A Case Study of the 1950s

Xiaopei Wang * 1
1 The National University of Singapore, History Department

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Advances in Humanities Research, Vol. 1, 111-115
Published 21 December 2021. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Xiaopei Wang. Comparison and Analysis of Feminism in China and the West: A Case Study of the 1950s. CHR (2021) Vol. 1: 111-115. DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/1/ICEIPI_246.

Abstract

1950 is a very special period for the development of feminism in both China and the West. The People’s Republic of China was just established and the West was experiencing the second wave of feminist. However, the feminism in these two areas developed in different ways, that Chinses feminism is the “state feminism” while the West is “liberal feminism”. This kind of difference results from the different social environment, especially the political policy in China and the West. The Communist Party of China took feminism as a tool to consolidate socialist construction, so it launched the feminist movement from top to bottom. The second feminism in the West is a bottom-up movement for women to fight for their own rights and interests, and they use magazines and other mass media as a means of struggle. By comparing the difference of the feminism in China and the West, the flaws of these two kinds of development of feminism could also be shown.

Keywords

Socialist feminism, Radical feminism, Feminism, State feminism, Social constructionism

References

1. Burr, V. (2015). Social constructionism. Routledge.

2. Joan, S. (1983). Gender and the Politics of History.

3. Sewell, William H. (1990). "Review, Joan Wallach Scott Gender and the Politics of History". History and Theory. 29 (1).

4. Wang, Z. (2005). “State Feminism”? Gender and Social State Formation in Maoist China . Feminist Study, Vol.31, No.3, pp.519-515.

5. Tina Mai Chen, (2003). Female Icons, Feminist Iconography? Socialist Rhetoric and Women’s Agency in 1950s China, Gender & History, Vol.15, No.2, pp. 268–295.

6. Catalano, Christina (2002) "Shaping the American Woman: Feminism and Advertising in the 1950s," Constructing the Past: Vol. 3: No. 1, Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol3/iss1/6

7. Elliott, Dyan (2008). "The Three Ages of Joan Scott". The American Historical Review. 113 (5): 1390–1403.

8. Wang, Z& Zhang, Y. (2010). Global Concept, Local Practices: Chinese Feminism since the Fourth UN Conference on Women, Rethinking the Global, Vol36, No.1, pp.40-70.

9. Wang, Z. (2005). “State Feminism”? Gender and Social State Formation in Maoist China. Feminist Study, Vol.31, No.3, pp.519-515.

Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries (ICEIPI 2021), Part 2
ISBN (Print)
978-1-915371-02-7
ISBN (Online)
978-1-915371-03-4
Published Date
21 December 2021
Series
Communications in Humanities Research
ISSN (Print)
2753-7064
ISSN (Online)
2753-7072
DOI
10.54254/2753-7064/1/ICEIPI_246
Copyright
© 2023 The Author(s)
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated