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

dialects (e.g., subai, the dialect of Suzhou), and tanci (a Southern-style singing performance accompanied by instruments) in their media writings in order to reach women readers of limited literacy levels. In contrast to revolution-minded women journalists in Tokyo and southern China, women journalists in northern China (Beijing and Tianjin) in the 1900s were often the wives and daughters of court officials and enjoyed special privileges. As advocates of social reform, northern women journalists criticized political corruption from their royalist perspective, exposed social evils and peoples’ indifference, discussed national strengthening and enlightenment (kai minzhi), and proposed women's patriotism, education, independence, and equal rights.² Around the founding of the Republic of China in 1912, many women journalists were revolutionaries-turned-suffragists who belonged to specific suffrage organizations. Women journalists in the early 1910s were often spokespersons for women's societies with different feminist and political agendas. The political nature of women's journalism prevented women writers from forming professional alliances or representing public opinion.

In 1915 young urban intellectuals began agitating for reform and strengthening Chinese society through acceptance of Western science, democracy, and schools of thought. On May 4, 1919, students in Beijing protested against the Versailles peace conference's decision to transfer former German concessions in China to Japan, and the movement led to a patriotic outburst of new intellectuals against foreign imperialists and warlords in China. In the May Fourth era (1915–1923), many women students at modern schools in major urban centers in China were active in journalism. Influenced by liberal and humanist ideas, they explored women's individual rights in education, career, love and marriage, suffrage, and inheritance in their writings. Beginning in the early 1920s, Communist women and Christian women also edited journals to promote their political causes or religious views. The National Revolution (1924–1927), led by the first united front of the GMD and the CCP, turned some May Fourth feminists into devoted partisans. The political parties defined nationalism as “anti-warlord, national unification and sovereignty,” and women's movements as “women's participation in the