Beyond “Good Wives and Wise Mothers”: Feminism as Anticolonialism in Manchukuo Schools

This article investigates how Chinese female students in Manchukuo expressed female emancipation and anticolonial ideas in their secondary schools. The colonial government tried to teach a conservative “good wives and wise mothers” ideology, and many students replied by advocating rhetoric of female emancipation that some called “beyond good wives and wise mothers.” Although they were not free to openly oppose the existence of the colonial regime, their advocacy of female emancipation can be read as acting in lieu of such open opposition. Examining the interplay between the state’s messages and the students’ advocacy in school journals clarifies the tensions among colonialism, anticolonialism, patriarchy, and feminism. The articles published in these journals suggest Manchukuo women saw a link between their opposition to Japan’s conservative gender policies and its colonial rule. This linkage helped Manchukuo women avoid the tension found in other colonial societies between efforts at female liberation and anticolonial nationalism.