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Title	The Legacy of the Maoist Gender Project in Contemporary China: A Feminist Research on Women's Oral Life Narratives
Creator	Huang, Xin
Contributor	University of British Columbia. Centre for Women's and Gender Studies
Date Issued	2010-09-22
Description	This research uses feminist theories to analyze women’s oral life stories, especially the various ways the Maoist gender idea manifests itself in the lives of Chinese women today. Building on Judith Butler’s theories of “gender as performance”, it introduced the concept of gender as a “project” to convey both conscious manipulation at the collective level, and personal agency for individuals. This research includes detailed analysis of four cases: a rural migrant worker, an older urban woman who lived through the Mao era, a lesbian artist, and a woman who studied and lived in the West before returning to China. The analysis of content is complemented by a discussion of the structure and language of each narrative, including an innovative interviewing method of “telling and retelling”, hybrid narrative language—various mixtures of official dialect, regional dialects, and imported terms, as well as visual representations. Drawn on feminist studies on gender and self-narration, this research explores the various ways a feminist approach can document and theorize gendered experiences and subversive strategies. Xin Huang has a PhD degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of British Columbia, and is a Chiang Ching-Kuo Post-doctoral fellow in Women’s and Gender Studies and the Centre for Race Autobiography Gender and Age Studies at UBC. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality in contemporary China. She also has been involved in various research projects on gender and sexuality in Chinese popular culture, and Chinese immigrant women in Canada. She is currently working on her post-doctoral project: The “Taming” Of Maoist Women: Changing Representations of Gender In China in Personal Photo Albums.
Subject	Women's and Gender Studies CWGS Podcasts, Maoist, Gender, Narratives
Type	Sound
Language	eng
Notes	The Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies (CWGS) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) offered a weekly lecture series for the fall and winter semesters. This series brought together scholars that focussed on issues related to women and the study of gender/sexuality. The series included post doctoral and visiting scholars, faculty both from CWGS and additional departments engaged in research relevant to the mission of the centre.
Series	Centre for Women's and Gender Studies (CWGS) Lecture Series
Date Available	2017-01-11
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
DOI	10.14288/1.0052301
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28688
Affiliation	Women's and Gender Studies, Centre for
Peer Review Status	Unreviewed
Scholarly Level	Postdoctoral
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
AggregatedSourceRepository	DSpace

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The Legacy of the Maoist Gender Project in Contemporary China A feminist research on women's oral life narratives Xin Huang  University of Bri3sh Columbia  September 22, 2010  Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 The Mao Era (1949‐1978)   Funü 妇女(women)  The Post‐Mao Era (1978‐‐Present)   Nüxing 女性(female sex/gender)   Research ques3ons    The Maoist gender legacy in China today •   Relevance •   Individual experience •   Political significance Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 Theore3cal Framework  •  “Chinese” conceptualizations of gender •  A hybrid product of Chinese-Western interaction •  Judith Butler: gender performativity •  Gender as constituted in and through discourse •  Zone of uninhabitability •  Discursive formulation and subversion of gender Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 Theore3cal Framework  •  Gender as “project” •  Gender as a consciously designed and performed “project” •  Emphasizing women’s active role as agent •  Feminist Narrative Studies •  Gender and self-narration •  Feminist criticism of traditional narrative forms •  “Women-centred and women-defined discourse” Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 Research Methodology •  “Women-centred and women-defined discourse” and alternative narrative strategies •  Dialect and hybrid language •  “Telling and retelling” interview method •  Visual records Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 Research Data •  Snowballing recruitment •  Two to three hour interview •  Fifteen women’s life stories •  In-depth analysis of four women’s life stories *Photo release was obtained Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 Linyi: The Gender Project  •  Growing up between jia7ngfunü  (housewife) grandmother and Maoist  funü mother  •  Rejec3on of the “proletarian”  femininity   •  From funü to nüxing: nego3a3on and  revision   – Taming the Maoist funü  –  Incorpora3ng the funü 奶奶 妈妈 Linyi: The Narra3ve  •  First telling: Chinese master‐script of  “speaking biXerness”  – Priori3zing class over gender  – De‐gendered representa3on  •  Retelling and “go beyond the ending”  – A more complex and conflic3ng self  – Narra3ve agency  奶奶 妈妈 Dongqun: The Gender Project  •  PLA (People’s Libera3on Army)  Sneakers: a story of shame  •  Clothes: a story of the desire to  become a nüxing   •  Hair: a story of resistance against  exclusion  •  Daughter: a story of redemp3on  Dongqun: The Narra3ve  •  Dialect and narra3ve agency   – Dialect and symbolic sanctuary  – The ar3cula3on of “private”, “deviant” or  “trivial” desires   – The fusion of different language resources  – A self constructed beyond a single linguis3c  prescrip3on   Dongqun: The Narra3ve  – “Aimei” (loving beauty)  •  The publicly sanctioned pursuit of beauty and personal liberation in the post-Mao era •  Signifying a post-Mao nüxing identity   –   “Laogong”(husband)  •  Situates her marriage in a modern urban nuclear family context  A self constructed beyond a single  linguis3c prescrip3on   Shitou (石头)   The Gender Project  Interpre3ng Between the Sayable and the Seeable  Weapon Series, 1997 Re-imagining the Female Body Together Series, 2001 Female Bonding and Self-discovery Girlfriend Series, 1997 Old Photo Series, 1997 Recovering “Her-story” Calendar Series, 2000 Signifying “Chinese” Lesbian  Shitou (石头): The Narrative •  Resis3ng the hegemony of heterosexual  language   –  Silences, hesita3ons, and narra3ve nego3a3on   –  Self‐conscious linguis3c exercises   –  Mul3‐lingual and mul3‐cultural resources  –  The appropria3on of tongzhi (comrade)   “Women” as a state category in the Mao era •  Funü 妇女 , a politicized revolutionary subject “Women” within a heterosexist female/male binary in pre- and- post- Mao eras •  Nüxing 女性, a sexualized modernist subject “Women” as a vernacular social category •  Nü de 女的, female  The Politics of “Women” •  The transcultural construction of post-Mao Chinese lesbian subjectivities –  Gay and lesbian (in English) –  Tongzhi 同志(people who share a common will or goal , comrade) •  Nütongzhi 女同志(female comrade) •  Nantongzhi 男同志(male comrade) –  Lala 拉拉(lesbian) The appropria3on of tongzhi (comrade)  Shitou (石头): The Narrative Amy: The Gender Project •  Maoist funü mother and her foil character, the  Jia7ngfunü grandmother  •  Resis3ng masculinist Maoist authoritarianism:  the father  •  Rite of passage: study in the UK   •  The construc3on of a cosmopolitan nüxing  •  Searching for and finding limits of the promise  of the nüxing subject   Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 Amy: The Narrative •  Yuppie Mandarin: a cosmopolitan Mandarin  language style with Mao and post‐Mao eras  poli3cal vocabulary   •  English terms: performing, inven3ng and  (re)fashioning a hybrid cosmopolitan gender  iden3ty  •  “Hybrid Chinese”: alterna3ve “language of  gender”  Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997 Conclusion •  The Maoist gender project and its legacy •  Gender as project, situated subversion, and    diverse strategies •  Feminist research and alternative story-telling Painting by Shitou, “A Photo with Mother”, 1997

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