Catholic Discourses on Women in Late Qing China

In the second half of the 19^th century, when China was repeatedly defeated and humiliated by imperial powers, Chinese intellectuals of different backgrounds began to reflect on China’s various social problems in order to push for social reforms by drawing from different Western intellectual sources in their analysis. In their discussion women issue became one of the most prominent due to the connection to ideas such as “liberation” and “freedom.” While some intellectuals were inspired by feminist thoughts in the West, others derived their thoughts from religious perspective. By examining the stories in Hui Bao, the most important Catholic newspaper in China that existed from 1899 to 1911 in Shanghai, this paper investigates how Chinese Catholic intellectuals discussed women issues similarly and differently from the radical thinkers of the May 4^th movement. Essentially it tries to demonstrate how Catholic newspapers contributed to the cultural enlightenment of China in the early 20th century.