Bridging Divides between Theological Studies and Feminist Studies

Abstract

While feminists within the field of gender studies challenge the capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism that they identify in the field of theological studies, theologians argue that approaches such as Marxist feminism cannot be applied to theological teaching principles. As a result, these two academic fields are treated as mutually exclusive. In order to bridge the divide between these two disciplines, this paper engages in an interdisciplinary study between theological and feminist studies. I intend to conduct archival and library research on the overlap between Christian missionary history and Chinese and Japanese women’s history. Evidence of this overlap can be found in the memorandum The Story of Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries published by Toyo Eiwa Girls’ Academy in 2010 in memory of Methodist women’s missionary work in Japan. Annual reports housed in the United Church Archives clearly document the history of how Canadian home missions rescued Chinese slave girls and received Japanese picture brides upon their arrival in Canada, and of how Canadian foreign missions spread Christian teaching abroad. In contrast, Tani E. Barlow – a Chinese feminist critic – in The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism, explores the history of Chinese feminism and its connection with Japanese and western feminism. In 1975, a Japanese countryman whispered the story of Yamada Waka (1878-1956) to Tomoko Yamazaki, a researcher of Japanese women’s history, and in 1978, she wrote in Japanese The Song of an Ameyuki Girl: The Vicissitudes of Yamada Waka’s Life. Moving beyond a literature review of these