Consecuencias económicas de cambios en la normatividad contable en general y su

Aside from exposing women’s oppression, a great deal of discussion centred on the concept of the “new woman” (xin nüxing新女性). Focus on the issue was assisted by the growth in the publishing industry, especially in Shanghai where thirty-one women’s periodicals had been published by 1927,378 as well as the rise of the New Culture Movement which challenged ideas on the traditional role of women.

375 _{Lu Xun, “Nala zouhou zenyang” 娜拉走後怎様 (What Happened after Nora Left?), Funü zazhi (August 1924):}

1218–27.

376 _{Wang, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment, 63.} 377 _{Ibid., 64.}

378 _{Huang Sha 荒砂 Meng Yan 孟燕, Shanghai funü zhi 上海妇女志 (Shanghai: Shanghai shehuikexueyuan}

113 The monthly entitled Funü zazhi encapsulated the surge of discussions on what a new woman should be like. Targeted specifically at middle and upper class women,379 _{the magazine published by the} influential Commercial Press in Shanghai, became very popular. A major journal that enjoyed a wide circulation and discussed women’s problems from various perspectives, an examination of Funü zazhi’s content can be used to shed light on discussions of gender ethos during the May Fourth Era.

Funü zazhi

From its beginning, Funü zazhi promoted a concept of an ideal womanhood for the modern homemaker and manager. Wang Yunzhang 王蕴章 (1884–1942), its chief editor from 1915 to 1920, set the basic tone in two columns, namely xueyi 學 兿 (learning) and jiazheng 家 政 (domestic science).380 _{As Jacqueline Nivard notes, Funü zazhi during this period continued “the thought of late} imperial Confucian reformers” and “feminist ideas from the beginning of the century.”381

In the 1920s, however, Funü zazhi shifted from an image of a womanhood modeled on traditional ethics to one inspired by the notions of freedom of love and gender equality.382 _{At the height of the} May Fourth Movement, the leaders of the Commercial Press considered a humanist standpoint was necessary in the changing environment. As a result, Zhang Xichen 章錫琛 was appointed as the new editor of Funü zazhi on the recommendation of Qian Zhixiu 銭智修, another editor in the Commercial Press. Zhang took up the position in 1921 and was instrumental in adjusting its focus and content on liberal causes. Accordingly, special issues published during this period concentrated on divorce (1920), family reform (1923), spouse selection (1923), and gender understanding (1924). The circulation, according to Zhang, increased from 2,000–3,000 to 10,000 copies.383 _{Up until Zhang’s resignation in}

379 _{Wang, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment, 68.}

380 _{Liu Huiying 刘慧英, “Bei zhebi de funü fuchu lishi xushu—jianshu chuqi de Funü zazhi” 被遮蔽的妇女浮出历}

史叙述—简述初期的《妇女杂志》, Shanghai wenxue上海文学Vol. 3 (2006): 71.

381 _{Jacqueline Nivard, “Women and the Women’s Press: The Case of the Ladies’ Journal 1915–1931,” Republican}

China Vol. X (November Number 1b): 39.

382 _{In the 1920s, the circulation reached 10,000 copies. See Zhang Xichen 章锡琛, “Cong banxuexiao dao jinru}

shangwu bianyisuo,” 102.

383 _{Zhang Xichen 章錫琛, “Cong shangren dao shangren” 從商人到商人 (From Business Person to Business}

114 1925, the content characterised a new dynamic that promoted free marriage, free divorce, love, morality, and sexuality.

Zhang Xichen, therefore, transformed Funü zazhi into a medium that promoted a “new feminism” based on gender difference that encouraged the role of each sex.384 _{Contrasting with the old one that} attempted to remove the gap between men and women, the goal of the feminist movement, according to another article published in Funü zazhi in 1923, was not to compete with men in areas of politics, law, society, and industry but to reform attitudes towards gender relations, which was considered as fundamental to the society and the ideal family.385

Many articles in the journal, nevertheless, aimed at reforming women’s gender views and not those of men. An example was its circulation of the work of Ellen Key (1849–1926), a Swedish writer who advocated freedom of marriage while upholding the significance of women’s motherhood. Key argued that women were natural mothers and should stay at home to focus on their children. The selection of Key’s work in Funü zazhi is no surprise as it fits well with the ideal womanhood upheld by the supporters of this new feminism. Contemporary scholar Liu Huiying notes that it was in essence an imaginary version of womanhood from a male-dominated perspective,386 _{as seen in an article written} by Zhang Xichen in 1921:

… therefore those who advocate for women’s emancipation often move on from equal rights for men and women to women’s masculinisation (nanzi hua男子化).This is indeed a fallacy of overcorrection. Of course, there should be equal rights between men and women. However, women are assigned a more significant task than men. That is the “motherhood” in Ellen Key’s work. Her “motherhood” means more than bringing up

384 _{Genda Minoru 原田実, Wei Xin 味辛 (tr.), “Fuminieshimu gaishuo” 弗彌湼士姆槪説 (A General Summary}

of Feminism), Funü zazhi (May 1922): 71.

385 _{Gaoshan 高山, “Xinren de chansheng” 新人的産生 (The Birth of New Person), Funü zazhi (October 1923): 4.} 386 _{Liu Huiying 刘慧英, “‘Funü zhuyi’: wusi shidai de chanwu—wusi shiqi Zhang Xichen zhuchi de Funü zazhi”}

“妇女主义”：五四时代的产物——五四时期章锡琛主持的《妇女杂志》 (Funü zazhi under the Editorship

115 children like birds and animals would do for their offspring. Rather, it means to pay attention to the children from both physical and spiritual perspectives so that human beings as well as human culture can evolve from generation to generation. … Key’s advocacy of morality and love, freedom of divorce, and gender equality aims at protecting motherhood and expanding mother’s rights.387

Zhang Xichen’s ideas eventually incurred antagonism from the Chinese intelligentsia. In January 1925,

Funü zazhi published a special volume entitled The New Sexual Morality. It was an issue aiming at reconstructing the concept of morality based on the notions of liberal love and individual will. One article, written by Zhang Xichen under the title of “What is the new sexual morality?”, argued that as long as it does no harm to the society or any individual, marriage between one husband and two wives, or two husbands and one wife, was not immoral if permission from both sides was be obtained.388 Chen Bainian 陳百年, a professor at the Peking University, wrote an article entitled “Yifuduoqi de xin hufu” 一 夫 多 妻 的 新 护 符 (A New Phylactery for Polygamy) in 1925, in the influential weekly periodical Xiandai pinglun 現代評論 criticising Zhang’s ideas.389 _{In Chen’s opinion, this “new sexual} morality” was parallel to the polygamy of the old society. He pointed out that polygamy was closely related to the problem of sexual indulgence and upheld monogamy as an ideal family model. Chen’s criticism was seriously assessed by the Commercial Press, which resulted in its dismissal of Zhang Xichen.390

The concept of the “new woman” indicated the rejection of Confucian values in the new China and a belief that the status of women was “despair.” Ching-kiu Stephen Chan notes discussions on the “new women” reflected “the dilemma of modern Chinese realism as a crisis in the formation of ‘self’ for the

387 _{Se Lu (Zhang Xichen) 瑟庐(章錫琛), “Ailunkai nüshi yu qi sixiang” 愛倫凱女士與其思想 (Ellen Key and Her}

Ideas), Funü zazhi (February 1921): 27.

388 _{Zhang Xichen, “Xin xingdaode shi shenme” 新性道德是什麽 (What is New Sexual Morality?), Funü zazhi}

(January 1925): 6.

389 _{Chen Bainian 陳百年, “Yifuduoqi de xinhufu” 一夫多妻的新护符 (A New Phylactery for Polygamy), Xiandai}

pinlun現代評論 Vol. 1 No. 14 (1925): 6–8.

116 women within a ‘new’ sociocultural space still very much organized by a language that spoke of despair through the patriarchal voice.”391 _{In the search for a new set of gender ethics, articles in Funü}

zazhi following the May Fourth Incident promoted and reinforced the discourse of a “new feminism,” which reflected male-dominated ideas on how to achieve women’s emancipation. The following section examines how the manner of the secular debate on gender morals was reflected in Nü duo.