Everydayness as a Critical Category of Gender Analysis: The Case of "Funü shibao" (The Women's Eastern Times)

性別分析的關鍵範疇「日常性」：以《婦女時報〉為中心

季家珍(Joan Judge)

《近代中國婦女史研究》 20期 (2012/12) Pp. 1-28

https://doi.org/10.6352/mhwomen.201212.0001

摘要

本文分析在20世紀初期的中國，日常生活與性別的聯繫。幾百年來，日常瑣事一直是家訓家規及日用類書的討論主題；但到了晚清及民國初年，印刷文化出現一些新的現象：如傳遞日常知識的出版品激增，新科學與日常生活的關聯性日益緊密，女性在新式的科學化日常生活、社會演化及國家復興等急迫性問題上扮演關鍵性角色。本文認為，婦女與日常生活理論化之間的聯繫，能夠促使我們了解這個時期究竟提供婦女什麼樣的機會，同時，日常生活可能比國族主義或女權主義更有效地進行性別分析。擬定「進步日常生活議程」的作者並不是赫赫有名的知識份子，亦少撰寫關於社會改革或新文化運動的著作。這些在上海出版、以全國城市讀者為對象的日常生活材料，多半由商業出版社出版，而非學術或意識形態掛帥的出版社。作者熱切地在小說、婦女刊物及一般性雜誌中，探索、挖掘並提升日常生活的地位；這些資料作為歷史變遷的動力，其重要性並不亞於改革派、五四新文化及共產黨革命知識分子所提出的社會願景。本文的主要史料是中國最早的商業性婦女期刊《婦女時報》（上海：1911-1917），該刊宗旨乃與晚清及五四知識份子所提出的「宏偉議程」一致，均著眼於國家之利來提倡女學，該刊內容亦多敘此議。然而本文的焦點放在該刊的另類「日常生活議程」，它出現在社論、議論文、徵文比賽主題、讀者投書、日記及調查等各種欄目。這兩種議程的不開點在於前者重點在於國家衰微，需要為沈淪的市民打造新的全球性理想，後者所關注的則是地方性的日常生活，必須透過新的、科學知識及新的誘導式教育加以提升。本文焦點放在男女作者所共同關注的兩方面，婦女的生育健康及家庭教育。關於這些議題，大部分學者假定一種嚴格的性別分工，即男性記者批評女性領域的不足，或男性理論家提出社會政策，由女性來執行；但細讀《婦女時報》後發現，這種模式並不全然正確。因此，本文認為日常生活是性別分析的關鍵範疇。

關鍵字

日常生活 ； 性別 ； 商業性出版社 ； 婦女時報 ； 宏偉議程 ； 日常生活議程 ； 瞿鈞 ； 葉聖陶 ； 惲代英 ； 汪傑樑

並列摘要

This essay analyzes the links between the valorization of the everyday and gender in early twentieth century China. While the quotidian had been a topic of discussion for centuries in Confucian family instruction manuals and encyclopedias for daily life, what was new in the late Qing and early Republic was the proliferation of print materials that disseminated everyday knowledge, the links that authors of these materials drew between new scientific learning and the quotidian and the centrality of women as lynchpins between a newly scientized daily life and pressing questions of social evolution and national revitalization. The essay asserts that this link between women and new theorizations of the quotidian is critical to understanding the range of possibilities that opened up for women in this period, and that the everyday is a potentially more productive category of gender analysis than either nationalism or feminism.The authors of the progressive ”Everyday Agenda” were not the well known intellectuals writing for the flagship publications of the reform or New Culture movements. Much of the material on daily life that was published in Shanghai and avidly read by urban audiences dispersed throughout China, was produced by writers for the commercial rather than the intellectual or ideological periodical press. These writers' impassioned quest to explore, expose, and elevate the everyday in the pages of fiction, women's, and general interest magazines is arguably as important a source of historical change as the more widely trumpeted epic social vision of the reformist, May Fourth, and Communist movements.The prime source for this essay is o ne of these publications, China's first commercial women's journal, ”Funü shibao” 婦女時報 (The women's eastern times, Shanghai 1911-1917). The journal's stated objectives were directly in line with the ”Epic Agenda” promoted by late-Qing reformers and May Fourth-era iconoclasts- to promote women's learning in the service of the nation-and much of the journal's content addresses this theme. The focus of this essay is, however, on the journal's alternative and arguably more historically significant ”Everyday Agenda,” which was articulated in its editorial column, discursive essays, essay contest themes, readers' columns, diaries, and surveys. While the point of departure for the Epic Agenda was national weakness and the need to project new global ideals of citizenry downward, the sources of the Everyday Agenda were quotidian, local concerns that had to be elevated through new, scientific knowledge and new inductive methods of education.This essay focuses on two of these prominent areas of concern, which both female and male contributors addressed: women's reproductive health and household education. Whereas most scholars of these materials have posited a stark division of gendered labor, with male journalists critiquing a female realm of inadequacy or male theorists formulating social policy for women to execute, a close reading of ”Funü shibao” challenges the ubiquity of this dynamic. In so doing, it underlines the importance of the everyday as a critical category of gender analysis.

並列關鍵字

Everyday ； gender ； commercial periodical press ； Funü shibao ； Epic Agenda ； Everyday Agenda ； Qu Jun ； Ye Shengtao ； Yun Daiying ； Wang Jieliang

參考文獻

Scott, Joan W.(2008).AHR Forum, Unanswered Questions.American Historical Review.2008(December),1425.

“Xuanshang wen” 縣賞文 (Essay contests) in Funü shibao 婦女時報 (The women's eastern times)1,3, 4-17.

李仁淵(2005)。新式出版業與智識分子：以包天笑的早期生涯為例。思與言。43(3)，67+78-79。

"Bianji shi" 編輯室, Funü shibao 婦女時報 (The women's eastern times) 1(June 11, 1911), p. 85.

Bao, Tianxiao(1971)。釧影樓回憶錄。Hong Kong:Dahua chubanshe。