Women and writing in modern China
By: Wendy Larson.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Stanford, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 267
Subjects: Chinese literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Chinese literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Women and literature -- China.; Women -- China -- Social conditions.
Description: Analyzing the protracted cultural debate in modern China over what and how women should write, this book focuses on two concepts of great importance in Chinese literary modernization - the new, liberated woman and the new, autonomous writing.

The author argues that in many modernizing countries traditional constrictions of women became a focus of struggle, and improvements in the treatment of women were considered a sign of national health. In China, however, the traditional emphasis on female virtue and male talent led to protests by women writers against the virtuous woman.

Their writings emphasized not the modernizing virtues of equality in love and marriage, nor the mother as educator of a generation of nation-builders, but unconventional relationships and the refusal to marry.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [237]-256) and index.