Among those seeking to change China, the question of women’s roles in society frequently arose. Kang Youwei (see Document 19.1), for example, looked forward to the end of traditional marriage, hoping it would be replaced by a series of one-year contracts between a man and woman, which he thought would ensure gender equality. But the most well-known advocate for women was Qiu Jin (1875–1907). Born into a well-to-do family with liberal inclinations, she received a fine literary education, developing a passion for reading as well as for swordplay, horseback riding, and fighting with boys. Married to a much older man at age 18, she was distinctly unsatisfied in such a conventional life. In 1903, she did something almost unthinkable for a Chinese woman when she left her husband and children to pursue an education in Japan. Returning in 1906, she started a women’s magazine and became active in revolutionary circles. For her role in an abortive plot to overthrow the Qing dynasty, she was arrested and beheaded in 1907. The selection that follows comes from her most famous appeal for the rights of women.

QIU JIN

An Address to Two Hundred Million Fellow Countrywomen

1904

Alas! The greatest injustice in this world must be the injustice suffered by our female population of two hundred million. If a girl is lucky enough to have a good father, then her childhood is at least tolerable. But if by chance her father is an ill-tempered and unreasonable man, he may curse her birth: “What rotten luck: another useless thing.” Some men go as far as killing baby girls while most hold the opinion that “girls are eventually someone else’s property” and treat them with coldness and disdain. In a few years, without thinking about whether it is right or wrong, he forcibly binds his daughter’s soft, white feet with white cloth so that even in her sleep she cannot find comfort and relief until the flesh becomes rotten and the bones broken. What is all this misery for? Is it just so that on the girl’s wedding day friends and neighbors will compliment him, saying, “Your daughter’s feet are really small”? Is that what the pain is for?

But that is not the worst of it. When the time for marriage comes, a girl’s future is placed in the hands of shameless matchmakers and a family seeking rich and powerful in-laws. . . . [T]he girl . . . is not allowed to breathe one word about her future. After her marriage, if the man doesn’t do her any harm, she is told that she should thank Heaven for her good fortune. But if the man is bad or he ill-treats her, she is told that her marriage is retribution for some sin committed in her previous existence. . . . When Heaven created people it never intended such injustice because if the world is without women, how can men be born? Why is there no justice for women?

Dear sisters, you must know that you’ll get nothing if you rely upon others. You must go out and get things for yourselves. . . . It seems clear now that it was we women who abandoned our responsibilities to ourselves and felt content to let men do everything for us. As long as we could live in comfort and leisure, we let men make all the decisions for us. . . . At the same time we were insecure in our good fortune and our physical comfort, so we did everything to please men. When we heard that men like small feet, we immediately bound them just to please them, just to keep our free meal tickets. . . .

Let us put aside our former selves and be resurrected as complete human beings. . . . If your husbands want to open schools, don’t stop them; if your good sons want to study abroad, don’t hold them back. . . . After your sons are born, send them to schools. You must do the same for your daughters and, whatever you do, don’t bind their feet. As for you young girls among us, go to school if you can. If not, read and study at home. . . . You must know that when a country is near destruction, women cannot rely on the men anymore because they aren’t even able to protect themselves. If we don’t take heart now and shape up, it will be too late when China is destroyed.