子宫里的中国

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谁不爱自己的母亲，用那滚烫的赤子心灵。亲爱的祖国，慈祥的母亲，长江黄河欢腾着，欢腾着深情，我们对您的深情。

—— 「祖国，慈祥的母亲」

深入人心的祖国-母亲的政治隐喻是怎样形成的？Motherhood 如何会从私人的情感体验中走出，成为国家意识形态的一部分？Institutionalized motherhood 的建构带来了哪些进步，又掩盖了哪些创伤？

在本校上的 online CC Mothering China: From Womb to Nation，看名字就觉得很有意思。也是唯一一门会影响我这学期 GPA 的课程 —— 好龟来 …… 啊啊 …… 𓀎 𓀏 𓀐 𓀑 𓀓 𓀔 𓀕 𓀖 𓀗 好龟啊好龟 …… 𓀘 𓀙 𓀚 𓀛 𓀜 𓀝 𓀀


  This article is a self-administered course note.

  It will NOT cover any exam or assignment related content.


Mothers in China

Motherhood is both a personal and public experience.

  • personal: mother's body.
  • public: family and social role - every mother is subjected to the scrutiny of herself, her family and society.

In Chinese societies, childbearing takes place within marriage despite rising divorce rates, extremely low fertility, and increased tolerance for non-marital sexuality. In constrast, single motherhood is punished with significant fines, and carries an unshakable stigma.

Citizens, or Mothers of Citizens?

  • Joan Judge argues that Chinese women became important historical actors in the early twentieth century.
  • As virgin political actors, their new role as ‘female citizens’ was open to limitless manipulations.


Motherhood and National Salvation

Late Qing China

Concubinage (妻妾制度) is a social practice in patriarchal societies.

  • 母凭子贵与一夫多妻 - wives and concubines exerted influence over politics and male emperors.
  • polyandry (一妻多夫) and wife selling in rural families - ironically, woman became the centre in the web of relations among men.

施害-受害关系之外 - Sommer shows that women (or mothers) were active agents who constructed meaningful choices within the constraints of the Confucian gender system.

解放女性与晚清救国运动 - Joan Judge argues that during the late Qing period, conservative officials, moderate reformers and radical revolutionaries all considered education to be the key to preparing women’s role in the new nation. Their ultimate goal was to mobilize female energies to patriotic movements.

反缠足，作为反传统的总代表 - To individuals against footbinding, the practice symbolizes everything that was wrong about ‘tradition’.

  • the origin of footbinding: fashion (lotus shoes)
  • 1860s-1910s, footbinding was under global scrutiny. 「天足运动」
  • 1950s, footbinding officially bent under coercive communist campaign

救国叙事与今日女性 - The discourse of national salvation is still used today to provide or deny maternity policies or services (e.g. breastfeeding, maternity leave, child care subsidies)

那么，代价是什么呢？

  • mothers are the main victims of family status discrimination.
  • If a woman chooses to become a mother, then it automatically means she chooses to suffer from the so-called motherhood penalty.


Hygiene & Fetal Education

Republican China & Colonial Hong Kong

优生学 (Eugenics)，以赛先生之名。

  • As Chinese nationalists grappled with the political and military weakness of the new Republic, some sought to strengthen the Chinese race in the name of ‘science’ (kexue 科学).
  • Contrary to the doctrine of genetic determinism (hard inheritance), they viewed inheritance as a flexible process which could be improved by human intervention (soft inheritance).

救国叙事的延续 - Women were called upon to help strengthen the race and build the nation, often as ‘mothers of citizens’ (guomin zhi mu 國民之母).

胎教：一个现代审视。

  • The ideas of taijiao and woman's submissiveness may have had roots in China's past (Zhou, Han, Qing...)
  • Republican China: backed up by the 'scientific' belief that fetus is highly impressionable by outside forces, the practice focuses on strict morality and the natural inferiority of women.
  • Today's taijiao should not become a shackle that restricts women's autonomy; instead, it should be embraced as a positive family practice centered on mothers' well-being.


National Reproduction

Republican China

从「接生婆」到「助产士」。

  • Institutionalized training and education.
  • e.g., The First National Midwifery School (中华第一助产学校), affiliated with Peking Union Medical College (PUMC, 北京协和医学院).
  • The highly medicalized and state-sponsored birth model has remained standard in urban China.

Killing Babies - 传统与现代。

  • Contraception (避孕), birth control (节育), and abortion (堕胎) were introduced in China. Republican elites considered eugenics and population control a means to prevent China’s further decline. (胡适，张竞生与桑格夫人 Margaret Sanger)
  • Female infanticide (杀害女婴).
    • morality warning. 毙女绝嗣, 帮溺绝嗣, 溺女伤子 (男本位)；男女平衡 (国家本位).
    • shameful acts in Westerners' eyes (民族主义本位).
    • illegal and inhumane acts (人权本位).

民国时期现代助产改革运动的困境。

  • Lack of funding and resources, political and social turmoil, and deep-rooted cultural beliefs.
  • Traditional midwives (接生婆) were widespread, often untrained, and operated within a context of gender taboos, such as the view that only women could examine other women.
  • Modern reforms required significant investments in education and healthcare infrastructure, which were constrained by civil wars and instability.
  • Societal resistance to abandoning long-established practices, and a reliance on foreign philanthropists, hindered the full implementation of modern, Westernized medical standards in midwifery.


Revolutionary Love

PRC China

Mao's Ideal: 敢于斗争，敢于胜利，妇女能顶半边天。

  • Republican Legacy. prefessionalization of midwifery and the growing medicalization of childbirth.
  • Civil War Time. CCP promotes midwifery training and childbirth reforms (Shaan-Gan-Ning Region).
  • Great Leap Forward (大跃进时期). Barefoot Doctors (赤脚医生) & Combination of traditional midwives with the "new birth method".

从家庭妇女到女工。

By the end of the Great Leap Forward, 90% of the women were earning a wage of some kind. However, Women were still urged to be good housewives and mothers so that their husbands could in turn become more effective workers.

Communes (人民公社) & Great Femine Period.

  • Communal nurseries and kindergartens were set up everywhere to allow women to join the workforce. However, hygiene conditions were appalling. Many children had difficulty surviving because their ration was stolen by adults (Liu Xiliu).
  • The work-point system in the Communes privileged strong men rather than women.

革命的爱情 - Passion, Sex and Going Astray.

The abolishment of 'feudal' marriages.

  • Free and independent marriages.
  • The right to divorce (after mediation by a goverment registrar).
  • Minumum legal age.

Marriage and childbearing were not as orderly as believed in the early PRC.

  • Excessive out-of-wedlock pregnancies emerged.
  • Workers had sex in full daylight and in front of other people ("We are merely following the party's call for 'open social interaction'!").
  • During campaigns against counterrevolutionaries, many male workers were sent to labor camps, their wives thus had affairs with other workers.
  • Sexual conservatism persists with a new face. ("Sex was bourgeois... Revolutionaries had nothing to do about it. When revolutionaries fell in love, they loved with their hearts.")


Socialist Androgyny

PRC China & Post-War Hong Kong

文革时期的去性化 (Socialist Androgyny)。

  • Androgyny refers to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics.
  • Socialist androgyny symbolizes a Communist sexual puritanism that the Party upheld. (性欲与性关系被视为 bourgeois behaviors)
  • However, some argues that the GPCR androgynous model is actually a male model.

母与女 — 去性化的代际传承。

  • The Red Guards identified themselves as the sexually pure followers of Mao. They sexually purged those who commited adultery or poor sexual practices.
  • Woman were defined as agents of sexual morality and family order; They taught their daughters about the biological processes of menstruation. However, sex was still a forbidden zone, seen as shameful.

兩個夠晒數！(Two is Enough!)

  • HK Eugenics League (香港優生學會) was renamed to Family Planning Association of Hong Kong (香港家庭計劃指導會, FPAHK) in 1950. (the word Eugenics was denounced for its relation to Nazi)
  • The end of Chinese Civil War introduced massive refugee influx into Hong Kong. (1.6 million to 2 million)
  • FPAHK quoted the successful example in China, identified 'two' as the ideal number of births, and also strove to fight against traditional preference for sons.


Child Policy: One, Two, to Three

PRC China

One-Child Policy (1979-2015): Origin and Legacy.

  • 建国前：
    • 农耕传统: China's long history of agriculture relies on manpower.
    • 人多好办事: Mao saw manpower as crucial for China's development and global competitiveness.
  • 1956 年，「计划生育」概念首次被提出
  • 1979 年，一孩政策与改革开放 (Reform and Opening-Up Policy) 同时期提出
  • Legacy:
    • negative: harsh measures, increased female infanticide => huge gender disparity, undocumented additional children (黑孩子)
    • positive: woman are liberated from traditional reproductive responsibilities, unleashed labor force

Two & Three-Child Policy: Challenges Today.

  • Purpose: tackle social problems - gender imbalance, aging population, decreased labor force
  • Reality: "Failed" in some sense.
    • increased gender discrimination: more pressure on working woman
    • single woman discrimination (独身女性无生育权)
    • financial strain on multiple-children family

怎样的 mindset 才是建立在尊重的基础之上的？

People are not machines whose reproductive systems can be turned on or off at will. - John Oliver


Taboo of Single Motherhood

PRC China, HKSAR

China has become sexually more liberated.

  • Divorce is no longer a taboo.
  • Non-marital sexuality (premarital, teenage, extramarital, non-heterosexual sex) is increasingly tolerated (个人感觉仅有 permarital 如此，其余的接受程度远低于 single motherhood)
  • Childbearing still takes place largely within the context of marriage - premaritcal pregnancy remains a taboo in Chinese societies (奉子成婚). Also, this social disapproval is exacerbated by bureaucratic barriers (「社会抚养费」，黑户).

However, it is relaxed over time.

Hong Kong 1978, Mother's Choice (母親的抉擇).


Reference

  This article is a self-administered course note.

  References in the article are from corresponding course materials if not specified.

Course info: CCCH5054 Mothering China: From Womb to the Nation (Online), taught by Dr. C.L. Tsang

Course website: https://commoncore.hku.hk/CCCH5054/

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