Brownscombe, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Rose O'Neill, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley. Commentary Opposition In the early 1890s, daughters of middle class Catholics expressed a desire to attend institution of higher education. Catholic leaders expressed their concern as studying at these "Protestant" schools, as the Church described it, might threaten the women's Catholic faith. The Church also viewed the New Woman as a threat to traditional womanhood and the social order. The Church cited past accomplished Catholic women, including saints, to critique the New Woman. By citing those women, the Church also argued that it was the Church, not the New Woman movement, that offered women the best opportunities. Others also critiqued the New Woman for her implied sexual freedom and for her desire to participate in matters that are best left to men's judgment. As Cummings writes, the New Woman was accused of being "essentially uncatholic and anti-catholic". Other countries China The New Woman of China began to emerge off of the pages of Chinese literature beginning mostly in the 1920s. However, ideas surrounding feminism, gender equality, and modernization began in China long before the 1920s New Woman emerged from its context. The New Woman of China and the movement itself went through various incarnations, changing with the social and political landscape it emerged from. Fall of the Qing (1911) to pre-May Fourth Era (pre-1920s) It was during the early years of the New Culture Movement and pre-May Fourth era that the term "New Woman" first emerged in China. This term, used by Hu Shi (1891-1962) during a 1918 lecture, suggested that women were more than just "good wives and wise mothers" and instead pushed for women's freedom and individuality in the larger national framework. However, Hu Shi along with a handful of other male intellectuals, were the minority pushing for women’s involvement in society. Influenced heavily by the New Culture movement, which emphasised condemning the “slavish Confucian tradition which was known to sacrifice the individual for conformity and force rigid notions of subservience, loyalty, and female chastity," the New Woman who emerged in the 1910s were far less progressive than their later 1920s counterparts. New Women during the early Republican period had to contend heavily with the ‘woman question’ a question regarding how to "address issues of modernity and the nation" and women's role in both. During this period, women's education was promoted, but as a tool to