The Complete Works of Xu Zhimo's Classical Prose

Chapter 48 Laughing at Life's Hibiscus Bird (20)
More recently, there was a female novelist in England 100 years ago, and one critic said that Jane Austen, who was not far from Shakespeare, was in a better environment than yours.In fact, she is even worse than our modern women.Besides, she doesn't have a house that she can open and close, nor does she have much fixed income every year.She never goes out, and sees no learned people; she is a home-aged girl, with only a few books to read, and pretends to write letters every day in a common sitting room that is never quiet. as if drafting her monumental work. "Women never have half an hour," said Florence Nightingale, "women never have half an hour that they can claim to be their own." And more recently, the Brontё sisters did not have an easy life.In the country, in a vicar's house, they are born, they grow, they die.At most, they stand on the balcony and look at the wild scenery, imagining all kinds of worlds in the misty sky, imagining experiences that they cannot experience in their colorless and waveless life.If it weren't for their outstanding genius, vigorous enthusiasm and transcendent imagination, which forced them to write, they were nothing more than three ordinary country girls who died in Wuhuan's home. Who would have thought of their bright nineteenth century? What did it matter to them, what benefit did they gain?
After all, our situation is better than theirs.Great literati Wang Yuyang, Yuan Zicai, Bi Qiufan, and Chen Bicheng in the Qing Dynasty were all the greatest contributors to advocating women's literature.If it weren't for the contributions of several of their indirect and direct female disciples, what would there be to say about women's literature in the Qing Dynasty?If they hadn't been so extravagant about women's poetry and learning at that time, our literary official, Mr. Tongyi, wouldn't have yelled at himself for losing his identity to such a ridiculous point.He said in Gynecology:

Recently there are shameless literati pretending to be romantic, bewitching scholars and women, most of them are bewitching people by performing talents and beauties in zaju dramas by actors and actresses. She is the female of her body.Such boudoirs, if they don't study women's studies, how can they have real talents, but they are played by evil people and become a custom, and people's hearts and morals are very worrying.

If Mr. Zhang lives to this day and sees women going to school, even going to school with men, working in a government office, working with men in a shop, working with men, joining this party and being gay, he will not be ashamed of his old man!

So you have to remember that in Britain, a nation with the most developed women's rights, women's liberation, no matter what aspect it is, is still a recent thing.Girls' education is not exactly 100 years old.Women's property rights have been legally guaranteed for 50 years.Women's political rights are less than a decade old.But the efforts and achievements of women in the past century cannot but be said to be amazing.Human culture a hundred years ago can be said to be entirely the result of men. Even if women's contribution is very limited or at most indirect, of course there are many strange talents among women. There are many famous women in history, especially in literature and art. aspect.Sand floats in Greece are still a miracle.Medieval Hypatia, Heloise is incomparable.The white sand in the clothes of the United Kingdom, Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty, their talents are bold, which man dare not bow his head?The ladies of salons in France in the eighteenth century were nurses to so many geniuses and masterpieces.In China, we only need to remember Master Cao’s Hanshu, Su Ruolan’s palindrome, Xu Shu’s Cai Wenji’s Zuojiu concubine’s rhetoric, Wu’s Stele for Ascension to Immortal Prince, Li Ruolan’s Yu Xuanji’s poems, Li Qingzhao’s and Zhu Shuzhen’s poems, Ming Wen’s Jiusao That one is not a genius who shines forever.

This is true, but in terms of the wider and greater movement of human beings, what can women be proud of?Is there a female Shakespeare and a female Sima Qian?Are there female Newtons and female Begens?Was there a female Plato and female Dante?When it comes to literature and art in a narrow sense, isn't it true that women's performance is comparable to that of men's?Do you blame men for being arrogant and women for being discouraged?

In Britain and even in the whole of Europe, Austen could say that women did not have a single author who had a family.From Yili Shabai to the French Revolution, the women's works obtained by research are only small poems and stories.As far as China is concerned, there are as many as 300 female writers in the Qing Dynasty for nearly 12 years, according to Mrs. Jian Shan's recent "Qing Girls' Art and Literature", but this number, according to Mr. Hu Shizhi's According to statistics, only 90.00% of the works are about learning, such as textual research on history, arithmetic and medical skills, so it can’t be said that there is any important contribution. In addition, [-]% of the works are literature such as poetry, and the wonderful thing is that these poetry volumes The titles, except for Fenghuaxueyue's elegance, all have the meaning of humbly apologizing, as if they dare not believe that women have the privilege of writing books openly, and they all have to declare that this is their leisure time outside of their professional career. It’s like, because it’s not embroidery, it’s Cuanyu, it’s not red, it’s needles, it’s not fat, it’s weaving (Chen Yuanyuan’s occupation is special, and her collection of words is called "Dancing Yu Ci") , or it is a set of burning embers and unburned unburned undecided, or it is a heartbroken and tearful manuscript with first-class sad words (except for Qiu Jin's tone, which is different).This is the case, do you blame the self-beauty of men and the shortness of breath of women?
However, there are various explanations for the fact that women are far inferior to men in cultural history. Of course, men cannot use this to prove that women are not as capable as men, and women cannot completely blame men for deliberate oppression.Anyone who wants to wonder at the slowness of women and ask why feminist theory did not wait until Mary Ulfton Crawford made a specific statement, just remember that the theory of human rights itself was not born until a not too far away.The ability of man's thinking is strange. Sometimes he jumps and jumps and discovers a lot in a short period of time, such as the golden age of Greece and Europe in the past 150 years. Middle Ages or Ming Dynasty of China.When it is not moving, it is like winter, everything is still and lifeless, as if life will never come back, but when it is moving, it is like the shock of spring thunder, and in a blink of an eye, it is the vigorous and gorgeous spring time .In Europe, from Aristotle to Rousseau and even Schopenhauer, there is no thinker who does not admit that the inequality between men and women is natural, absolutely unworthy and impossible to study; It is polite to call us talented women, just like calling a duck with long flower feathers a golden pheasant, and it was called blue socks in Europe a hundred years ago, so it is unavoidable to be ridiculed.But since the birth of John Miller, the great essay on women with pure comprehension, in theory all women are inferior to men or women cannot enjoy equal opportunities with men and all kinds of fallacies, prejudices and superstitions have been jointly responsible for the survival and progress of cultural society. Lost grounds, in fact, women's self-improvement efforts in the past century have clearly proved that as long as women have the same opportunity, no matter what they do, they can't be inferior to men; the future of mankind has opened up a great new hope, which is Since then, the development of culture is a common enterprise of both sexes, and it is no longer a single-sex activity like before.In the past hundred years, although human beings still cannot help but continue their fallacies, stupidity, stubbornness, and superstition in other aspects, these more than a hundred years are commemorative because this is at least a century in which women began to be glorious.In politics, in society, in law and morality, and in theory, at least women have won a completely equal position with men.In fact, women's occupations are increasing day by day. It is not easy for us to imagine a career that men can be competent but women can't. Maybe except actually going to the battlefield to fight, but we all hope that this occupation will be completely eliminated one day in the future. We are determined. I don't want gentle women to turn into aggressive and murderous under any circumstances.Needless to say, in literature and art, women have long occupied a position, but the expansion in the past hundred years is amazing enough.The poet said that the three names of Mrs. Browning, Miss Luoshati, and Miss Menel are already brilliant enough.Not to mention novels, there has been a trend in the British and American publishing circles that female writers outnumber male writers, as in quality as in quantity. George Eliot, George Sand, Brontё Sisters, and more recently Manshfield, Virgina Woolf, etc. are all authors who have made a family and added luster to the history of literature.In terms of acting, such as Sarah Bella Duse and Ellen Terry, they are all eternal and indelible memories of human beings.In terms of dancing, women's contribution is more obvious than that of men. We can't imagine a male Isadora Duncan.Music, painting, sculpture, women's success are also increasing every day.Science and philosophy have always been men's majors, but with the development of education, women's contributions are also increasing day by day.You just have to remember Madame Curie to be unashamed.When it comes to learning, there is a subject that women can't mention now.

But this situation, as far as the most advanced countries are concerned, has only happened in the past 100 years at most, but the achievements have been so impressive.After another 2000 years, I think most men would no longer dare to show sexual arrogance to women.Women in the future will have their Shakespeare, Began, Aristotle, Russell, just as they have Yili Shabai, Wu Zetian among emperors, Bai Langning, Luo Shati among poets, and novelists There were sisters Austin and Bronde.Although we dare not predict the day when women will completely surpass men, we can rest assured that women’s contribution to culture will always exceed infinite times in the future, and men will worry about the day when their authority is in danger of being shaken. .

But of course this is a long way to go.According to the current situation, especially in China, on the one hand, we certainly feel the excitement and comfort that women are making progress in the academic career, but at the same time, we also deeply feel that various hindering forces are still active.We are backward in almost everything in the East, especially women, because of their long history, they have deep habits, and deep habits make liberation more difficult.Not to mention anything else, Chinese women have first endured thousands of years of irrational physical constraints, so the liberation of others starts from the mind, and we must first liberate from the body.Our feet were still opened yesterday, and our chests are still opening.In fact, although the young people of this generation are no longer able to feel physical restraint, unfortunately, long-term oppression or restraint will affect the body of the blood and nerve tissues.That is to say, your feet, although what you have are extremely beautiful natural feet, it is inevitable that there are ghosts of dozens of generations of foot-binding in your blood and fibers.Another example is that although your breasts are already being liberated, I know that some young girls still feel that this liberation is a shameful inconvenience.Therefore, speaking of the body alone, I am afraid that it will take at least three or four generations of yours to be completely liberated and restore the joy and beauty of natural hair growth.This is already the case in terms of body, not to mention anything else.Besides, a woman is of course unavoidable to be a wife and mother. As far as childbirth is concerned, a man can say to a woman unscrupulously, "You can't escape this, and you can't ask me to replace you!" In fact, there are countless It is inevitable for a woman who is already on the road in learning or career to become a wife and mother, and she can only voluntarily or involuntarily sacrifice the hope of glorious achievements.Of course, it is impossible to completely remove this layer of obstacles, but judging from the fact that various inventions and social organizations and systems are gradually becoming more reasonable, we can imagine a day when the inconvenience of this natural obstacle will be eliminated to a minimum. .With methods of birth control, for example, you don't have to have children unless you choose, so it is very easy for a woman to carve out a few short periods of her life of decades to fulfill her responsibilities to humanity.In addition, the organization of the family in the future must be different from the current one. The trend is to eliminate all kinds of unnecessary energy consumption (just like the cooperative family with the new law in the United States, the burden of housekeeping for women may not be heavier than that for men, and each other can carry out their own affairs equally. cause).So that's not the problem.The problem is that women's psychological maternity is unbreakable, which is too far from men's paternity.Let me give you an example.In her autobiography, Isadora Duncan, the most famous dancer in modern times, talked about her psychology when she gave birth for the first time. I think she is very true.When she was first pregnant, she felt inconvenient everywhere. She thought her artistic dance was more important than her life, and she felt that the sacrifice of childbirth was too meaningless.Especially when she was in excruciating pain during labor (hers was dystocia) and she hated God for placing women under such horrific duties; she nearly died.But when her baby was born, when the nurse snuggled a small, sweet-smelling thing to her to nurse, her joy, her gratitude, her excitement, her maternal love, she said, It is simply indescribable.At that time, she felt that the supreme creation of the magic and meaning of life was absolutely overwhelming. Compared with the art that she regarded as more important than life, this art suddenly seemed small and shallow, almost indifferent.At that time the consciousness of [maternity] completely overwhelms the consciousness of the acquired artist.God has won!This, I said, was the real problem, not the actual three or two months of physical inconvenience.This deep-rooted and powerful motherhood is of course an important ingredient in the mystery and beauty of life, but it always hinders the progress of a woman's personal career.

Therefore, according to the theory, it is not easy to say that the opportunities of men and women are completely equal, and they are not the same by nature.What can you do?But we can only talk about this, because in a woman, the mother's personality, the realization of motherhood, should not conflict with her personal personality, the realization of individuality.Except in an unreasonable or superstitious social organization, a woman cannot take care of other things when she is a wife and mother. She can take care of more than two qualifications at the same time, just as a man's fatherhood does not hinder his personality.As for D, she has to be said to be a woman with strong maternal instincts (because of strong emotions), but in fact she never gave up her pursuit of art for the sake of love and childbirth.She's done with her art as well.In addition, the inconvenience of being a woman is of course more than that of a man, but those are relatively unimportant.

The new women in our country are growing recognizably day by day, gradually exuding the beauty and power of spirit and body from thousands of years of visible and invisible restraint and oppression, like a new woman wrapped in a sheath. bamboo shoots.Although tangible obstacles are many and powerful, they are relatively easy to get rid of. Intangible obstacles, psychological, conscious and subconscious obstacles, on the contrary, require more time and effort to be liberated.Analytically speaking, all kinds of conditions in the present society are still not suitable for the growth of our new women.Let me give another example, such as acting, you know the importance of drama and its power.You also know that you have a talent for acting on stage.Then for yourself and for the society, you have to act on stage, right?That's when you run into resistance.Positively, maybe your family is old-fashioned and stubborn, and negatively, maybe you can’t find comparable comrades and opportunities.Even if all these let you pass, you have now reached another difficulty.There is a play that requires you to act, for example, it happens to be a bad guy, that is to say, according to the judgment of human affairs habits, there is no such distinction in expressive art, art requires you to do it, but you start to hesitate.To give an example, Salome recently played by Nanguoshe is neither a virgin nor a chaste woman.There is a Ms. Yu, a young lady from a famous family, who is going to play the leading role.She only knows responsibility for her current performance.In fact, she actually overcame a lot of obstacles and went on stage to act in that play.One night when she was performing and wanted to yell "John, I want to kiss your mouth" admiringly, she caught a glimpse of her mother sitting in the front row of the pool and staring at her angrily. The voice and the verse are almost murmured, and it is barely finished.She felt that she could no longer muster her courage to devote herself to art. Under her mother's glaring gaze, she, who was an artist, withered into a young lady with a famous family and a family who depended on her loving mother in everything. Art failed!Habit wins!

(End of this chapter)