Shaping the New Woman: The Dilemma of Shen in China’s Republican Period

Abstract

As a response to China's experiences with European colonialism, a number of political and intellectual movements emerged during the late 19th and early 20th century, with the objective to inculcate certain desirable qualities into its citizens, particularly the modern woman. This article compares the modern Chinese concept of the physical body (shenti 身體) with that of the traditional ideal Confucian body (shen 身). By emphasizing shenti as a vessel for objective knowledge amid the construction of a politically-desired social order, Chinese activists adapted a Western, binary mind-body concept. However, this in turn gave rise to a number of social problems. Greed, moral corruption, and prostitution ultimately revealed the modern shenti concept to be a volatile construct. Through this process, the female body came to stand for the revolutionary promises of modernity, but also served as a focus for collective delusions, as well as a meeting point for all manners of anxieties.