The Text Lessons For Women

She reaches out to women who are about to be married to teach them the things they should know to please their husbands. Ban explains how society expects women to behave, both in public and at home. She begins by talking about her humility and that humility is a good characteristic for women to cultivate. She tells us that a baby girl, from the time of birth, should be trained to be humble. For example, the baby is given a broken shard with which to play and is placed under the bed to teach her to accept her lot in life. Many people would find Ban Zhao’s ideas very out-dated today. Many women would be angry with her suggestion that women are second-class citizens and should accept their lot in life. In addition, most women today to do not see themselves as an extension of their husbands.

During the 18th Century women in China continued to be subordinated and subjected to men. Their status was maintained by laws, official policies, cultural traditions, as well as philosophical concepts. The Confucian ideology of 'Thrice Following'; identified to whom a women must show allegiance and loyalty as she progressed throughout her life-cycle: as a daughter she was to follow her father, as a wife she was to follow her husband, and as a widow she was to follow her sons. Moreover, in the Confucian perception of the distinction between inner and outer, women were consigned to the inner domestic realm and excluded from the outer realm of examinations, politics and public life. For

She is significant in Chinese history because of her writings and teachings of the “Admonitions for Women” using a Confucian approach to define appropriate behavior (Gregory p. 123).

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 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

Medieval China, as seen in the Stories from a Ming Collection, was characterized by distinct separations between men and women’s abilities, typical old fashioned family structure, and a desire to advance their social status. Throughout all the stories in this book, it dives deep into different aspects of how men and women are treated, how families were structured and how that affects their lives, as well as the values these people held. A very common trend in the stories was how different men and women were treated and the limitations they may or may not had.

Have you ever heard the fascinating Chinese story “The Story of Miss Li”? This short story is about two main characters. One being Miss Li, a beautiful young Prostitute, and a young man of great wealth and power. Soon in the story Miss Li finds the young man and convinces him to marry her. Unfortunately, two years later they spend all of their money and end up having nothing to their name. So, Miss Li, tricked the young man and left him with nothing to his name. years pass and the young man was very sick and almost dead, he runs into Miss Li one more time. Miss Li felt so terrible that she did this to him that she took him in and cared for him. Soon, she became an ideal Confucian woman and led him back to great wealth in power by helping him learn “the five texts” and making sure he was ready to take the Civil Serves Examination. Even though Miss Li was not what most Chinese call a proper woman, later became an ideal Confucian woman and wife by following the Admonitions for Women and the Analects for Women.

Lessons for Women is a book of conduct written during the Han Dynasty by Ban Zhao (C. 45-120) to advise the women of her family on the proper conduct of a wife. Ancient China around this time was a Confucian state in which the society was control by the belief in order and harmony. The book contains seven chapters that talks about: humility, husband and wife, respect and caution, womanly qualifications, wholehearted devotion, implicit obedience, and harmony with younger brothers- and sisters- in law. This work of literature reflects on how a proper women was to behave obediently to the husband, by being devoted and respectful to avoid humility to herself, her parents and her clan. It gives the readers an idea of the power that men had over women during this time period and the exceptions for both roles of husband and wife. Lessons of women informs the readers that women during the Han Dynasty had no control over their own lives and the philosophy of Confucian had a huge influence on the society’s everyday life. Ban Zhao emphasizes the importance of distinctions between men and women, and their separate natures.

For my creative project, I am designing a feminist activity book. The book will include games, puzzles, coloring pages, word searches and more. Specifically, this book will outline how feminism has progressed since the 1900’s starting with the first feminist wave until today as well as an outline of the history of the different movements we have learned. The book will also include some of the difficulties that women endure in today's society that we have discussed in class, such as unpaid maternity leave or the wage gap. This also includes the different stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination women face in different aspects in their life (i.e. in the work place) by having the audience complete different word searches and interactive puzzles.

The epithets shown in Deng's writings demonstrate the ideal traits for a woman in ancient China. The majority of the women do not have epithets that truly talk about their lives, instead they have a few lines on their behavior and the name of their husband. No first name and no life’s deeds written down, can you imagine? Honestly this took me straight to scary patriarchal dystopia(The Handmaid’s Tale anybody?) and I can’t imagine what it would feel like to only be remembered as a few stock phrases or “some conventional formulas” as Deng puts it(87). However, that line did stand out to me when I was reading this week, as it suggests that these epithets are not truly about the women they are written for, but more likely just a

The family structure has traditionally been the basic unit of Chinese society, where women have long been given the task of the continuation of the society 's core values, in their roles as wives and mothers. While the expected values have evolved with time, from the imperial period to the Communist revolution to the modern day, this responsibility for women has

The authors was Chinese scholar named Ban Zhao served as the unofficial imperial historian to Emperor Ho and taught history as well as other thing. The date that it was published was 1932 in china and she was the first female historian. Taking into account the era and the origin of the book would depend greatly depending on the gender of the author. Her purpose is to teach people the culture of china and women. She intended for it to be taken seriously do to the lack of humor. I think she is trying to be calming because she isn't arguing or contradicting anything.

Every now and then, I remember thinking …well how many of my audience understand and identify with my story? In those instances, I probably failed to offer details and attempting to speak in an authoritative voice. “They must be equal to or more powerful than those they would address ”. (Bartholomae 407) For example, I wrote, “Even today, gender role continues to constrain women from excelling in certain aspects of fields. Principles and acceptability set by a society to function in certain ways for hundreds of years and it had an apparent impact on women’s literacy.” (Legesse 3) When I was talking about society and gender role, I purposely was trying to avoid sounding off like women right activist. First and foremost my purpose in this literacy

The details and circumstances of women’s life in 1930’s China. In 1030’s China women’s status can be described to be just a little bit better than a horse. They were not even seen as human, just a son boring machine and the even worse part is that if they could not bear a son for the men, and this was one of the excuses why men were able to have multiple wives. Women were expected to be obedient to the man they belong to, also if they lost their virginity before marriage, they could only end up as a prostitute, because no man wants a dirty woman. As the women marry to their husband the women have to change their last name same as the husband's. Also the child’s last name has to be the husband last name, which is why the traditional Chinese

The germ of the novel lay in the medieval romance of fantastic tale of the love and adventure, itself derived from the ballads and fragments of epic poems sung by the wandering minstrel. In 1350 Boccaccio wrote a world famous collection of love stories in prose, entitled Decameron. Such short stories are called in Italian ‘novella’. .