Abstract
The New Feminism Movement of the 1970s is the first wave of women movement in postwar Taiwan. This thesis explores why and how the activists took “writing” as an action to form and participate in the movement. The activists and female writers collaborated to fight against the inequality between men and women. However, prior studies on Taiwan literature and women movement have not explained the specific meaning of writing as form of participation. This thesis starts with the summarizing the history of Taiwan in the 1970s, when the diplomatic crises Taiwan confronted with caused the young generation to take parts in various political, social, and cultural movements. Also, the New Feminism leader Lu Hsiu-lien and female writers who cared about women’s issues became activists out of their intersecting gender and generation identity. Besides, the increasing female population in compulsory and higher education, the expanding genres and topics of female writing, and the emergence of local Taiwanese female writers consisted the premise of women’s writing as action in the 1970s. Furthermore, Lu Hsiu-lien’s critique on the “male-centered society” and her advocate of equal rights for women extremely differed from the Kuomintang-affiliated women’s organizations such as Fukunghui and Fulienhui, which emphasized only on women’s duty and work. As an entity, these changes made New Feminism as the first wave of women movement in postwar Taiwan. In 1976, several female activists and writers launched the Pioneer Press, which was the first non-governmental female publisher in postwar Taiwan. The core members were Lu Hsiu-lien, Wang Chung-ping, Shih Shu-ching, and Tsao Yu-fang. Their allies were female columnists Madam Wei-wei, Tan-fei, and Chen Leng. There were supporters, including scholars, newspaper journalists, magazine editors, and novelists. They published their writing to enlighten readers and to raise consciousness of female readers. Besides, they also took other actions such as establishing “Protect You Hot line”, intending to help female victims of sexual assault. Although the women movement occurred through “literature-communication” in Taiwan under the martial law, the female activists and writers still faced obstacles from the Kuomintang government, suffering from the “stigma of sex” imposed by the government books banning policy. What is worse, they were confronted with the continuous monitoring and harassment by the intelligence personnel. The constant coercion led to the notorious “Ho Hsiu-tze Incident”. Numerous setbacks Lu Hsiu-lien experienced during engaging in women movement turned into a stronger sense of political opposition. She participated in the Dangwai (outside of the Kuomintang) election, and went into prison because of her advocate of greater democracy and freedom later. After exploring the history of women movement in the 1970s, I apply feminist literary criticism and feminist jurisprudence viewpoint to interpret the novels and short essays by the novelists and the columnists. First, I analyze the characters, plots and the results of each novel in Woman and Man. By applying feminist literary criticism, I am able to reevaluate the novels by Kang Yun-wei, Shih Shu-ching, Hsin Tai, and Tsao Yu-fang; even more, it becomes possible to correct the “sex-blindness” prevalent in existing studies on the Taiwan literature history of the 1970s. Second, I focus on the legal issues in the short essays by the female columnists. Their discussion on legal issues in women’s life, and their advocate to change the unfair law showed the origin of Taiwanese feminist jurisprudence viewpoint. This thesis also explores female writers who wrote about women issues but did not participate in the women movement, and indicated that female activists and writers kept writing even after the leader Lu Hsiu-lien was imprisoned. This thesis ends at the historical point of 1983 when Li Ang’s The Butcher’s Wife won the prize, which meant that novels on women issues became recognized by the public. Finally, I expect that feminist literary criticism becomes an approach to reevaluate Taiwan literature works of different periods. This approach helps researchers to see the specific meaning of female writing which formed and promoted the women movement in the 1970s in Taiwan.