Considering the heightened interest in gender-related topics in recent years, it is somewhat surprising that there has been no full-length study in English of the Chinese women's suffrage movement. Much of the existing scholarship, in the form of articles and chapter-length pieces, has come from Louise Edwards, who has now drawn together years of research into a sustained account of Chinese women's struggle for political rights from 1898 to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Drawing from a wide array of newspapers and journals of the time, Edwards argues that “China's feminists moved pragmatically between arguments based on women's inherent equality with men and those based on women's difference from men” (p. 2). They saw these as complementary rhetorical strategies, rather than the fundamental philosophical difference that divided American suffragists. Indeed, one of the propositions running through the book is the reminder not to take the Western experience as the pattern that all suffrage movements should follow. Still, there were many commonalities and points of contact between the Chinese feminists and the international women's movement.
Suffrage activists in the late Qing began with an argument of equality, based on the inherent natural rights that all human beings shared. They also drew attention to their patriotic contributions to the incipient nation through their activities in the Revolutionary Alliance and Dare-to-Die brigades. Military service granted them the right to full citizenship, they believed, while education conferred upon them the moral authority to participate in the public sphere that male scholar-officials had hitherto monopolized. From the outset, then, Chinese feminists saw no contradiction between inherent rights and citizenship that must be earned.
With the failure of the new republic to incorporate women's rights into the new constitution, however, their tactics shifted. Edwards recounts the famous incident of the storming of the parliament, together with similar battles conducted in provincial assemblies and through the press. Activists also underscored their ties to the global women's suffrage movement, exploiting the long-standing desire for China to be respected internationally as a modern nation. As the New Culture movement undermined Confucian assumptions about women's subordination, feminists argued that their collective disadvantage—their difference from men as a group, not as individuals—produced distinct political interests, thus necessitating women representatives to safeguard women's interests. Women's rights involved a range of issues besides suffrage, including marriage and divorce laws, inheritance, and concubinage.
Edwards shows that, contrary to conventional historiography, feminist activism continued in the 1920s and 1930s. The Guomindang gave some recognition to women's separate interests, but the conservative New Life movement reemphasized women's roles as wives and mothers. The Chinese Communist Party was genuinely committed to egalitarianism but prioritized class struggle over bourgeois electoral rights. Still, by maneuvering carefully in the shifting political environment, feminists did achieve some gains—often small-scale or short-lived, but significant nonetheless.
The book is thoroughly researched and, for the most part, well written. Edwards provides rich detail on the rhetorical and political moves of a diverse cast of individuals and organizations and relates Chinese feminism to themes of nationalism, class, and modernity. Despite extensive quotes from newspapers, journals, and manifestos, however, the reader is sometimes left wishing for the “smoking gun” of documentary evidence for Edwards's interpretations. Were the activists explicitly aware of what they were doing when they shifted from arguments of equality to arguments for difference? Did they debate the implications of such a move? The author also asserts that male politicians were sensitive to the issue of international respectability and modernity in recognizing women's rights. While I think she is right, it would be useful to hear that in their own words. And if the women themselves were conscious of belonging to a global movement, how far did this go beyond rhetoric? At least in the 1910s and 1920s, Chinese participation in international women's conventions was sparse to the point of tokenism. While the international side is clearly beyond the scope of the present study, further research is needed to flesh out these transnational connections.
Finally, a point that Edwards does not make, but that emerges clearly throughout the narrative, is the importance of not seeing success or failure in strictly binary terms. In this regard, we can see that partial successes, small gains, and short-lived victories all contributed to growing acceptance of the idea of women's political equality.
For those interested in Chinese women's history and the development of feminism, Gender, Politics, and Democracy provides a valuable account of a complex and little-understood movement. Moreover, the study shows the importance of women's activism in shaping the course of China's political development.
