International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Qiu Jin is the best-known woman revolutionary of the late Qing period in China. The last several decades of the Qing, from the 1870s to 1911, were a period in which China's weakness vis–à-vis foreign powers became increasingly evident, and in response many young Chinese began looking for ways to strengthen the nation. Born in 1875 in Fujian province, Qiu Jin grew up during this tumultuous time in Zhejiang province, not far from the growing cosmopolitan city of shanghai. she was married young in an arranged marriage and had two children, but in 1904, having, like many other young Chinese, developed a strong feeling of Chinese nationalism in response to the Boxer Uprising , she abandoned her husband and children and traveled to Japan to study. In Japan, Qiu Jin enrolled in the Practical Women's school, a vocational school for girls with a curriculum that was especially designed to serve Chinese women students. There she was educated in practical domestic virtues and given basic instruction in pedagogy so that she would be equipped to teach upon her return to China. At the same time, like many of her peers, she interacted with other young revolutionary-minded Chinese students and became a political and feminist activist. she wrote numerous speeches and essays that were critical of the Chinese practices of foot binding, arranged marriage, and the cult of chaste widowhood. she also ... log in or subscribe to read full text