Feminism and Global Chineseness: The Cultural Production of Cont ...

Introduction

The Cultural Production of Controversial Women Authors

How do we negotiate a space for the female body in the age of economic and cultural globalization, between feminism that celebrates it, nationalism that disciplines it and the flourishing global consumerism that profits from it? While the female body has enjoyed more freedom as a result of rapid development of feminism, economic and cultural globalization engenders a rise in conservative nationalism, encouraged and supported ironically by the recently popular post-colonial theories, against Western values that have been sweeping all over the world. More than ever in the Euroamericentric male-dominated world, the female body has become a site for power struggle between feminists, nationalists, capitalists, and neo-colonialists. And more than ever, Third World women or women of color¹ feel trapped in a dilemma between feminism (racial or cultural), nationalism and neo-colonialism, a dilemma complicated by the sometimes liberating yet often voyeuristic, even pornographic, global popular culture.