How do environmental causes affect you?

I chose this theme because, when I looked at my journey from a self-perspective, I found that for a long time, I was in a state of self-imposed isolation, partly due to my environment and partly due to myself. When I was in China, I found that I wore suspenders and might have been advised by my parents to change into a more conservative dress. Whereas in London, women are entirely free to change into suspenders or go bra-less, dye their hair colored and make decisions about their bodies, whether to add tattoos or not. When I was in China, my relatives and friends would always ask me when I could dye my hair back to its original black color, rather than asking me what color I preferred, and this is not just the case with women; it’s just far more inclusive at men than women.

The role and position of women when it comes to the context of the family. I find that there is an inevitable weakening of female subjectivity and independence in the family context. In this context, the most important thing is unity, harmony, and a happy atmosphere. Still, in this harmony, women sacrifice a lot of their subjectivity and are more submissive and bound.

Today, the assumptions about women’s bodies are often unclean, for example, that women’s menstruation or the exposure of their bodies is considered sexualized and cheap. Usually, society requires women to be clean and therefore needs women’s bodies to be perfect; for example, they want women to have smooth skin, and they don’t want women to show their bodies; it’s all a form of control.

And this situation, and when I felt that I got relief from going to the hospital instead, because I also often had body anxiety, and when I got to the hospital and faced the doctors naked, I realized that they measured my body by a different standard. If your body is functioning well and helping you to do your daily life, it’s a sound body. It gives me a sense of confidence, and I want to pass on that confidence and my perception of my body.

For example, if I have cellulite on my body, I might have very low self-esteem, but if people see a jar with uneven texture, they might think it’s rich and beautiful.

The logic is different, but social conventions about the female body form this logic. So I just wanted to pass this on in a kind of play to make more people think if you put all these prejudices and original assumptions aside and re-examine your own body and others’ bodies, would you still feel the same as before?

After all, our society is male-dominated. This has many implications, such as women having menstrual shame and why everyone has to cover up when they change their sanitary napkins. But growing up, I realized that people would think that menstrual blood was filthy. But if you don’t start with how to say no or less exposure to social views or constructions of gender, the fact is that everyone will have their ideas. Still, the prevailing linguistic framework also broadly interfered with them, which comes from our social environment.

Engster did some research on matriarchal clans. Although I think he was a rather conservative person regarding gender, he put forward a hypothesis about what a male-dominated society is built on. When one day men discovered the relationship between sexual intercourse and procreation, and they discovered that the male was also an inevitable part of procreation, coupled with the so-called private ownership of property and inheritance relations, they began to realize the need to raise the next generation of children with the support of the bloodline as a way of securing the status of him being my child, no longer the mother’s child, but the father’s child. It’s just hypothetical, but I find it interesting. Because if you look at it this way, you see that the “purification” was done a long time ago. But when it comes to the beginning of alienation, when did this alienation or objectification of women begin?

The existence of matrilineal societies and matrilineal cultures is closely linked to labor’s biological and social division because reproduction was essential in primitive societies. When you have the right to reproduce, the life conceived in your womb can reflect that reproduction is a mysterious and sublime thing. In such a structure, because of the biological system of the woman, it was possible to ensure the copy of the clan and, therefore, to have a more stable social division of labor within the economic or social structure.

Our society politicizes art because it (culture) doesn’t want us to reintroduce the social relations behind the artwork, and it doesn’t want people to understand that artwork can also claim to express something and challenge the existing linguistic framework and social environment.

What do you think needs to change?

I have to mention the public arena, a male-centric arena, where women’s identities and voices are absent, extinguished, and muted.

For a long time in history, women have been trapped in domestic affairs and have found it difficult to enter the public sphere and participate in social affairs.
Now we see that women have more freedom and rights to work, participate in politics, and so on. But in public affairs, much of it is still dominated and served by men by default. For example, in many professions, uniforms are often made to fit men, and female firefighters and policewomen often face ill-fitting, oversized uniforms.
During an epidemic, all protective clothing is also cut to one standard size. And this standard was based on the male figure, with no consideration for the female figure. This resulted in many female health care workers, especially frontline staff, needing to use tape to tighten their garments for protection purposes.
Sanitary towels for women are not necessary when preparing supplies for epidemic preparedness. In many cases, female health workers are in short supply of sanitary towels, an essential household item for women.
This acquiescence to a male-dominated public arena and the neglect of women’s needs is also a symptom of a lack of equal treatment.

Why does this phenomenon occur in China?

From the ancient Confucian culture, there is an apparent division of gender hierarchy and moral constraints on women in the Chinese context.
For example, women were expected to obey their sons, husbands, and fathers; young women should not show their faces and should stop at the boudoir; women should keep to the ways of women and teach their children at home; widows should not remarry when their husbands are widowed and live under the deterrent of “chastity pagodas.”
This division of women into subservient positions within the family and the moral demand for ‘chaste and virtuous women’ is one of the historical sources of oppression of women in China.

In the modern Chinese context, since the New Culture Movement promoted equality between men and women and the revolutionary movement encouraged women to participate in social work and join the army, women’s rights were gradually enhanced. They slowly moved from the home into the social sphere.
In practice, however, women did not gain control and autonomy over their own identity. He Yinzhen, one of China’s earliest feminists (his mother’s surname was He and his father’s Yin, and he changed his name to He Yinzhen himself), argued that the slogan of female emancipation was only used as part of a display of male intellectuals’ closeness to Western civilization in the context of the New Culture Movement’s aim to strengthen the country.
Women’s participation in social affairs always served the larger goal of nation-strengthening, becoming a tool and vehicle for nation-building.
During the revolutionary era, women were allowed to join the army and participate in extreme activities (revolutionary women). Still, they also served the larger goal of the revolution, not as women in the revolutionary ranks but generally as ‘genderless’ revolutionaries.
Uniforms, discipline, comradeship, etc., were all ‘genderless’ during the revolution.
Women were forced into a position of subordination or detached from their femininity, whether by Confucian morality or as instruments and vehicles for nation-building.
She is the wife of her husband, the mother of her son, the exhibit of the cultural movement, and the comrade of the revolution, but never herself.
She is subordinated to her husband, her father, her son, the state, and a particular ideology of the times, but never to herself.
Women’s right to define their own identity, their right to express themselves vocally, their right to control their independent status are far from being returned to women themselves.