Men Built Religion, Women Made it Superstitious: Gender and Superstition in Republican China

Elena Valussi

Religion in twentieth-century China was reorganized according to new, modern, and scientific paradigms; in this novel definition, which excluded many communal experiences deemed superstitious, religion came to be identified more with personal practice and individual beliefs, understood as self-strengthening and self-improvement, and was to be one of the responses against Western Imperialism and Japanese occupation. Women had always been seen as closely involved with religious practices, but at this time they were identified as intrinsically and powerfully superstitious, and their religiosity was used as a necessary site of symbolic transformation for the nation. Numerous examples of the deleterious effect of superstition on women, their children, the family, and society were described, and modern and scientific education was seen as the antidote to this seemingly intractable problem.

摘要

宗教在二十世紀中國被賦予新的定位，在新的標準之下，許多集體性的經驗被目為「迷信」，並遭到排斥，相較於此，所謂「宗教」的面貌更傾向個體的實踐與信仰，作為自我提升之道，有人甚至會以此回應西方帝國主義和日本的侵略. 婦女從來跟宗教信仰有密切關係, 到了民國時期，她們被視特別‘迷信者’；女性的宗教性（religiosity）也被視為轉化的象徵性。資料裡面有很多例子，介紹「迷信」怎麼害婦女，兒童，家庭，與社會文明。婦女能收到科學性的新教育再能夠對抗這些陋習。

1-May-20

Journal of Chinese Religions

Johns Hopkins University Press

2050-8999

Elena Valussi, 2020 “Men Built Religion, Women Made it Superstitious: Gender and Superstition in Republican China”, Journal of Chinese Religions 48.1