The Image of Modern Urban Women in Early Chinese Female Films

Shanghai and Beijing are undoubtedly the two cities most representative of China’s modernization process. The early Chinese female films Goddess (1934), New Women (1935), and Stand up, Sisters (1951) all depict how women made a living in those cities at that time, and all three films had strong social repercussions after they were released. Through the sociological analysis of several representative films, we can figure out how people of that time conceived of modern urban women's identity, their occupations, and their ways of escaping traditional roles and the problems associated with new roles. The characteristics of urban women’s identity are mainly represented in single‐parent family relationships, ineffectual same‐sex support systems, and in male‐female relationships that feature resistance and redemption. Urban women’s occupations were mainly in the service trades, such as unregistered prostitution, laundry work, and textile work. Even female teachers and female writers had no personal dignity, let alone economic independence. These films show that the independence of modern urban women cannot be achieved by individual resistance, and that the only solution is to carry out institutional reforms.