ABSTRACT
The origin of the ‘New Cultural Movement’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries gave impetus to strong currents of movements, seeking freedom from feudal clutches in China. Liang Qichao in his article ‘On Women’s Education’ writes about the urgent need for women’s education in an unprecedented way, calling it the root cause of national weakness, and pressed for an urgent discussion on the issue. Jin Tianhe’s Women’s Bell is considered by some to be the first feminist work of China. As several currents of thoughts, some liberal and some radical, came into circulation, there was an organised, discursive rise of ideas and critics facilitated by the print media, especially journals. Some of the crucial ideas were feminism, anarchism, revolutionism, socialism, and Marxism. The May Fourth Movement in 1919 was followed by the historical birth and growing influence of communism in China.
