Men and women

Author: Huang Ziping
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-05-01
Features: To compile a collection of over 100,000 words on the topic of "Men and Women" from the vast body of prose in this century, imbued with a touch of cultural significance, is undoubtedly a challenging yet highly interesting endeavor. Prose is a concept within the category of literary genres, while men and women represent a gender concept. What is the rationale in juxtaposing these two concepts? Some feminist critics around the world have pondered the relationship between these two, such as: "Gender (gender) and genre (genre) derive from the same root, and their connection in literary history is as close as their etymology." Thus, discussions have centered on topics like "Novel and Women," pointing out that certain genres are more suitable for becoming a discourse space for "comprehensive female values," and so on. However, other feminist critics disagree with this etymological approach to logical reasoning, arguing, "If you can prove a connection between genre and gender based on their shared etymology, you can also prove a connection between Christians and cretins, as both derive from the Latin word 'christianus.'" Of course, the misuse of a method does not necessarily invalidate its effectiveness within a specific context: etymological connections remain connections, and they project a conceptually, ideologically, and historically quite intricate relationship. Avoiding fields as unfamiliar as Latin, let us reflect on our own Chinese "literary genre history" and "women's history" to realize that "genre differences" and "gender differences" are, in fact, operating under the same cultural power mechanism. Ancient Chinese literary genre classification emerged alongside the ethical and moral education system. The Rites of Zhou·Grand Sacrificer states: "Create six forms to communicate between the upper and lower, near and distant: one is sacrifice, two is command, three is edict, four is assembly, five is prayer, and six is eulogy." In the Book of Rites, certain genres' usage ranges are also specified, such as "eulogy": "The lowly do not eulogize the noble, the young do not eulogize the old—this is propriety. Only the Son of Heaven may eulogize the heavens. If feudal lords eulogize each other, it is improper." To view genres merely as categories imposed by literary historians for convenience, without recognizing the cultural power dynamics they embody, would be too naive. In every era, genres exist in implicit, either orderly or ambiguous, "near and distant" relationships, sometimes referred to as the "center-margin" dynamic. Even today, when we observe that almost all comprehensive literary journals rarely place "prose" or "lyric short poems" in the headline position, this unspoken "ethical" order among genres becomes glaringly apparent. Sometimes, we hear rumors that playwrights, at cultural, awkwardly find themselves "straddling two chairs"—unable to stand on equal footing with renowned directors, celebrities, and stars in the "Drama Association," yet also sidelined by novelists and poets in the "Writers' Association." Their call for the establishment of a dedicated "Drama Literature Association" highlights the marginalized position of a certain genre within the contemporary cultural power mechanism. If we draw parallels with other where demands are made to allocate a certain percentage of seats to female representatives, this (liánxiǎng) is not entirely unfounded. Similarly, "the difference between men and women" is far more than a mere physiological or biological distinction—it is primarily a cultural and political one. As Simone de Beauvoir stated, women are not born but made. From China's classical texts, it is not difficult to cite materials to illustrate this point. The Outer Chronicles records: "In ancient times, men and women had no distinction. Tai Hao first established marriage and betrothal, using couplets of hide as a ritual, to rectify surnames, facilitate matchmakers, and uphold the foundation of human relationships, so that people no longer transgressed." The Book of Rites·Rites of the Capital and the Special Sacrifice states: "Women are followers of men; in childhood, they follow their fathers and elder brothers; upon marriage, they follow their husbands; after their husbands' deaths, they follow their sons." The Great Book of Rites states: "Women are subordinates of men." The Shuowen Jiezi defines "woman" as "service." In two thousand years of patriarchal civilization, "the difference between men and women" was not merely a distinction but also a hierarchy—a specification of relationships of dominance, subordination, superiority, inferiority, and interiority. Thus, when we consider the concepts of literary genres and gender together, the historical subject acting as the same "divider" emerges, and the image of the all-powerful father figure looms large in the cultural landscape. More precisely, any division is carried out under the rule of "the Father's Law." Since "men and women" is an unavoidable and inevitable theme in literature, culture, ethics, and other fields, patriarchal society dictates the manner, scope, style, and taboos of discussing it. Zhou Zuoren once noted that traditional Chinese prose was divided into two categories: one for "carrying the Dao," and the other for leisure. In the former category, discussions of "men and women" could occur, but in a solemn and dignified manner, with its culture primarily taking the form of ethical textbooks. Patriarchal civilization even permitted talented women to write such works, such as Ban Zhao and Song Ruohua's The Way of Women and Words of Women. However, more works involving "men and women" or "love and desire" could only be expressed through marginal forms like poetry, legends, folk tales, and novels, which occupied the periphery of the discourse order. The historical unconsciousness pushed into the shadows found release—or sometimes a weaker expression—in these latter discourses,ing (jiáodù), ing (jiěxiāo), supplementing, and lubricating the operation of the entire cultural power mechanism. Now, it is easier to clarify the "highly interesting" aspect of compiling this collection of prose. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese society underwent rapid changes. Correspondingly, the structural order of literary genres experienced shifts like "the center moving toward the periphery and the periphery toward the center." The dominant position of orthodox poetry and prose rapidly declined, while fiction, once deemed "something a gentleman would not do," was elevated to the "supreme pinnacle of literature," tasked with "improving the masses" and "renewing the people of the nation." New poetry emerged through "trial" and finally "shouted from the edge of the world." Drama was directly introduced from abroad, with silent performances and later the "civilized drama movement" evolving into the "spoken drama movement." During this period, the fate of prose was particularly unstable. It neither rose from the grassroots to dominate the court like fiction, nor broke away entirely from traditional poetry and prose like new poetry, nor was it a purely "imported" genre with no connection to traditional opera (at least on the surface). To say that, in the entire legacy of Chinese literature, the proportion of prose works is larger than that of poetry, fiction, and opera combined, while the very concept of "prose" itself is heterogeneous and ambiguous, capable of encompassing various genres such as classical Chinese, official histories, and the eight-legged essay (which occupied a more "central" position), as well as marginal types like short essays, notes, letters, diaries, and travel writings. Therefore, when discussing the shifts in the structural order of prose within the context of "20th-century Chinese literature," it cannot be generalized. Borrowing Zhou Zuoren's categories, we might crudely say that "Dao-carrying texts" moved from the center to the periphery, while "Dao-expressing texts" moved from the periphery to the center. The complexities of this process cannot be fully discussed here—for instance, how letters, diaries, and travel writings infiltrate fiction, or how fiction, in its grand march toward the "supreme pinnacle" of the genre structure, incorporates marginal genres into its revolution. One thing can be said: the term "wenzi" (literary works) was once used to encompass these diverse genres, but it is now considered inappropriate. At least, the ancient literary theory's "prose" (), which referred to prose contrasting with rhymed and parallel prose, was proposed as the translation for Western "Pure Prose," sparking a prolonged naming debate. Zhou Zuoren advocated for "beauty prose," Wang Tongzhao proposed "pure prose," and Hu Menghua called it "chatter prose." Alternatively, Essays were translated as "essays," retained as "miniatures," or even combined into "prose essays" (as Yu Dafu put it), "connecting the four characters of 'prose essays' to make the name irrefutable and versatile." Other newly coined terms, such as "zawen" (), "zahan" (), "suoxianglu" (), "suxie" (), "tongxun" (), and " bàogao wénxué" (), were also included under the banner of prose. The difficulty in naming only underscores the awkward position of prose. Throughout the development of 20th-century Chinese literature, it has always been caught between center and periphery, literature and non-literature, pure literature and "broad literature," refinement and vulgarity, the revival of tradition and foreign influence, praise and exposure. Sometimes, it might seem "versatile," but more often, it is "trapped between two stools." In the first decade of the May Fourth New Culture Movement, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, and Yu Dafu all believed that prose had achieved more remarkable accomplishments than fiction, new poetry, drama, and even prose itself. Yet, this was not due to their advocacy of anti-tradition, but rather because the traditional foundation upon which they relied was exceptionally rich and profound. However, soon after, when discussing the grand question of "Why has China not produced great literature," Lu Xun had to defend the role of (zawen) and (zawenjia), arguing that writing (zawen) was just as "serious work" as composing works like Russia's War and Peace. After Lu Xun's passing, calls for "reviving prose," "reviving (zawen)," and "the era of (zawen)" never ceased. The features of prose—its "scattered," "mixed," "small," and "casual" nature—indicate its indeterminate, unstandardized, inclusive, and often marginalized status. Rather than needing to defend and secure a place for it, these very characteristics are precisely its strengths, allowing it to constantly question mainstream consciousness, focus on marginal gaps, and attend to the unconscious, interests, and passions overlooked or suppressed by historical rationality, thereby making it closer to the historical subject and its spiritual world than fiction, poetry, or drama. Of course, the shifts in the genre structure are only a part of the larger upheavals in 20th-century social, cultural, and ethical structures. Zhou Zuoren once believed, "The short essay is the pinnacle of literary development, and its flourishing must occur in an era of the dissolution of the imperial order." In the early 20th century, with the collapse of imperial power, paternal and marital authority also wavered. During the May Fourth period, the most discussed hot topics were "filial piety" and " chastity" ("Dying is a small matter, losing chastity is a great matter"). The distinction between men and women was questioned not only in terms of hierarchy but also categorically. "I am a 'person'!" Feminism was first raised as part of human rights. The young and women were treated as "children of humanity" rather than daughters-in-law or husbands-in-law, placing them on the same front against patriarchal culture. Women's liberation was never considered separately from the larger themes of "human liberation" (later evolving into social and class liberation), often overshadowed or even drowned out by the latter. Like prose, which was caught in the shifting genre order, 20th-century Chinese women found themselves in complex contradictions within the changing social structure. On one hand, women's social status had indeed undergone remarkable changes and was recognized by the constitution and laws. On the other hand, the inequalities women faced are still evident everywhere, and in some aspects, they have even worsened (such as the long-distance trafficking of women). You might ask: Can the liberation of society and class replace the liberation of women and their feminist consciousness, or does the unsatisfactory state of the latter prove the shortcomings of the former? Another puzzling trend is that by the late 20th century, Chinese women seemed to emphasize "women are women" more than their Western feminist counterparts, a stance quite different from the starting point at the beginning of the century. A widely circulated interview perhaps illustrates this point. When asked about her understanding of "gender equality," an ordinary woman replied: "It means you have to do the same heavy and dangerous work as men, wear equally ugly and messy clothes, and at the same time, they no longer give you seats on the bus, and you still have to handle all the household chores after work." It seems that women's liberation is not only full of poetry but also full of prose and (zawen). Interestingly, Mao Dun once wrote a short story titled Poetry and Prose, depicting the love and marriage lives of new youth and new women at the beginning of the century. Ding Ling's two famous essays, We Need Zawen () and On March 8th, were published almost in the same period in the Liberation Daily. The so-called (zawen) is nothing more than discovering contradictions where they seem absent, with this "discovery" carrying cultural and literary significance. Those who enjoy discovering "isomorphism" might not be wise to overstate the connections here. This preface merely attempts to provide a reading strategy to approach theot (zawen) and the diverse themes in this collection. The earliest work in the collection is a previously unpublished essay by Cai Yuanpei, a former Qing dynasty jinshi and later president of Peking University, titled The Marriage Contract Between Husband and Wife, whose "ahead-of-its-time" awareness is almost as striking as the antiquity of its genre. In his early years, Lu Xun wrote long, argumentative essays based on the "universal moral law," and in his famous speech What Happened After Nora Left, he mentioned the issue of "economic rights." Later, he delivered "fatal blows" to patriarchal civilization with mere hundreds of words in short essays. Zhou Zuoren, however, consistently stood on the broad knowledge of anthropology, folk studies, and sex psychology, with little variation in his style or views. Nie Kangnu, who inherited the "Lu Xun style" and poured great passion into feminist issues, wrote the essay “Indeed, a Virgin Can Be a Primary School Student Too”, drawing from newspaper reports, presenting the strange calculation between the hymen and cultural education that still appears in many "personal advertisements" today. Xu Zhimo's speech quoted many viewpoints from Virginia Woolf's famous work A Room of One's Own, yet it was undeniably interpreted through the lens of a Chinese romantic male poet. Lin Yutang imitated Nietzsche's () as the Sayings of the Celestial Master Sa, while Liang Shiqiu, in his Yashe Xiao (), humorously mocked men and women without distinction. Yet, given that the humor came from a man's pen, "without distinction" seemed impossible. Zhang Ailing's On Women discussed a British book, sarcastically copying some of the "witty" remarks British gentlemen made about women, only to conclude with the shining image of a mother-earth-like woman in her mind. The group of more lyrical essays by writers such as Yu Dafu, He Qifang, Lu Li, and Sun Li, or those discussing first love, expressing grief, or reminiscing about past affections, reveal more sincerity and emotion than the more argumentative essays. Their style and emotions, as Zhou Zuoren might say, are "so old yet so new," a mix of the old and the new, indistinguishable. A considerable portion of the essays focuses on marriage and couples, with discussions of "wedding ceremonies" particularly interesting, as the rituals reveal cultural changes. The typical "Sino-Western hybrid" long performances persist, with their underlying reasons worth pondering. The theme of mourning the deceased has long been a forte of classical Chinese prose. Zhu Ziqing and Sun Li are two vastly different writers, yet their similarities in addressing the same theme are thought-provoking. In a collection of essays on the theme of "men and women," the works by male authors constitute the majority, a situation beyond the compiler's control. Fortunately, there are two recent female writers whose works conclude the collection: Zhang Xinxin, who "stands outside" to discuss marriage, and Wang Anyi, who narrates "household matters" in a gentle manner, both revealing new information from the 1980s and extending the topic to the present. Heterogeneous, scattered, and mixed. The Soviet critic Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of "polyphony" or "heteroglossia" are particularly apt for evaluating 20th-century Chinese literature. As for the "prose" discussing "men and women," it is even more so—genres, languages, ideas, and thoughts are all in constant flux, differentiation, and conflict, vivid and highly interesting. (bùxìn), please open the book and read it carefully.