Translating Feminism in China

Gender, Sexuality and Censorship

Zhongli Yu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317620013
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Translating & Interpreting
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book explores translation of feminism in China through examining several Chinese translations of two typical feminist works: The Second Sex ( TSS, Beauvoir 1949/1952) and The Vagina Monologues ( TVM, Ensler 1998). TSS exposes the cultural construction of woman while TVM reveals the pervasiveness of sexual oppression toward women. The female body and female sexuality (including lesbian sexuality) constitute a challenge to the Chinese translators due to cultural differences and sexuality still being a sensitive topic in China. This book investigates from gender and feminist perspectives, how TSS and TVM have been translated and received in China, with special attention to how the translators meet the challenges. Since translation is the gateway to the reception of feminism, an examination of the translations should reveal the response to feminism of the translator as the first reader and gatekeeper, and how feminism is translated both ideologically and technically in China. The translators' decisions are discussed within the social, historical, and political contexts. Translating Feminism in China discusses, among other issues:

• Feminist Translation: Practice, Theory, and Studies

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• Translating the Female Body and Sexuality

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• Translating Lesbianism

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• Censorship, Sexuality, and Translation

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This book will be relevant to postgraduate students and researchers of translation studies. It will also interest academics interested in feminism, gender studies and Chinese literature and culture.

Zhongli Yu is Assistant Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC).

1 Introduction

Translation is a cross-cultural as well as cross-lingual activity, involving more than linguistic considerations, especially when the source culture is geographically and/or temporally distant from the target culture. Since the 1980s, translation studies has gradually turned to culture, taking the study of the process and product of translation not just ‘as a linguistic phenomenon’, but also ‘as a form of intercultural mediation located in a specific sociocultural and ideological setting’ (Munday 2006: 195); at the same time moving from prescriptive to descriptive methodology, paying more attention to what translators do in their translations than what translators should do to produce a good or correct translation. The concept of linguistic equivalence has gradually given way to the ‘cultural turn’ (Bassnett and Lefevere 1990), and broader issues, such as context, conventions, and history of translation have attracted growing attention (Bassnett and Lefevere 1998). The cultural turn in translation studies ‘prepared the terrain for a fruitful encounter with feminist thought’ (Simon 1996: 8). Feminist translation theory nourished the renewal of scholarly interest in translation from the 1990s, giving fresh impetus to the ‘cultural turn’ of translation studies for its discourse (Lefevere 1992). Feminism allows translation to be viewed as a form of re-writing within a specific historical, social, and cultural context, a re-writing that always implicates the translator’s subjectivity. Translators can ‘use language as cultural intervention, as part of an effort to alter expressions of domination, whether at the level of concepts, of syntax or of terminology’ (Simon 1996: 9). Such a view conflates writing with translation and challenges the long dominant theory of translation as creating some kind of equivalence of fixed meaning (Flotow 1996).

Western feminist translation and its studies emerged decades ago. What is going on now? At 2013 Nida School of Translation Studies, I asked the 2013 Nida School professor Sherry Simon whether feminist translation as a practice was still going on in Canada. Her answer was no, because people were interested in other things now. In her edited book Translating Women (2011), Luise von Flotow proposes returning to feminist theory in translation. We may ask, what has happened in (Western) feminist translation studies since its inception in the 1980s? Where is it going? Feminist translation studies started to appear in China in the late 1990s. Since then, nearly two decades have passed, what trajectory has it followed? What are the major concerns? Are the concerns similar to or different from what has been discussed in the West? Does feminist translation happen in China? If yes, in what way, and how similar to or different from the Canadian feminist translation, especially in terms of translation strategy? I am trying to address these (and other questions) in this book, with an examination of several Chinese translations of two typical feminist works: The Second Sex (TSS) by Simone de Beauvoir (1949/1993) and The Vagina Monologues (TVM) by Eve Ensler (1998). There have been efforts to draw a European map of feminist translation studies (Federici and Leonardi 2013). In this book, I venture to paint a larger picture of feminist translation studies outside China, mainly in the West, in order to sketch the trajectory of Chinese feminist translation studies.¹ The global and local pictures will set the scene for the two case studies. As Jos矓antaemilia says, Chinese feminist translation studies is ‘an area practically unknown’ to the world (Santaemilia in Santaemila and von Flotow 2011: 24). This book is an effort to fill the lacuna. It is also hoped that when each culture has its own map of feminist translation studies drawn, a world map will be formed.

1.1 Gender, feminism, and translation: Key terms and concepts

It has been noted that translation was an important motor for Anglo-American and various feminisms (Flotow 2012: 129). Chinese feminism is another case in point. This book studies translating feminism in China through an examin­ation of Chinese translation of two feminist works from a feminist position. To do this, a brief account of the key terms and con­cepts used in this study is in place, such as gender, feminism (Western and Chinese), feminist translation, and feminist translation studies, which unfolds the connections and interactions between gender, feminism, translation, and translation studies. These key terms and concepts not only constitute the theoretical context for this study, but in a degree exhibit the historical context of TSS and TVM and their Chinese translations, providing useful background information for analysing the translations.

Gender includes grammatical gender, i.e. ‘the grammatical practice of classifying nouns as masculine, feminine or neuter’ (Glover and Kaplan, 2000: xi), and social gender, i.e. ‘ways of seeing and representing people and situations based on sex difference’ (Goodman 1999: vii). Previously used primarily in grammatical and literary contexts, the term gender became current in sexology in the early 1960s (Glover and Kaplan 2000: xix), and was taken over by American feminists in the 1970s to define sex in a social sense (Widerberg 1998: 134). Gender takes masculine and feminine attributes as highly cultural and contingent, leaving human sexual (reproductive) dimorphism basically unchallenged (Hawthorne 2000: 6). Well before the word ‘gender’ was used to refer to the social and cultural aspects of sexual difference, Beauvoir had proposed this notion in her famous book Le Deuxième Sexe (LDS) [The Second Sex], although the French language does not distinguish between sex and gender. Her aphorism on the social construction of femininity that ‘on ne naît pas femme, on le devient’ [one is not born, but rather becomes a woman] has become well-known and has been quoted worldwide (Beauvoir 1949/1976: 13). In Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, gender, like theatre performance, is performed without one being conscious of it, representing an internalised notion of gender norms. It is important to undo the restrictively normative conceptions of sexual and gendered life to have more possibilities of living (see Butler 1999 and 2004).

The concept of gender was ‘most clearly introduced to China by Chinese diasporic feminists from 1993 onward’ and was ‘further popularized with the “gender mainstreaming” mandate of the Beijing Conference’ (Xu Feng 2009: 203). There have been two Chinese terms for gender: 社会性别 [social gender/sex] and 性别 [gender/sex], representing two different interpretations of gender and also ‘the complex interactions and contradictions between feminisms of various origins’. The translation of gender as ‘社会性别’ [social gender/sex] is supported by a ‘universalist rhetoric’, especially by Chinese diasporic feminists (such as Wang Zheng) and those who have received education in the West. With ‘社会’ [social] being added to ‘性别’ [gender/social], the term stresses the social and constructed nature of gender roles, and breaks away from essentialist definitions of women’s roles, displayed in calls for femininity in the feminism of the 1980s and in contemporary commodity culture which ‘instrumentalizes a traditional concept of femininity’. In that case, gender can be used as an analytical weapon to ‘fight the myriad manifestations of patriarchy in Chinese society’. To some other Chinese scholars (such as Li Xiaojiang), ‘性别’ [gender/sex] is a better choice, because it refers to both sex and gender roles. In their opinion, it is redundant to add ‘social’ to a concept that is social in the first place. The added ‘social’ not only over-emphasises women’s and men’s social roles, but also ignores the physical differences between the sexes, which is actually another form of women’s self-denial, reminding people of the Maoist concept of identical gender roles. They believe that ‘性别’ [gender/sex] represents a ‘truly indigenous concept’ or ‘contextualized concept’, reflecting the ‘particularity’ of Chinese feminism. The trouble in translating gender into Chinese presents an example of ‘troublesome intercultural encounters’, and somewhat reveals the complex process of reception of Western feminism, a mix of both acceptance and rejection (Spakowski 2011: 34–35; also see Xu Feng 2009).

Feminism has been a ‘troublesome’ term due to its complexity and diversity (Beasley 1999: ix). To put it simply, feminism is ‘a recognition of the historical and cultural subordination of women (the only worldwide majority to be treated as a minority), and a resolve to do something about it’ (Goodman 1999: x). Feminism has been regarded as ‘innovative, incentive and rebellious’ (Beasley 1999: 3). There have been many feminisms (Poovey 1988: 51). The history of feminism is commonly divided into three waves (see Krolokke 2005, Rampton 2008), though some feminists do not see the wave metaphor as a helpful way to understand stages in feminist history (Howie 2007: 283). The first covers the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its agenda appeared to be largely political in nature, either from a liberal or socialist point of view. The activities and writings of the suffragette movement are typical of this wave. The second is said to emerge during the 1960s to the 1980s, often referred to as radical, in particular, concerned with the rights of oppressed minorities such as lesbians, women of colour, women of the developing countries, etc., under the general slogan ‘The personal is political’. The third wave, emerging from the mid-1990s, is more oriented to diversity, multiplicity and even ambiguity in women’s lives. In Europe, this is referred to as ‘new feminism’, concerning itself with issues such as trafficking, violence against women, pornography, etc., while theoretically undermining the earlier notion that there can be ‘universal womanhood’. In some cases, the women even shun the very label ‘feminists’ to characterise themselves, rejecting the dichotomy of ‘us and them’. Some third-wavers claim the writings of feminists of colour from the early 1980s as the beginning of the third wave (Heywood and Drake in Snyder 2008: 180).²

However, the three waves should not be understood to be independent of each other. The first two waves do not stand for rigid boundaries in attitude, content or dates. For instance, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of Her Own, as well as Beauvoir’s TSS, may all be said to be iconic texts of the first wave of feminism. Yet, Wollstonecraft’s book appeared as early as 1792 (just after the French Revolution), fighting under the liberal flag of political rights; Woolf’s in 1929 (between the two World Wars), introducing the notion of female bisexuality as well as pleading for women’s unique voice in writing; and Beauvoir’s in 1949 (just after the Second World War), critiquing patriarchy and the ‘otherness’ of women. TSS, together with Betty Friedan’s work The Feminine Mystique (1963), has also been regarded as ‘opening the second wave feminism’ (Min Dongchao 2005: 279). The third has been thought to be a continuation of the second wave as well as a response to the failures of the second. It continues to emphasise personal experiences, but reject the universal claim that all women share a set of common experiences (Snyder 2008: 184, 186). Some people regard the third wave as just another way of talking about the contemporary moment, while some others prefer calling it post-feminism. Post-feminism literally means ‘after feminism’ or what has been ‘left when feminism is over’. Open to many different, conflicting, and problematic interpretations, on the one hand, post-feminism seems to connote that feminism is in a mess, in decline, a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Feminist translation: Practice, theory, and studies
• 3 Contextualising the Chinese translations of The cond Sex and The Vagina Monologues
• 4 Translating the female body and female sexuality in The cond Sex
• 5 Translating the female body and female sexuality in The Vagina Monologues
• 6 Translating lesbianism in The cond Sex and The Vagina Monologues
• 7 Censorship, sexuality, and translation
• 8 Conclusion: Gender, feminism, and translation studies
• Index