The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China's Collective Past / Edition 1

by Gail Hershatter

Overview

What can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized group—rural women—at the center of the inquiry? In this book, Gail Hershatter explores changes in the lives of seventy-two elderly women in rural Shaanxi province during the revolutionary decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Interweaving these women’s life histories with insightful analysis, Hershatter shows how Party-state policy became local and personal, and how it affected women’s agricultural work, domestic routines, activism, marriage, childbirth, and parenting—even their notions of virtue and respectability. The women narrate their pasts from the vantage point of the present and highlight their enduring virtues, important achievements, and most deeply harbored grievances. In showing what memories can tell us about gender as an axis of power, difference, and collectivity in 1950s rural China and the present, Hershatter powerfully examines the nature of socialism and how gender figured in its creation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520282490
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/07/2014
Series:	Asia Pacific Modern , #8
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Gail Hershatter is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of many books, including Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai and Women in China’s Long Twentieth Century, both from UC Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Maps

Introduction
1. Frames
2. No One Is Home
3. Widow (or, the Virtue of Leadership)
4. Activist
5. Farmer
6. Midwife
7. Mother
8. Model
9. Laborer
10. Narrator

Appendix: Interviews Notes Glossary References Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A landmark in women's history and the history of China."—London Review of Books

"Remarkable. . . . Hershatter has a complicated story to tell about women's experiences in mid-twentieth-century China."—Ms Magazine

"If you want to be reminded of how moving history can be, then read this book."—New Books
In Gender Studies

"The Gender of Memory is not only a story of China's past but a gift of restless questions for the present."—China Quarterly

"Hershatter offers a breathtaking interrogation of her sources and methods, rendering elegantly transparent the thought processes behind her book's production."—Cross Currents: East Asian History & Cultural Review

Interviews

For students, including undergrads, and scholars of China and gender studies.

Editorial Reviews

The Gender of Memory is not only a story of China’s past but a gift of restless questions for the present.

China Quarterly - Ellen R. Judd

Hershatter offers a breathtaking interrogation of her sources and methods, rendering elegantly transparent the thought processes behind her book’s production.

Cross Currents: East Asian History & Cultural Review

A landmark in women’s history and the history of China.

London Review Of Books - James C. Scott

Remarkable. . . . Hershatter has a complicated story to tell about women’s experiences in mid-twentieth-century China.

Ms Magazine

If you want to be reminded of how moving history can be, then read this book.

New Books In Gender Studies

Arresting and engaging. . . . The Gender of Memory is a work of outstanding scholarship and significance.

The China Journal - Louise Edwards

If you want to be reminded of how moving history can be, then read this book.

New Books Ícaro|Ícaro|Ícaro|In Gender Studies

"A landmark in women's history and the history of China."--London Review of Books

"Remarkable. . . . Hershatter has a complicated story to tell about women's experiences in mid-twentieth-century China."--Ms Magazine

"If you want to be reminded of how moving history can be, then read this book."--New Books In Gender Studies

"The Gender of Memory is not only a story of China's past but a gift of restless questions for the present."--China Quarterly

"Hershatter offers a breathtaking interrogation of her sources and methods, rendering elegantly transparent the thought processes behind her book's production."--Cross Currents: East Asian History & Cultural Review

From the Publisher