Abstract
This study explores the strong connections between public parks and women in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainly focusing on examples drawn from such urban cities as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Resorting to crucial theories and notions from feminist geography, it aims to investigate the intersectionality of gender and space and the ways in which parks as public spaces could both discipline and empower Chinese women. It discusses how women’s activities within public parks shaped complicated cultural implications of urban geographic space, as well as how their interactions with parks reconfigured their gender image and sense of subjectivity. It argues that the opening of public parks to both men and women had provided women with new realizable freedom and sphere of activity, further breaking down the internal/external gender spatial boundaries that traditional Chinese society has held. While women entering parks are objects to be gazed at by visitors and the public media, as well as targets to be disciplined by patriarchal gender rules, they were also active and conscious subjects to participate in political and cultural activities, forming new communities. Through various activities within public parks, women infused new cultural connotations and reshaped these spaces as significant public arenas.
Presenters
Zhuyuan HanPh.D. Candidate, Cultural Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Public Parks; Women in China; Gender and Space; Feminist Geography
