晚清《啟蒙畫報》中的「女學」：一個圖像符號學的觀點

Women's Education in the Illustrated Children's Educator of the Late Qing Dynasty: A Perspective on Pictorial Semiotics

晚清報刊對「女學」之倡議，是中國女性由傳統步入現代的啟蒙肇始。對其文本進行圖像符號學的分析，不僅可補充女性如何被啟蒙的歷史細節，更可揭示以男性為核心的辦報文人在面對舊有性別秩序與新思想的衝突時，如何定位女性啟蒙並改良意識形態。本文聚焦於鮮少被論及的北京「女學」，並以北方第一份發行的圖文雜誌《啟蒙畫報》為標的，檢視「女學」建構的脈絡。研究發現，文本以「借古喻今」和「以西比中」的兩大圖文運作之符號學策略，將「女學」與「國家強弱」進行武斷連結，在無意從根本上挑戰父權的前提下，畫報於兩次改良中將日本的國族主義轉入京話白話文的圖文符號，以漸進推動社會風氣轉變，並傳達折衷的性別平等與階級平權，以給予女性「個體」身分，使其重構家庭與社會間的行動空間。但不可否認父權政治與文化始終限制著女性自主，也影響了主導啟蒙話語權的辦報男性，將啟蒙的女性主體在「女學」工具化導向中被遮蔽了。

Advocating for women's education in the newspapers and periodicals of the late Qing Dynasty marked the beginning of Chinese women's enlightenment and their transition from tradition to modernity. A pictorial semiotics study on these texts not only provides historical details about how women were enlightened, but also sheds light on how male writers in mass media discussed issues related to women's status and transmitted their ideology in the face of conflicts between traditional and emerging ideas about gender roles. This research focuses on Women's Education in Beijing, a topic that is rarely discussed, and examines the contents related to the advocacy of Women's Education in the Illustrated Children's Educator, the first pictorial published in northern China. Our findings suggest that writers arbitrarily connected Women's Education with the strength of the nation by using two important semiotic strategies, namely ''borrowing from the past to justify the present stories'' and ''comparing the West with China to paint a better picture of the nation.'' Without intending to fundamentally challenge patriarchy, the Illustrated Children's Educator went through two rounds of edition revisions and appealed to nationalism when engaging in social reform. The magazine's contents conveyed an eclectic message that emphasized gender equality alongside class differences, and encouraged women to act as individuals in both public and domestic spaces. However, we cannot ignore the paternalism in media discourse that restricted women's actions during that time. The male-dominated newspaper industry controlled the discourse of enlightenment and largely ignored women's needs while emphasizing the importance of women's education. Unfortunately, girls and women in the late Qing Dynasty did not have a real chance to speak for themselves in the mass media.