Gender Roles In The Tang Dynasty

Women in second wave civilizations from China, Rome, and Greece around 600 BCE to 200 AC were treated very differently from each other and their male counterparts from this time, but they also shared some similarities. In this essay, I'll be exploring the differences from each other, and how women played a role in their civilizations during this time. Women in this time period don't have as many rights as they do today, but they still play a part in their civilizations/empires. So without further ado, let's see the similarities and differences between these civilizations.

The transition from the Qin Dynasty to the Han Dynasty brought about many changes in ideology. The Han Dynasty’s rise to power brought with it the rise of Confucianism, and this gave the people of China more rights and freedom compared to their life under the Qin Dynasty. Confucian principles emphasized loyalty, respect for superiority, education, and the welfare of a group over the individual. Comparing Han China to Qin China, Lu Jia said, “When the people only feared the laws, they could not know rites and rightness.” The emphasis of Confucianism in Han China led to the construction of schools to offer more widespread education. This embedded a philosophy within the Chinese people that revolved around Ren and Yi, ideas

To understand how femininity and masculinity is aligned in Asian countries, it is important to understand the political events of the time and how this influences the domains of men and women. Each evolvement of a country, through a political sphere, seeks a new identity and thus helps correlates the understanding of the changing definition of femininity and masculinity. This interrelation is illustrated in countries such as China and Japan, where both adheres to the notion of Confucian teaching and both countries undergo rapid ramifications, ideals of masculinity stems from the same concept ‘wen-wu’

An example of gender inequality of men can be observed in the culture of the Persians, which had assisted them in upholding their massive empire. For instance, as mentioned in The Histories: Customs of the Persian, it says in terms of being brace in battle a guy is measure in his manliness through the number of sons he presents, and each year the king gifts to the man who does such. They school their sons from the age of five to twenty in mainly three things: horseback riding, archery, and telling the truth. The boy does face their father until the age of five. This is done so if he dies while growing up he won’t cause grief to his father. These features of the Persians had played a significant role of how they acquired a large kingdom which can be seen in The Persian Empire Under Darius I’s Map (pg.67). This tactic of using men for their advantage in gaining imperial power had deprived them of their chance to take part in other interests

China is an ancient civilization, patriarchal society, and an extremely large country. Why is China significant in our society? According to the Asia society, the article stated, “more than 1 billion people live in China” (Zimmerman, 2015). The role of women in China has changed drastically at the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911, and the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The transition of the women’s role was from enslavement and oppression in ancient China, to one of egalitarianism in modern communist China. Chinese women lived with rules by Confucius in his analects for two thousand years. The Confucius doctrine mentioned women were not equal to men because women were inadequate of an academic education. Throughout ancient

The idea of feminism has not always been common. The term “feminism” wasn’t introduced until the 1970s. This shows how society didn’t allow anything that had to due with everyone being equal because of the standards that society constructed. In all the versions of Mulan, I think that Disney’s Mulan was the most strict on her having Ancient China’s role of being a woman. This would be having kids, helping clean around the house and not working for money, but working for her husband and kids. In Disney’s Mulan, her family is more hard on her to be a lady and for her to be the proper role of a women. This is because they went to a “matchmaker” to find her husband, and after saving everyone several times, she was still looked down upon because she was a woman.

The most important contribution to the importance of the repetition of history in China is the belief in the opposing powers of Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang is a concept based on Taoist beliefs. The foundation of Confucianism is Taoist teachings. In the context of government, it represents the rise and fall of empires in Chinese history. In Taoism, the Yin and Yang describes the opposite forces in the natural world such as life and death.

Within the Han Dynasty, there were three different social levels: emperor and their family, skilled workers (farmers and merchants), and unskilled workers (servants and slaves). These three classes were determined by social and economic standings within each family. The gender roles within the region saw that women were not viewed as equally as men, for the women’s major role was to birth & raise children, and take care of the household. The social class system in the Han Dynasty can be closely compared to the caste system in present-day India since the unskilled are at the bottom while the more highly people are at the top.

1. What is a patriarchal society? In what ways do the different civilizations we have studied exhibit patriarchy and how did they reinforce it (hint: Hammurabi’s code, Chinese philosophy, Ancient

During the Qing Dynasty Chinese women roles were more restricted than they had been during the earlier dynasties. According to Women in World history in the 19th China followed the Neo-Confucian or Confucian gender norms. These norms emphasized the family as the primary social unit and supported the dominance of women. Within the Chinese family structure, “one’s position in the hierarchy is determined rank and responsibility. Daughters were expected to obey their parent’s authority, assist their mothers in domestic tasks, and, in wealthier families learn how read and write.” History reflects during the Qing Dynasty the image of foot binding played such a crucial and significant role in gender and social change amongst Chinese women, where

During the long era of Chinese Dynasties, three School of Thoughts emerged as philosophers spread their knowledge across the empires. Although each of the three philosophers that founded these School of Thoughts were able to alter the ways of the people’s beliefs, one in particular had ideals that over time, were powerful enough to change the ways of the Chinese culture, and eventually the world. Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, focused on spreading his political and ethical views based on how “humans should act in harmony with the universe” ( World History 91), and the effect of this would allow their society to blossom. As word of the practice of Confucianism spread, the Chinese empires began to adapt to new changes that this school of thought taught, and overtime, the government, and lives of the Chinese began to revolve around the Confucian

Oftentimes, religion can have the most impact on societal rules, especially concerning gender roles. In John McKay’s A History of World Societies, McKay explains how Confucianism was highly promoted in the Han Dynasty (McKay 178). It became an essential component within education and the government made sure to recruit officials who were well educated on Confucian principles (McKay 178). In doing so, the spread of its ideologies throughout the Chinese society was facilitated. However, an emphasis on men poses an interesting question. How does the set of Confucian principles influence the way women were perceived and treated throughout Han to Tang society? Although Empress Wu became the first female ruler in China during the Tang dynasty, women from Han to Tang China were considered inferior to men due to Confucian teachings. By stressing the importance of humility, instructing women to obey men, and supporting the spread of these ideologies through

came to the position of women. In both empires women were inferior to men and had less political and social freedom. Women were expected to obey the husband in both China and Japan. Specifically, in China, only males could aspire to positions in government or scholarship, and wives could legally not divorce from a husband unlike the husband could If she did not produce male heirs. However women in China played a large role in the clan which was a large part of everyday life in the qing dynasty. In Japan, Most girls were not able to receive a proper education, yet boys were. Also, like in China the wife in an elite family was obligated to reflect her husband’s rank and status through strict code of comportment and dress.

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.

Throughout the course of human history, societies worldwide tend to follow a specific pattern of male domination in politics, economics, and culture. From the earliest city-states of Mesopotamia to the massive empires of China and Rome, women were forced to take a limited role in society. This systematic oppression of women is indicative of a patriarchal society, in which “women have been subordinate to men in the family and in society generally” (Ways of the World 59). Though these civilizations share the characteristic of male supremacy, each had different practices governing interactions between the genders. Each society had a unique idea of exactly what rights women were afforded and how the patriarchy was enforced. The Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Greek civilizations were undeniably patriarchal, but how the dominance of men was expressed varied between each society.