Author: Heyu Guo & Yilin Pan
Joyce is a senior at Fudan University. That is all it took for most people to paint a picture of her - the elitist, pragmatic, multimillion-dollar-a-year investment banker of the future. This is a very reasonable inference, since Fudan University is one of the top universities in China, locates in the country's most economically developed city, with a top-notch School of Economics and Management. However, they are all wrong. Joyce is a student of Japanese literature.
Most of her peers chose a niche major such as Japanese literature with a specific goal, interest, or learning foundation, but Joyce was not an expert on Japanese culture or language. She spent most of her high school years learning English and only started studying Japanese in college. Perhaps because she does not study Japanese for conventional purposes, her study of Japanese culture leads her not to the anime, the idols, or the food her classmates love, but to a woman, Chizuka Ueno, a professor at the University of Tokyo, a prominent feminist and best-selling author, feminist torch-bearer for many.
Thanks to her major. Joyce has often thought so. Like a dish that goes round and round in the microwave, a language translated over and over again quickly loses its flavor. Her studies in Japanese enables Joyce to discover more first-hand information and sources on feminist theory from Chizuko Ueno, which enhances her understanding of the field. She learns quickly from the teacher she’s never met. Soon, she realizes that Japanese is not only a tool, but a tunnel between cultures. The overlapping identities of Japanese cultural learners and Chinese allow her to see similar cultural and social norms in East Asia.
The absolute sex, for example, Joyce explained. Stereotypical perceptions of males and females in language are prevalent in both China and Japan. This is more difficult to correct and realize than is often assumed. It's buried in the language we use every day. Who uses more offensive language? Who uses gentler and more submissive language? This is not just a rule of language, but a reflection of gender inequality. This consistent development of stereotypes in society through the lens of language is known as sociolinguistics. The concept has been around since the 1960s, but discussing subconscious discrimination in a language is still considered vexatious to this day.
But Joyce is an optimist. "It's never too late to change, starting, perhaps, with ourselves. "She said.
She started by changing herself. In Chizuko Ueno's work "Misogyny," Chizuko states all feminists are misogynists, and their feminist identities are only revealed when they are conscious of their misogynist behaviors or thinking. Noticing the social and cultural pressures of patriarchy and recognizing it is the first step to becoming a feminist, Joyce wants to be a feminist, so she begins to reflect on the discrimination that lies within her everyday language. In the Chinese language, there are habits of using feminine traits or female characters as a part of the "swear culture." It has become so embedded in the culture that one does not think about why it came that way, including Joyce, who used to say swears that included misogynist elements to express her mood. Now, Joyce asks herself to stop.
To make a more significant impact, we have to start with ourselves. The simple act of refusing to say those swear words is a rejection of taking sides with patriarchy. Cultural and social norms are hard to change. Joyce says that today, judging by the social news that is happening daily and the discussions that surround it, there is a clear gap between the present and the ideal state of an inclusive and equal environment.
Joyce saw the gap, but Joyce was not going to stop. After reinventing herself, she tried to educate more people about feminism and advocate for it through dramas. Since high school, Joyce has been a big fan of acting in English-language dramas. The stage was a space where she could capture another form of herself and fully immerse herself in the world of art. Joyce has adopted a feminist perspective in all of her plays. She explains: “If you have feminist insight, you can apply it everywhere in your life. Thus, it should not be constructed within the drama, but to be explored by people, the audience, and the actors.”
She introduced "The Crucible" with gusto. It's a classic drama about a witch hunt in Salem. Usually, the focus is on the rational and courageous male hero and the power-obsessed and unjust male judge, but Joyce turns her attention to the play's female characters: Tituba, the first black slave accused of witchcraft; Elizabeth, the protagonist's wife, whose husband has cheated on her; Mary, the maid who wanders between justice and accomplice; and then there is Abigail, the orphaned 17-year-old who is portrayed as the mastermind, the culprit of the witch hunt, the mistress of the male protagonist who creates a vendetta against the entire village for not being accepted his love. From a feminist perspective, Joyce and her companions reperformed the play.
There is no need to define what are “feminist works”. Feminism can be found in any work, even if it has a male protagonist. Joyce concluded. Feminism is a way of looking at life.
Joyce felt motivated and grateful because she was surrounded by a group of people who teemed with passion in the drama club of Fudan University. "Our club is very inclusive because everyone is so into the theatre. The atmosphere is spectacular," she says. Drama is an excellent medium for Joyce and many others, since it requires not only a strong command of language, but also a deeper empathy and interpretation of the art that holds the idealism and implements it. When it comes to reality, however, it becomes a tough choice. In a high-technology-oriented society, people who work in economics, computer science, and finance find a job more easily than those who work in humanities. Being a top winner in China's ultra-competitive college entrance exams, but spending time doing something that does not make much money, is not an option most people would appreciate.
What does it mean to work in an area that is "not going with the mainstream”? For Joyce, the theatre and the language arts had given her far more than she could ever hope to possess. Her memories of her online concert experience during the COVID-19 pandemic are still fresh. Her spirits were lifted when she saw the stage. That was persuasive enough.
“Society is not made up of one specific group of people; diversity matters, which depends on everyone to carry out their impacts.” Joyce believes.
Then the choice is simple. Joyce wants to make an impact as a feminist, so she proudly walks the path of her non-mainstream Japanese literature and theater to a future where one is not valued by income, where the convention is not a shelter for discrimination, and where there is a feminist future.