Minority Women in China

In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club the reader is able to look through the eyes of a chinese woman in the 1980’s, a time when men were seen as the superior sex when compared to females, in this age when a man gave an order to a women it was to be followed without hesitation. Characters in the book like Lena St. Clair and Lindo Jong were exposed to the idea of Sexism in their culture as they all have gone through instances where their own desires and dreams had been crushed by a man. For Lena her experience came from when her own husband, who also acts as her employer, denied her a raise only due to the fact that if a woman ranked above men it would be ‘Awkward’. As for Lindo her experience came from when

When the mothers finally arrived, they stayed true to their Chinese traditions and customs. But when their daughters grew up and were young adults, their daughters didn’t feel the same passion and love for their Chinese culture the way their mothers felt. Two daughters in particular were deeply ashamed of their Chinese heritage and culture. When June, Suyuan’s daughter, was in High School, she had a very difficult time in being proud of her Chinese heritage. June said, “...I was fifteen and had vigorously denied that I had any Chinese whatsoever below my skin.

Despite the oppression women were subjected to in China, they still occasionally overcame it and accomplished something extraordinary. Some worked, and helped to earn the family living, some were extremely honorable in their efforts to uphold their chastity or their family's honor, and some accomplished even more influential feats. Fa Mu Lan trained for fifteen years in order to become a woman warrior. She became as strong as a man, but swifter and more graceful. After saving her father from the draft by dressing up as a man, she assembled an army. Her army never lost, because Kuan Kung, the god of war and literature, would always ride before her into battle. Interestingly enough, another of the more extraordinary feats was that of

“Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing up with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?”(1327). This is a powerful point that Kingston is making, it explains all the confusion, the questions, and the doubting of their true culture values that Chinese-Americans would have when they are being intertwined with this new information given to them by their school, family members, parents, or even society itself. The feel of this literature piece is that Kingston is revealing the truth about the ugliness and flaws of Chinese culture. How the Women are treated with no respect, there were practices that were cruel and inhuman.

For years, it has been debated on whether or not women in China were weak or strong. In China, women were regarded as the lesser gender. Yet, does that necessarily mean that women in China are weak? There are facts supporting both opinions, but I believe there are more signs pointing towards how resilient and strong women actually are. Women in China were exceptionally strong despite being persecuted for their gender; Although these women were required by tradition to serve their husbands or bind their feet, they still lived and conquered on. The three main points I believe that show how strong women from China are is that women are respected, even though their gender is, “lesser, women still live their life

The Woman Warrior, written by Chinese American author Maxine Hong Kingston in 1976, blends traditional Chinese folktales and memoir, and portrays the early 20th century Chinese history in a Chinese-American perspective. For Maxine, it seems Chinese “history” means social and cultural constrains from conventional Chinese doctrines, especially regarding the social status of womanhood, the blind collectivism, and superstition in old China. Maxine’s negative depiction of Chinese “history” partially reflects the bureaucracy of patriarchal and feudal system in old China, but more importantly, reveals Maxine herself, a third culture kid, as a paradox: she is eager to incorporate into the American mainstream society by resisting her Chinese cultural background, but at the same time, her unconscious actions imply that her Chinese background is a historical baggage that she could never discard of. By retelling experiences and legends from her mother and even her grandmother’s generation, Maxine suggests how she as a Chinese American woman is in a awkward state between tradition and transformation, and presents a cultural clash between America and China.

Confucian ideology stressed the importance of a male and dismiss the females. The Chinese daughters treated as worthless and burdens to families. As far as China men believe, “a Chinese women was expected to obey her father at home, her husband after marriage and her eldest son when widowed .” When the Gold Rush gained popularity, Chinese men quickly arrived in the U.S. to work in mines and in 1850, there were 4,018 Chinese men while Chinese women were rare and exotic. Labeling Chinese women as “exotic” happen in 1834 when Afong Moy traveled to America as an exhibit displayed in front of Americans therefore forever stereotyping female Chinese as “exotic .” Despite the novelty of a Chinese women in the east, the excitement of a Chinese women

Women have been taught from a young age about her their future roles of wife, mother and daughter-in-law. In the book Lesson for Women written during the Han dynasty by Ban Chao a woman for unmarried daughters to prepare them for their duties in marriage teaches women to practice humility, obedience and devotion to her husband (e). This shows that women were expected to work for her husband and his family, thus constantly self-sacrificing by putting other before her needs. Confucianism wanted cosmic order through patriarchal families as the foundation for a stable society where women were not given the freedom to make their own decisions because her role was within the family and her status was not equal to a

History Paragraph about the Role of women in Ancient China Mulan is a Disney classic but does it contain historical facts? Is it a reliable or non-reliable source? There are many primary and secondary sources that show, that the 1998 film, is a reliable and un reliable source. I will discuss about Mulan as a reliable and non-reliable source and the changes that has happened from the Sui dynasty to the 21st century.

Cameron gave statements to newspaper to garner attention, she estimated in the Los Angeles Daily Herald “that ninety per cent or more of the Chinese girls brought to San Francisco were destined for immoral lives. She said these girls were bought and paid for in China and that they were compelled to take purchase money in their own hands and give it to the persons selling them so it could not come back upon the person making the purchase.”

China as a nation has always been weak (World History: The Modern Era). It has been an acquisition to many nations and groups. However in history’s recent past it has fallen to Japan and Communism. Both of which can be viewed through the lens of good and the lense of bad. However for the China born author Ha Jin it is not viewed under the light of prosperity but instead dread and oppression. These are not tales to be taken lightly in any sense but instead to show how humanity is not always human and empathy is not always present in one’s soul. Ha Jin uses dramatic events and actions with certain points of view to develop characters that antagonize Communist and Japanese rule over China.

Maxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese American, who has been in distinctions between modern and traditional Chinese societies. Kingston, the narrator, has a negative perspective of Chinese aspects because the society keeps their collectivism inclination. Disregarding individual’s life is the one of the damages of collectivism. In this sense, No Name Woman especially works tackling subjects such as the division of gender role. In No Name Woman, Kingston desolates and reveals woman’s trauma about a hostile society where sexual discrimination toward the woman, and the lower quality of woman’s lives based on the story of her aunt.

Chinese mothers would bound girls feet by the age of five to eight, using long strips of cloth. Their main determination was to keep their feet from growing and to bend the four smaller toes under to make the foot narrow and arched. Foot binding was an elite practice and eventually became common in north and central China, spreading to all classes in Chinese society. Chinese women who had natural feet were able to walk easily than women who were with less mobility. Servants would bound Chinese women’s feet so tightly that walking was difficult.

Yu Hua presents interpretations of classical Chinese culture as fluid, fundamentally dependent on the surrounding political context. China has always placed a great emphasis on the concept of the ‘people’, turning it into an abstract concept that forms the basis of the worldview. Consequently, the understanding of the term shifted as China moved from Maoist to a more market-oriented state.

We see the conducted research in which everyday activities established a critical moment for women’s embodiment of normative expressions. Femininity and masculinity revolves around the traditional culture which is present in contemporary China. This article further helps our understanding of how leisure spaces prove critical towards the production and reproduction of gendered geographies of power. In the case of Chinese women we saw all types of public leisure spaces which expressed a sense of comfort for the women as they preferred being in groups as they perceived shopping malls and cafes as less masculinized. It engaged traditional behaviour which for women is a strong trait that enables a constructed performance of hegemonic masculinity from the men. Women were always faced with long standing gendered norms of masculinized spaces like bars and clubs were primarily associated with hyperfeminzation of women by the hegemonic masculinity of the males. This article also contributes insight into the ways of which young women are participants into the ongoing question of what it means to be a “traditional Chinese girl” in a contemporary setting. As Gaetano argues, “this is important to recognize, as it positions women not only as ‘sexualized objects’ in the negotiations of cultural norms, but also as ‘subjects of history’ whose everyday activities, including public leisure, constitute an important platform for the negotiation of national identities.” While conducting research on women’s gendered experience in public spaces, topics of familial responsibilities and gender division of labour were discussed and remained mainly around women’s responsibilities towards a equitable division of labour in other households.