Before the formation of the People’s Republic of China, a traditional patriarchal society ruled China. Confucianism ideals, including gender roles, had been in play for thousands of years and would not break overnight. Women in China had been treated as subhuman per these traditional values and it was ingrained into society. As feminism grew alongside China’s revolution, it looked like there would be a change in women’s rights. The Communist wanted to strengthen all their people and women sought to benefit from the new regime. Communism brought into effect gender equality and established laws to protect women. While the Communist promised equality, their intentions were purely self-serving. The party was only seeking to increase its own power and women’s equality was not foremost on their agenda. While united strong citizens within …show more content…
Female beauty played a role in the revolution, and this is the only source that touches upon it. This will be used to show the double-sided nature in which the Communists’ attempted to advance women.
Gao, Xiongya. “Women Existing for Men: Confucianism and Social Injustice against Women in China.” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 10, no. 3, 2003, pp. 114–125. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41675091.
This source shows that not just Confucianism, but also the nationalist, did not treat women as equals. This set the stage for the continuation of the mistreatment of women in China. Gao’s article is different because it shows how traditional thinking is not changed quickly. This will be used to show how traditional values still influence societies and it takes more than a new government to change a nation’s thinking.
Edwards, Louise. “Women's Suffrage in China: Challenging Scholarly Conventions.” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 69, no. 4, 2000, pp. 617–638. JSTOR, JSTOR,
Women’s role in Ancient Chinese civilisation was always vital to society due to their role in the family and during the Tang and Song dynasty significant changes occurred, changing Chinese women’s lives forever. While it is no secret women were inferior to men in the history of China, not many are aware of the major differences of the status of women from dynasty to dynasty. The Tang-Song dynasties ruled from 618AD to 1279 AD and many distinct differences between these two dynasties can be observed. Women’s role in these dynasties primarily included domestic duties, with the introduction of new roles to the female gender. Their role was very important to society as the woman of the family ran the household and as that was the most important
As China faced new international pressures and the change to a communist society, gender relations transformed women from servants of men to full independent workers, who finally became soldiers of the communist state. In Jung Chang’s novel, Wild Swans, the three women – grandmother Yu-Fang, mother Bao-Qin and daughter Jung Chang – exemplify the expected gender roles of each generation. I will argue that Confucian society presented few economic opportunities for women to support
apt at pushing the campaign for women’s suffrage, many do not even stop to consider supposedly oppressive and impoverished communist regimes as the furnaces in which female rights were first forged. The majority of world history consists of the disputes and bloodshed created by men, perpetrated by men, and for men, all while blatantly disregarding women as trivial and powerless. Pre-Communist Revolution women’s rights comprised of sexist stereotypes that strictly limited the amount of achievements that women could accomplish. Traditional Chinese society was formed through strict social structures that defined daily life in the three obediences: women had
Based on Lessons for Women, women in the China were taught that they were unworthy, unsophisticated, unenlightened and by nature unintelligent. (Strayer
Over a span of several decades, Wu Zetian inalterably changed life in China for woman as well the clergy and the poor. By doing so, she left a perpetual footprint on China’s long history that transcends the mere fact that she was the first woman to rule the “Red Dragon”.
Daily life during the Yuan dynasty was not so enjoyable life for woman. This is because woman had a very difficult life and had no rights,they were to be bossed around by men and couldn't accomplish anything themselves unless they make dinner.As well as ,girls were forbidden to have an education and only wealthy boys were able to attend school and because boys were able to succeed greater in society.According to this article called Ancient China:Daily life mentions something really interesting about woman “They were considered much less valuable than men. Sometimes when a baby girl was born she was put outside to die if the family didn't want it. This was considered okay in their society. Women had no say in who they would marry.”.Girls were
Women’s right has been a problem throughout the nineteen century. Women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were women's most significant professions, in the 19th century; however, women won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. Women were long considered naturally weaker than men. Prior to the American Revolution the women were viewed as weak and unable to perform hard work. Also, women place were the house, take care their children, clean the house, organized the house, cook, and take care animals. During the American Revolution many women faced a lot problems because they
Women in Ancient China during the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty lived in oppressed lives. Society perceived them as inferior to their husbands and parents-in-law. Their role in the family were to be housewives taking care of their family and maintaining the household chores. They were always under the instructions of their husbands and parents-in-law in they were treated like servants. They also had no control in their personal decisions because they were not allowed to decide who they were going to marry and what they wanted to do in their careers. Parents of daughters would also force their daughters to foot-binding because it would attract potential wealthy husbands. This paper argues that although the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty were known as the golden periods for China, nevertheless, it was overlooked by historians that women during the time were victims of gender inequality because they lived with no control over their personal lives and were expected to be submissive to their husbands.
The Chinese Communist Party's official discourse on women's liberation originated from Karl Marx’s theories of communist revolution and the history of private ownership, European Socialist views on women's liberation, the Soviet model of women's liberation, the May Fourth feminist movement, and Chinese nationalism of the early twentieth century from when the party was first founded in 1921. Wang Zheng discusses how the May Fourth Movement accelerated the idea of advancing women’s rights in China. The feminist movement of this period brought women's liberation into China's political discourse, forcing all current and future political movements to contain policies and ideas for increasing women’s rights in order to be seen as progressive. Thus, the Chinese Communist Party deemed women’s emancipation as one of their ideological goals and pledges. The Party began to institutionalize their ideas of women's
I chose this topic because I view women as the backbone to the development or a nation, therefore the Chinese woman is paramount in one of the world’s great civilizations. The role of women in Chinese culture has changed over the years. When we consider the position that women held in ancient Chinese society we find that they have come a long way to be where they are today.
Not until the twentieth century did things start to turn around for women in china. This is when a woman’s movement began to spread and demanded an end to foot binding. Perhaps the biggest factor in women’s equality was communism. Communists believe that women were equal to men and the government started to pass laws in favor of women. One law was The Chinese constitution of the early 1950s which said that “Chinese women enjoyed equal rights with men in political, economic, social, cultural, and family life. The state protected women’s rights and interest, practiced equal pay for work and provided equal opportunity for women’s training and promotion (W., Jacob 2). Another law was The Inheritance Law, which allowed women to inherit family property. The Marriage Law eliminated arranged marriages and said that “both women and men [are] free to choose their marriage partners, and widows [are]
The oppression of women has been brought into light in the recent years but it was the norm in many societies in early history especially in premodern east Asia. During that time, the roles of men and women in society were determined by great scholars that had the power to get their voice to be heard and set general rules in society. In China, scholars like Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi had great impact on the way people divided the roles between men and women. The overall oppression of women in premodern east Asia can be seen through quotes from great scholars about how women should be obedient to men, should not make important decisions in their families, and are not spoken of equally to men in society.
Though authored possibly centuries apart, the Confucian Analects and court historian Ban Zhao's Lessons for a Woman have far more similarities than they do differences. The reason for this complementarity is that Ban Zhao's writings are intentionally constructed to mirror the teachings of the Analects with a focus on the roles of women in society rather than those of men. She very specifically focuses on relationships between men and women, thus between the two texts a well-rounded picture of the proper marriage relationship in ancient Chinese culture can be formed.
Women’s rights and equality were cornerstones of Chinese modernization, especially of Mao’s vision of an egalitarian socialist state (illustrated by his slogan that “women could hold up half the sky”). Increased female participation in labor seen as essential to the state and party agenda. While there were without a doubt many issues women still faced within this period, many policies of the Chinese Communist Party contributed to women’s equality. However, after Mao’s death and Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power and his vision of the nation as “Socialist with Chinese Characteristics,” and the implementation of China’s Open Door Policy, women have again become subordinated in many spheres of society. Yet instead of relying on male political theorists
(Adler 5)” In fact, politicized Confucianism was used to support conservative agendas, such as absolute obedience of elders and strict subjugation of women to men, during the Ming and Qing dynasties.