5-15 Report for Week 13

Reading Journal – What did I read this week?

• In class on 4/19
  • We learned a lot about the Chinese Communist Party, including its founding in 1921 and its complicated history. WWII occurred, and afterwards, a Civil War with Nationalists resumed.
• Hershatter, Gail. “4. Activist.” In The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China’s Collective Past. Asia Pacific Modern, 8. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
  • Summary
    • This chapter was split up into multiple different sections and parts, and was a bit overwhelming when approaching it at first. In class, we broke up into smaller groups to discuss each section, and were given question prompts in order to understand a bit better. Overall, the chapter stuck around the theme of different kinds of activism that occurred regarding women in Chinese history.
  • Information
    • In class, we got into groups and discussed some questions on the text we read, and one of the sections I spent a lot of time on was section 3, “Winter School.” In this section, Hershatter complicated the success story of bringing literacy to woman in the countryside. Yes, literacy was brought, but for many women, juggling education with regular, everyday womanly duties was very difficult. Abilities were learned by these women, like reading, writing, and other schoolwork-type things, but over time these skills were lost because of the over-shadowing of day-to-day “wifely” duties that needed to be done.
  • Connection
    • This reminded me of the readings from last week about Nushu, the language that was made up by women as far back as the 19th century. Though this language was created, it did not really count as a success story for women because it was more so a means for women to cope with the fact that they were not allowed to be taught to write by men. Much like this form of writing, literacy being brought to women in the countryside can likewise not be considered an ultimate success story because over time, the skills were lost, and women mostly just did not have enough time to dedicate to learning due to other duties that they were required to tend to.
  • Classification
    • This was chapter 4 out of the book The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China’s Collective Past

To-Do List – What to do next week?

• My goal is to get my Second Reflection done ASAP, as well as finish my sketches for the final project!