Characteristics
Funü shibao was China’s first commercial women’s journal. It cost four jiao 角, had a circulation at mid-point of over 6,000, and was disseminated in over 30 distribution centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and some ten provincial capitals. Each issue ran to approximately eighty pages.
The content of the journal was rich and often unstable. There were, nonetheless, a number of recurring features or columns. These include:
- PHOTOGRAPHS: approximately eight to fifteen pages of photographs per issue
- EDITORIAL COLUMN:
“From the office of the editor” (“Bianji shi” 編輯室), from issue 18 entitled “Conversation from the office of the editor” (“Bianji shi zhi tanhua” 編輯室之談話)
- appeared in ten of twenty-one issues - READER’S COLUMN:
“The Reader’s Club” (Duzhi julebu 讀者俱樂部) appeared in two early issues of the journal in 1911 and 1912
“The Women’s Conversation Association” (Funü tanhua hui 婦女談話會), published in the journal’s last four issues between 1916 and 1917. - ESSAY CONTEST
-announced in issues 1 to 17 - FICTION: usually two pieces of fiction per issue
- POETRY: approximately eight to twenty-two shi 詩and/or ci 詞 per issue
The following is a list of the main categories of topics covered in the pages of the journal over its six year history.
- ARTICLES ON OR ABOUT FUNÜ SHIBAO
- THE STATE OF [CHINESE] WOMANHOOD
- WOMEN’S HABITS/CUSTOMS
- CHINESE VERSUS WESTERN PRACTICES
- WOMEN’S EDUCATION
- WOMEN’S HEALTH
- MEDICINE/HEALTH
- SCIENCE:
- CHILDREN
- FAMILY
- MARRIAGE
- PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION
- DOMESTIC ARTS
- ECONOMICS
- FOREIGN TOPICS
- FOREIGN BIOGRAPHY
- CONTEMPORARY CHINESE BIOGRAPHY
- TRAVELOGUES
- LOWER CLASS WOMEN
- FASHION
- DIARIES
- JOTTINGS
- PROSTITUTION/DEBAUCHED WOMEN
- EMOTION/LOVE/SEXUALITY
- TRIBUTES/LETTERS TO INDIVIDUALS
- SUFFRAGE
- REVOLUTION/POLITICS
- MILITARY
- PHILANTHROPY
- PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES
- LANGUAGE
- THEATRE
- DANCE/MUSIC