Dewen Zhang

Type

Text

Type

Dissertation

Advisor

Tomes, Nancy | Man-Cheong, Iona | Hesford, Victoria | Li, Danke.

Date

2015-08-01

Keywords

History

Department

Department of History.

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77736

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

Drawing on materials from the Second Historical Archive of China, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Special Collection of American Bureau for Medical Aid to China, as well as other published and unpublished materials gathered in mainland China, Taiwan and the U.S. | this dissertation discusses a broad spectrum of women of various social and political affiliations performed a wide range of work to mobilize collective resistance against Japanese aggression. Integrating women and gender into the exploration of the war and society of 1937-45, this dissertation reveals that women's social relief activities were as much about the emergence of the patriotic female subject of modern women as they were about the wartime deliberations on resistance and the making of the nation. Women portrayed themselves as national citizens who shared half the responsibility for national reconstruction, and took civic pride in their patriotic deeds. During the war, Chinese women gained greater mobility and visibility in public arenas, and cultivated a profound sense of politicization in their relief work in the areas of nursing, war orphan relief, front line service and propaganda work. Their public activities brought them into leadership positions, which often demanded independent and strategic performances in order to survive the deprivations of war. At the same time, women's activities became the embodiment of their commitment to the collective goals of the nation, which was a drastic change from their May Fourth sisters' championing of individual subjectivities and romantic love. Women were often placed in a secondary position and their work was supplementary in nature to the battle work of the soldiers, which was deemed as an ultimate masculine field that excluded women. Thus this dissertation argues wartime conflict affirmed the gender segregation that perpetuated the image of women's non-essentiality. | 226 pages

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