缝纫机与晚清民国女性身份的建构

Sewing Machine and the Construction of Female Identity in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China

晚清至民国时期缝纫机在中国大众报刊上得到大量宣传并在市场上销售,广泛出现在家庭生活、职业教育、成衣工厂乃至抗日战场,与当时的女性社会角色变迁产生了密切互动。作为一种特殊的技术物,缝纫机一度成为中国上流社会女性的身份象征;在打开市场销路的过程中又被广泛宣传为普通女性的家庭宜备之物,掌握机器缝纫技术亦逐渐发展为女子职业教育的重点之一;至抗日战争期间,缝纫机则成为广大女性参与抗战的重要武器。缝纫机与机器缝纫在这一时期的逐渐普及,无形中参与了对当时女性的身份建构,折射出晚清民国时期女性职业发展和社会地位变迁的一般样貌,以及技术物本身的多元文化内涵及其流变性,反映出技术物与性别之间的复杂互动。

In the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China,sewing machine was widely publicized in many Chinese journals and sold in the markets.Sewing machine was generally appeared in family life,vocational education,garment factories and even at the battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War,and it had a close interaction with the change of female’s social role at that time.As a special technical artifact,sewing machine once became the status symbol of Chinese upper-class women.With the opening of Chinese market,sewing machine was promoted as a suitable household appliance for ordinary women,and mastering machine sewing technology gradually became the focus of women’s vocational education.During the Anti-Japanese War period,sewing machine became an important weapon for women to participate in the war.The popularity of sewing machine and machine sewing technology in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China virtually involved in the women’s identity construction,and it also reflected general trend of women’s career development and the change of social status of them at that time,and also implied the multicultural connotation of technology and its changing characteristics,and the complex interaction between technology and gender.