Sides with Chinese women: The Christian magazine Woman’s Work in the Far East and Education, 1912-1921

This article interprets the role of female missionaries during the early years of the Republic of China through the lens of the missionary magazine: Woman’s Work in the Far East published in Shanghai by the American Presbyterian Mission Press. Their publications serve as a source of direct access to their thinking. Using the magazines as primary sources, this article examines what were the ideology practices that the female missionaries in China, and what kind of future they envisioned for Chinese women. Female missionaries were not a single individual exerting its position, but a whole constructed throughout cultural exchange. Although the same profession, they played a different role than male missionaries. Female missionaries could direct access to Chinese, especially women, and serve as intermediaries between upper-class women and male missionaries. They actively challenge gender stereotypes and extend their influence into the social sphere, against foot-binding and concubinage. Taking this culture exchange perspective can we see gender ideology as embodied in female missionary magazines and how female missionaries affected Chinese education. They were significant to the development of women’s education in China. As the earliest proponents, female missionaries covered not only the education of school-age students in a systematic education system to train missionaries but also the literacy education of marginalised groups, such as married women and blind children, filled the social welfare. They exerted their initiative and practices for the modernization of China, the shift of Chinese society from a traditional one. Together with their practice, when it came to spiritual education, the Chinese were critical of their missionary goal since it deviated from Chinese nationalism and patriotism. In vocational education, missionaries were also profitable from the unpaid labour of students. All right reserved.