Women Journalists and Feminism in China, 1898–1937 By Yuxin Ma

Introduction

Women's Journals, Feminism, and the Public Sphere in China

A most remarkable change took place in the first half of the twentieth century in China: women journalists became powerful professionals who championed feminist interests, discussed national politics, and commented on current social events by editing independent periodicals. The rise of modern journalism in China provided literate women a powerful institution to articulate women's presence in the public space. In editing women's periodicals, women writers transformed themselves from traditional literary women (cainü) to professional women journalists (nübaoren) in the period of 1898–1937, when journalism became increasingly independent of and resistant to state control. The existence of hundreds of women's periodicals testified to women's public activism at a time when print media just had started shaping the political opinions and participation of the citizenry. These published writings provide us