Women 's Attitudes Towards Women

In the aftermath of May Fourth, women writer mushroomed to the center stage of literary creation. They were a new type of women themselves and they created new types of women in their stories, too. This paper discusses the types of new women in Ling Shuhua’s “The Embroidered Pillow,” “After Drinking,” and Feng Yuanjun’s “Separation,” and their voices that contest, question, or ironize the possibilities available to them in the new era.

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”.

Four Chinese mothers have migrated to America. Each hope for their daughter’s success and pray that they will not experience the hardships faced in China. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such a degree that it is hard for Jing Mei to understand her mother's culture and life lessons. Yet it is not until Jing Mei realizes that the key to understanding who her

Zhang Yimou presents a breathtaking snapshot of life in China from the 1940s to the 70s through the lens of a single family in “To Live”. China faced many tumultuous twists and turns during this time period as the country transitioned out of the bygone feudal society. Each decade brought in a new era: the civil war of the 40s, the communist regime and the “Great Leap forward” in the 50s, and the cultural revolution of the 60s. Zhang captures the essence of these distinct periods within the progression of Fugui’s family, a bittersweet story of perseverance against all odds. The plot of the story is rather simple, following a linear structure. The graceful juxtaposition of various historical elements alongside the underlying primary plot makes this a true masterpiece that manages to condense the lives of individuals into a short chunk of time.

In Chinese culture, the Confucian attitude towards society seemed to prevail. Women lacked a voice, education was bereft of importance, and writing lacked substance. However, Lu Xun, one of the most prominent writers during the May Fourth movement, was a leading figure in helping shed the image of Confucian literature. His satirical style brought to light some of the major issues occurring in Chinese culture including the common attitude towards scholars, the sexist society as well as the everlasting belief that superstition and fortune were important. In “Kong Yiji,” Lu Xun chronicles the troubled times of a scholar, and despite his intellect becomes mocked by the villagers and ultimately is cast off. Lu Xun explores the gender inequality in his short story “Ah Q,” with the main character being attacked for disrespecting women. “Medicine” is inundated with many traditional Chinese superstitions, yet each superstition has an ironic outcome as nothing goes to plan. Moreover, Lu Xun’s parodies not only created a more realistic perspective of modern beliefs, but his parodies completely reject the traditional Confucian beliefs, paving the way for new Chinese voices.

A long-time resident of China, Alicia Bewicke Little was poised to comment on that history/story as the century ended. Her 1896 novel, A Marriage in China, is a reflection of the "imagined" history of British-Chinese relations-that is, the tone, tenor, and character of the relationship as imagined by the British. This "imagined" history-intangible and theoretical-is embodied both structurally and thematically in the novel. Structurally, the novel employs multiple plot lines and a wide variety of characters and settings as a way of representing the turbulence of the past fifty years of British policy in China. As Little historicizes

In the United States, study after study continues to show that women have fewer opportunities to advance in the workplace than men. These disadvantages are a result of society’s views of women in leadership positions and how women may view themselves in these roles. Women have been making progress in terms of equality in pay and job positions, but significant gaps remain. Women who strive to be promoted into higher levels of responsibility in their companies often meet resistance that prevents them from achieving the goal of a senior or executive level of management. This barrier is referred to as the “glass ceiling” and it is a controversial issue in our country today. The glass ceiling called this because women are able to see the higher level positions, but can reach them because of an intangible barrier. One can look at the Fortune 500 companies, which are the most successful companies in the U.S. in terms of revenue to see how few women are in leadership positions. Clearly, women are significantly underrepresented in these companies, as less than 5 percent of these companies have female chief executive officers (CEO) today (Dockterman 105). Providing the opportunity for women to move into management positions, like CEOs, would bring a unique talent and a new perspective on how the company can operate to perform better (Buckalew 147). The “glass ceiling” is a real obstacle that creates an intangible barrier that puts women at a disadvantage in advancing in a company.

Across cultures, many times similarities lay within them that go unnoticed. It is true that obvious differences set them apart; but if a closer look is taken, it is surprising what can be found. The Chinese culture is obviously different from the American culture, but underneath the surface there are similarities. One of them is how the treatment of women has evolved and changed. Anti-feminism in China has been present since ancient times, and has just recently decreased. Anti-feminism in America has never been as severe as it was in China; however, instead of the value of women gradually increasing over the years - it has reversed. The value of women in America has decreased. There are many similarities between the ancient Chinese women

Book Review: Growing Up in the People’s Republic: Conversations Between Two Daughters of China’s Revolution. By- Ye Weili with Ma Xiaodong

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

The second story, “White Tigers”, is a mythical tale of a female warrior who disguises herself as a male and fights in the place of the father. The story completely contradicts the conventional role of woman in Chinese society. It places a woman in a position of bravery and heroism, which are traditionally reserved for men.

“Dagong” means “working for the boss” or “selling labor,” and illustrates the commodification of labor and the subordinate status of the worker, in contrast to socialist imaginations of work as liberating. “Mei” means little sister, often associated with young, unmarried women in contrast to “jie”, the older, mature sister . Thus, the term dagongmei symbolizes the subordination of female migrants, both as migrant workers under urban factory owners, and as women expected to work long hours, some sacrificing their education, in order to support their families. Pun articulates the very real struggles many dagongmei face, from the 1993 Shenzhen factory fire that killed over 80 migrant workers, all but two female, only then alerting China and the rest of the world of the human costs of China’s rapid development to one woman, Yan, who screams in her sleep after years of work despite being in deep physical and emotional pain. Such pain is unbearable, and to scream out is the only way to survive. Yet as Pun argues, their very survival is of itself a form of resistance. These migrant workers may not be organizing, staging mass strikes or protests against the state or factory owners, but they are resisting. By screaming out, Yan is forcing the world to hear her pain. By telling

After World War I and the rise of Chinese nationalism, a striking problem existed within Chinese society. The image of oppressed Chinese women was a direct parallel to the international image of a weak China. The “emancipation of women”, led primarily by male reformers, attempted to “replace gender awareness with national consciousness, bring about women’s emancipation through national salvation, and supplant gender difference with equal rights in humanity” (Cui 12-13). Despite its intentions of equality, the movement cultivated a master narrative of gender blindness that further perpetuated the idea that Chinese women were of a weaker sex. Such reformers portrayed themselves as heroes, believing to have freed women of gender disparity.

There is no denying that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party under Chairman Mao Zedong changed the course of the history of China and shaped the China the world sees today. The amount of lives, cultural traditions, and differing intellectual thoughts that were lost and destroyed as he strove to meet his goals for the country can never be recovered or replaced. However, it had been asserted that one of the more positive effects of Chairman Mao on the people of China was his somewhat radical opinion of woman. Prior to the Communist Revolution, women’s role in Chinese society was almost completely limited to life within the home and focused on supporting their family and being submissive to their fathers and husbands. Chairman Mao

The True Story of Ah Q, as written in 1921 by Lu Xun, is widely seen as a magnum opus of contemporary Chinese literature. Xun wanted to alter the way of thinking as well as enlighten his fellow Chinese following the 1911 Revolution that overturned the final Chinese dynasty. Xun uses the protagonist of the story, Ah Q, as a representative of China as a whole as he saw the nation to be, giving the reader an insight into social classes and attitudes that permeated Chinese society in the early 20th century. Xun does not paint a great picture of Ah Q and unfortunately, this is his opinion of Chinese society as a whole at the time. This portrayal of Chinese society is harsh and eye-opening but to Xun, very accurate and necessary to transform the thinking of Chinese people at that time.