In late 1931, He Xiangning (1878-1972) returned to China from France in a spirit of national solidarity after Japanese forces had invaded the northeast. After repeated failures to convince Chiang Kai-shek to end the fighting against the Communists and respond to the outpouring of anti-imperialist sentiments around the country, He angrily sent him a packet of women’s clothing, shaming his refusal to fight Japanese imperialism as passively female. In an impassioned poem, He declared that Chinese women would be willing to fight in the battlefield, if the men would not. This incident revealed the deepening split within the party since the end of the Northern Expedition in 1927. A key figure of the Nationalist government left, He’s choice to mortify Chiang with a gift of women’s clothing also illuminated the ways in which gender had functioned to divide risks, privileges, and responsibilities in the nationalist revolution against warlordism and imperialism.

This paper sketches the contours of feminist nationalism during the 1920s and 1930s by examining the writings of He Xiangning. Seeking to mobilize and contain “the other half of the population” in the revolutionary struggle against warlordism and imperialism, He called upon women to undertake new duties and sacrifices. None of these demands, however, repudiated the traditional gender boundary. Rather, the line was stretched to incorporate new definitions of domesticity and sexuality as the meanings of women’s body and labour became tied to the fate of the nation. He’s autobiographical narrative covered the period from her childhood resistance against footbinding and her youthful days in Tokyo when she learned to cook without help, to her strength in enduring the loss of her husband Liao Zhongkai, and her peripatetic existence with minimal material comfort. It was a nationalist memory about her transformation from a “pampered daughter” into a “maidservant” of the revolution. It was also a path that she hoped Chinese women would follow.

「做個革命的下女」：何香凝與1920至1930年代的婦女民族主義運動

1931年底，日本佔領中國東北後不久，何香凝從法國趕回上海，準備共赴國難。回國後，她多次企圖游說蔣介石停止剿共行動，一致對外，但不被接納。盛怒之下，何送了一道女服給蔣，嘲諷他拒絕抗日救國是婦人行為；在一篇激昂的詩裏，何直指中國的男人如果未能上陣殺敵，婦女們將不惜取而代之。這事件反映了自北伐統一完成以來，國民黨面臨愈來愈嚴重的內部分裂。作為國民黨左派的老黨員，何香凝贈女服的舉動，正好表現出國民革命中，性別觀念用作區分各人權利和義務的重要功能。

本文的目的是透過何香凝的思想論說，探視中國1920至1930年代的婦女民族運動。為了發動「另一半的國民」參與反軍閥反帝的鬥爭，何號召婦女挺身承擔新時代所湧現的責任。不過，她這些針對婦女的申述，並非要挑戰傳統的男女角色，而是要演繹舊有的界別，把女性在家從屬的定位，以及她們勞動和身體的意義，與國家民族的命運緊密地連在一起。何香凝自傳式的點滴，從小時候堅拒纏足的反叛，到留學東京時學會燒飯，繼而克服丈夫廖仲愷被刺殺的哀痛，過著艱辛飄泊的生活，是她由當初的「富家小姐」成功改造為「革命下女」的自我表述，也是她期望中國婦女都會。