Let women speak for themselves: Ethnic narratives

Author: Li Xiaojiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: "Let women speak for themselves" is a fundamental principle in constructing women's history; giving voice to "women's voices" carries both political and academic missions in today's society. Recovering and reconstructing women's history is not only a need for historiography but also a necessary cornerstone for women to reclaim themselves and establish autonomous, confident lives. In this regard, overseas feminist scholars have already produced a substantial body of research. These studies advocate for analyzing materials from a woman's perspective, "placing women at the center of historical research by reconstructing the voices and perspectives of women that have been traditionally ignored, challenging the patriarchal-dominated traditional historiography."
Preface Women's history and oral history share a natural alliance. Oral history methods are not unique to women's studies, and their adoption did not begin with women's history, but they have been particularly favored by female scholars and widely used by feminist historians. This is because oral history complements and corrects traditional historiography, uncovering the silenced groups (such as women, ethnic minorities, and the lower classes) and their unheard voices (about private emotions, life experiences, etc.), allowing history to more fully record the lives of ordinary people. Women have been "unrecorded in history," and the historical "silence of women" in academia has compelled women's history research to begin with "breaking the silence" and "letting women speak." Almost simultaneously (in the mid-20th century), the two movements advanced side by side, becoming comrades-in-arms in the modern historiographical reform movement.
"Let women speak for themselves" is a fundamental principle in constructing women's history; giving voice to "women's voices" carries both political and academic missions in today's society. Recovering and reconstructing women's history is not only a need for historiography but also a necessary cornerstone for women to reclaim themselves and establish autonomous, confident lives. In this regard, overseas feminist scholars have already produced a substantial body of research. These studies advocate for analyzing materials from a woman's perspective, "placing women at the center of historical research by reconstructing the voices and perspectives of women that have been traditionally ignored, challenging the patriarchal-dominated traditional historiography."
Conducting oral history of women on this land is because our society and our historiography face similar issues. For a long time, women have been perceived as a marginalized group, their discourse rights and abilities have been overlooked, and their voices have rarely been attended to by academia, particularly historiography. Therefore, in our context, uncovering and recording women's historical experiences and their voices have become an important part of constructing women's history.
However, it must be clarified: this "series" is not strictly a "women's history" in the narrow sense; it merely expresses women's historical memories and feelings through "women's voices," offering "women's interpretations" of historical events and cultural phenomena we already know, attempting to prove women's existence through female narratives and providing history with a new perspective and multiple avenues for reflection.
This series records women's experiences but is not entirely "feminist historiography." It does not aim to uncover women's special contributions or excessively highlight women's rights but seeks to extract women's experiences from the grand narrative of history and examine how women responded to issues such as nationality, class, politics, economy, and culture during massive historical transformations.
It cannot be denied that feminist historiography has posed a powerful challenge to the traditionally male-centric historiography, clearing the path for the construction of women's history and the rebuilding of historiography—but feminism alone is not enough. It is insufficient as the entire foundation for constructing "history" and cannot even be the sole cornerstone for women's historiography. Recognizing this truth is crucial for our "women's oral history" project.
Participants in the "20th Century (China) Women's Oral History" project largely share the consensus that the academic concerns of female scholars should not only be about women but also about history. For women who have been "unrecorded in history," reclaiming women's history is both a responsibility and an obligation, but women have never existed in isolation. Women's suffering and women's liberation are merely parts of the "grand history," and women's voices are echoes of the "history"—they cannot transcend their time and stand out on their own.
Especially for Chinese women, in this land over a century, apart from their suffering, there have been profound national and familial hardships; above "women's rights," there are indeed class oppression issues concerning national survival; within "gender equality," there are indeed critical political democracy and economic poverty issues that affect the entire society. In this regard, Chinese women have made their own historical responses: they are grand and expansive, far beyond feminist perspectives, no matter how you inspire or guide them. They are indeed more "national" and "social" than purely "female"—if we confine them within a feminist interpretive framework, we may also or misrepresent their voices.