男人是“人”、女人只是“他者”《婦女雜誌》的性別論述

The Masculine Universal and the Feminine Other: Gender Discourse in the Ladies' Journal

江勇振(Yung-Chen Chiang)

《近代中國婦女史研究》 12期 (2004/12) Pp. 39-67

https://doi.org/10.6352/mhwomen.200412.0039

摘要

性別的觀念是社會的建構，想要瞭解男性與女性的觀念，就必須把它們放在特定的時空和性別權力架構之下來分析。而且性別的觀念會隨著時代更迭而變化；同時，性別的觀念是相對的，不管我們所要瞭解的是男性或女性，都必須把它放在兩性關係的整個脈絡下來探討。換句話說，我們沒有辦法把男性和女性單獨抽離；要瞭解男性就必須把它和女性放在一起來瞭解，反之亦然。本文從這兩個理論基點出發，以20世紀初年的《婦女雜誌》的文章作為素材，提出以下觀點：20世紀初年的中國，男性是普遍意義(universal)下的「人」；與之相對，女性只不過是特殊的狹義意義下的「人」，或者，更精確來說，是男性的「他者」(other)。並從下述的五個界面來闡明男性是「人」、女性是男性的「他者」的論點：男女的異同點；所謂女性的缺點；新女性＝消費＝奢侈＝淫蕩；男大當婚，女大當嫁；婚姻與家庭。

關鍵字

婦女雜誌 ； 女性缺點 ； 新女性 ； 教育 ； 婚姻

並列摘要

Gender is a social and relational construct. We can properly understand how a culture constructs its concepts about men and women only when we place them in the context of the totality of gender relations peculiar to its time and place. Using the Ladies 'Journal (Funü zazhi) as a case study, I argue that Luce Irigaray's critique of the Western phallogocentrism that posits the masculine as the universal against which the feminine is ”Other” can be applied just as compellingly in the Chinese context. The gender philosophy manifested in the Ladies' Journal was based on a hierarchical structure in which the inferior-difference of woman served to accentuate the masculine as the universal norm. Thus, even though the masculine remained in the background in the Ladies' Journal, it was the norm against which woman was analyzed, compared, and judged to be inferior to man. I contend that the notion of woman in the Ladies' Journal can be properly understood only if it is analyzed against this masculine norm. I illustrate this gender philosophy by analyzing the following five major topics consistently expounded during the seventeen-year life span of that magazine: the differences between men and women; the so-called| defects of the women; the New Woman as a trope for vanity, conspicuous consumption, and unchaste behavior; the imperative of marriage for men and women; and the ideal marital life for men and women.

並列關鍵字

Ladies' Journal ； female shortcomings ； New Woman ； education ； marriage

參考文獻

Beauvoir, Simone de(1978).The Second Sex.

de Grazia, Victoria,Furlough, Ellen(1996).The sex of things: gender and consumption in historical perspective.

Dyer, Richard(1997).White.

Irigaray, Luce(1974).Speculum of the Other Woman.

Ko, Dorothy(1994).Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China.