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WOMEN IN CHINA.
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Examines historical oppressive treatment of women.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines historical oppressive treatment of women. Lowly status and brutal treatment of women in Confucian China. Economic, legal and sociological discrimination. Basis of Confucian philosophy of women. Spread of mysogynistic doctrines. Foot binding. Reform movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Chinese Communisits freeing women from their traditional subjugation.
Paper Introduction:
It is difficult for Westerners to understand China. While there are always analogies to be drawn between different civilizations, Europe has few parallels to Chinese history. The unbroken continuity of culture, the unique socio-political structures, and the amazing revolutionary experiment of the 20th century set the Chinese into a category by themselves, especially from the Western perspective.
While our Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, scientific-industrial, imperialist-capitalist heritage has transformed the entire world, we have nothing resembling Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, or communism. Our nuclear families and weak kinship contrasts with their extended families and clans, while their collectivism and our individualism are polar opposites. Western women have only recently emancipated themselves from the yoke
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Legends,myths, songs, adages, proverbs, and folk wisdom all endlessly embroideredvariations on this theme.A primal duality of opposites ruled the universe, called yin and yang. Just as women are the chief defenders of thebarbaric practice of genital mutilation for girls in sub-Saharan Africa,old Chinese grandmothers repeated these precepts to their daughters andgrand-daughters throughout the centuries, warning them of dire consequencesfor transgression. Chicago: The University of Chicago press. South American liberatorSimon Bolivar expressed this almost insurmountable difficulty stemming fromthe baser elements of human nature with his famous saying regarding thedifficulty of uniting all of Latin America into one country beingequivalent to plowing the sea. After being a near-slave revolutionary heroine, now Chinese womenmay finally be able to define themselves as both fully female and fullyhuman. In the Nu Jie (Precepts for Women) and the Nu er Jing (TheClassic for Girls) these demeaning rules of conduct were hammered home forgenerations of Chinese women. 1983.Hu Shih. Women's Place in Chinese History. Thus, the pendulum is swingingagain. Alas! 1992. The Marxists were also deeplysuspicious of Western feminism, which they grouped together with otherbourgeois reformist tendencies stemming from privileged Western elites.While the leftist agitators of the May Fourth and other radical groups wereeducated urban dwellers, ironically the first part of China successfullyoccupied by the communist insurgents in their guerilla campaign centered ina town called Yenan, a mountainous and culturally backward province onShensi, where foot-binding was still widely practiced. Chinese Women Through Chinese Eyes. By the 19th and 2 th centuries "a consciousness of the blatant abusesof women began to surface among a segment of the population" - chieflyamong the urban intelligensia (2). Peace andprosperity in the world were "dependent on the maintenance of suchcomplimentarity" (Croll, 1995, 13).The most ancient and influential Chinese text, the Book of Changes,associated "unrestrained woman and destruction and disorder"; she wassupposed to be "obedient, unassuming, yielding, timid, respectful,reticent, and selfless"(Croll, 1995, 12). "Many Chinese women feel alienated by the rift between thegovernment's official policy of equality of the sexes and the day-to-dayreality" (Croll, 1995, 1). In the subsequent revolution 3 years later, the communists certainlyfreed women from their previous subjugation with new legal protections andmuch rhetoric. Changing Identities of Chinese Women: Rhetoric, Experience, and Self Perception in Twentieth Century China. In this national soul-searching, the oppression ofChinese women could no longer be ignored.In the late teens and early 2 s of the last century Confucianism itself,the very moral basis of Chinese civilization, came under public fire forthe first time. Sharpe, Inc. Works CitedChinese Women in the Great Leap Forward. London: M.E. Along with economic, legal, andsociological discrimination, one must consider the psychological and thespiritual. Isolated as they already werewhen they left their parents and went to live in the patriarchal,patrilineal, and patrilocal villages of their husbands (usually consistingof an extended family or clan), they became increasingly segregated andsecluded from the world when Buddhist missionaries from India arrived andbegan spreading even more mysogynistic doctrines. Sun,heaven, and daylight were all male, while the moon, the night, and darknessfemale. While there arealways analogies to be drawn between different civilizations, Europe hasfew parallels to Chinese history. 1992.Johnson, Kay Ann. 1983.Li Yu-ning, ed. London: Hong Kong University Press. The May Fourth movement (named for a student protest on that date in1919) against the division of China into spheres of influence by theimperialist European powers, became one of the focal points of a thorough-going social critique. After a half century of seeing images solely of heroic femalesoldiers, agricultural laborers, and factory workers, Chinese women areseeking out the same publications, movies, and television shows as Westernwomen -- those which stress clothes, make-up, physical appearance, beingsexually attractive, or how to catch a man. On what grounds did this abhorrent practice rest?Predating Confucianism were ancient beliefs about man, the earth, and thecosmos that have had such a powerful thrust among the Chinese that theyhave persisted for thousands of years - even to the present day. While nothing is wrong with praising an innovator, it is the exclusivefocus of her discovery relevant to production, and not on any traditionalissues relevant to women that is the point here. A woman was required to be flawlessly chaste and constant. Yet no one could stop them from telling stories toeach other and their children. She is shown in a photographwith admiring female co-workers, and the article explains that she has beensent all over China to demonstrate her method at similar industrial sites. Shefound "a female suicide profile that exceeded men at all ages and bulgedduring the painful years of betrothal and early marriage, relatively highrates of female infanticide in times of economic hardship and significantlyhigher mortality rates among the numerous young girls who were 'adopted' inchildhood for marriage (2). London: M.E. London: Zed Books. From the fact that "recognition of gender as a category distinct fromclass was regarded as reactionary" by the communist leadership to thetraditional sexism of the Chinese male (and female) peasant, it is clearthat Chinese women still have a long way to go to achieve even moderatesuccess when compared to Western women, especially when it comes to theactual equality of treatment and opportunity. "Fewsocieties in history have prescribed for women a more lowly status, ortreated them in a more routinely brutal way, than traditional ConfucianChina" (Johnson, 1983, 1). Nor has "seven hundred years ofrational philosophy...opened the eyes of Chinese thinkers to the horrors ofsuch a perverse and cruel form of 'beautifying' their women" (Croll, 1992,13). Once the horrible privations of the LongMarch and the revolutionary struggle were behind them, Chinese womenentered into a new era in their history, although their gains werestrangely ambiguous. For such a lack of love and respect to be institutionalized forso long is indicative of a sadistic tendency in the culture, something alsomanifested in the rigid, frequently cruel, dictatorial hierarchy that mostcharacterizes Chinese history, although there are occasional exceptions. In Chinese Women Through Chinese Eyes. Such dichotomies were felt to be integral to cosmic order, essentialto the preservation of harmony in the universe and among men. While lauding the new communist women for their "heroism at work,their sterling moral character, and the changes that have taken place intheir social and family life", the pamphlet features a story about one NiHai-pao, a previously anonymous female worker in a textile factory whodiscovers a slight improvement in the efficiency of changing shuttles andrestarting looms that increases production. Theyknew they would be severely handicapped with "half of the nation'spopulation ignorant of even the most rudimentary facts and principles oflife" (Li-Yu-ning, 1992, xix). They wanted all the support they could get in the war effort. Here women's rights would be far more controversial and divisive thanhad been the case in cosmopolitan Peking (Johnson, 1983, 63). In practice though, they discovered it much more difficultto change deeply ingrained sexist attitudes than they had imagined. But, after mentioning the nearly two thousand female poets whose workhas survived from the past, even he was forced to admit that all thisliterary output did little to advance the oppressive conditions of theirsex. 1995.Croll, Elizabeth. This wise woman, a bird of evil omen is she! While freely acknowledging their traditional oppression, Hu Shih's"Women's Place in Chinese History" points out that in spite of thispersecution, there were still a number of prominent women in Chinesehistory, including several eminent emperors. Various heresies produced by local attitudes and the stubbornessof deeply implanted traditional ideologies -- as well as the power andfinancial interests of provincial elites -- invariably lead to somedilution of the essence of the original doctrine. Such treatment of women made them little more than slaves, and likethe African slaves of the Americas, they gave vent to their deep-rootedfrustration in artistic expression. Li Yu-ning, ed. This attitude tends to be more extreme even than the legendarymachismo of Spain or Latin America. Not only were they freed fromtheir forced seclusion under the tyrannical thumb of the local patriarch,but for the first time at least, the basics of an elementary education(with reading and writing skills) were offered to masses of women.The communist leaders clearly realized the need to upgrade the position ofwomen. Kay AnnJohnson has searched Chinese historical documents to glean what fewstatistics are available about the conditions of women in the past. Her prime duty was to follow theThree Obediences - to father, older brothers, and sons. Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China. In fact, one of the worstinsults you can give a woman in modern China is to call her "twice-married". Yet as the history of theoutlawing of slavery has clearly demonstrated, changing laws does notchange public opinion. It was during this time that one of the most horrible mutilations everpracticed on the female body began - the binding of their feet in infancy,resulting in total immobility and dependency, forever preventing them fromperforming a useful social or economic function. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. While it may be possible for arevolution to seize control of power from a corrupt elite in the name ofthe proletariat, changing the attitudes inside millions of human heads is afar more uncertain and Quixotic quest. Suddenly therhetoric of liberating women from their cultural shackles became secondary,tertiary, or worse, giving way to the imperative of supplying the communistwar machine in their life-and-death struggle against the encirclingKuomintang armies of Chiang Kai-shek. Thus Marx and Engels were proven wrong. Its legacy is untold frustration andpain, as well as the tragic awareness that one's deepest, truest, and mostsincere aspirations for fulfillment will be forever thwarted. Judges and juries are as subject to prejudice aseveryone else.Mao Tse-tung's new government was well aware of this problem, and to hiscredit "the promulgation of legislation was followed by extensive campaignsto make the new legal provisions widely known and the establishment offacilities to make their implementation possible throughout the country.Legislation was followed by the establishment of new and supportive socio-economic and political institutions" (Croll, 1983, 2).While the material conditions of women's lives improved to some degreeacross the board, especially after the expansion of production under theGreat Leap Forward (1958-9) (9 % of Chinese women were earning at leastsome wages), "traditional beliefs and norms circumscribing socialdefinitions of women remained. Disaster does not stem from heaven, it comes from woman (Li Yu-ning, 1992, 5).Such comments are typical of those expressed about the female sexgeneration after generation by both male and female story-tellers. 196 .Croll, Elizabeth. "Has [this literary education] ever led them to revolt against foot-binding?" he asks (Croll, 1992, 13). It is as if the traditional Confucian Chinese male wasthreatened by the female, and could not accept her personhood or fullhumanity. Imperialist encroachments by Westernnations brought both radical foreign ideas and a sense of Chinese impotenceto the forefront of popular awareness. It is difficult for Westerners to understand China. As bad as this was for women, during the Sung dynasty (96 -1279 A.D.)more severe mortifications were to follow. A woman with a long tongue is surely a stepping stone to ruin. He and the other May Fourth writers sought to installthe free choice in marriage which Western women enjoyed, so as to allowwomen to "fulfill their personal potential and...free energies previouslyspent in narrow family obligations and rituals to serve the larger society"(Johnson, 1983, 29). Sharpe, Inc. Westernwomen have only recently emancipated themselves from the yoke of maledomination and achieved equality, yet nothing in the long history of sexismcan compare with the oppression of Chinese women, unless it be the Indiancivilization from which some of its worst features were derived. Karl Marx's closest collaborator (Engels) espoused the idea thatwomen's issues were secondary in importance to the class struggle that was,in their view, the only way to change the fundamental injustices ofsociety, including the low status of women. Inspite of new provisions giving women freedom of choice in marriage, and therights of divorce and some property ownership, the communists found it wasmuch more expedient to focus on the productive potential of women ratherthan their civil rights. Our nuclearfamilies and weak kinship contrasts with their extended families and clans,while their collectivism and our individualism are polar opposites. If herhusband were to die, she must never remarry. Nonetheless, in spite of their forced recruitment into the fields andrural factories to produce food and clothing for communist soldiers, a newworld opened up to millions of Chinese women. Women like her are currently employed by the millions in sweatshopfactories for 6 cents an hour (hardly a living wage in China) making Nikesneakers for the enrichment of a few industrialists in new free-enterprisezones and foreign capitalists. As with the spread of any ideology from religion to politics, theacceptance of a doctrine is always affected by local conditions andbeliefs. The historical facts are overwhelming. Her totalcompliance with these selfless and often degrading rules was a recipe forwhat today we would call low self-esteem. They are also beginning to object to male-defined status - what Croll calls "a rejection of the 'revolutionarymasculinization of the female', 'female man', or 'superwoman'smasculinization'". They made up fantastic characters, like the avenging female warriorMulan, who secretly took the place of her ailing grandfather, an armygeneral, and led an army of men to the conquest of the barbarians whothreatened her people.There were women who flew, who had superhuman strength, and who wereinvulnerable to pain. The unbroken continuity of culture, theunique socio-political structures, and the amazing revolutionary experimentof the 2 th century set the Chinese into a category by themselves,especially from the Western perspective.While our Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, scientific-industrial, imperialist-capitalist heritage has transformed the entire world, we have nothingresembling Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, or communism. After their victory in 1949, the Chinese communist leadershipintroduced a number of policies designed to redefine the role of women insociety: "to legislate for equality, introduce women into socialproduction, introduce a new ideology of equality and organize women to bothredefine and forward their economic, social and political interests"(Croll,1983, 1).In the West - and especially America - much is made of legal remediesaffecting hot-button social issues. In a sense, we feel we have solved aproblem if we have passed a law against it. The realities, however, were much grimmer. Indeed the widespread incorporation ofChinese women into social production had not lead to the degree of changeanticipated" (Croll, 1983, 3). Chinese Women Since Mao. An indication of what a mixed blessing communist efforts to improvethe status of women has been is symbolized by reference to a governmentpublication called "Chinese Women in the Great Leap Forward", from 196 . The music and dance of the AmericanNegro was out of the question for Chinese women, unless they were membersof the highest classes. Both reformist and revolutionarymovements sprang up. The wise man founded the city, but the wise woman destroys it. The male was authoritative, active, and superior, and the womansubservient, obedient, and passive (Croll, 1995, 12). One of Mao Tse-tung's first published writings concerned a woman whocommitted suicide rather than "submit to a dreaded arranged marriage"(Johnson, 1983, 29). Corruption and Westernization are proceedingas fast as the penetration of American-produced mass-media and marketingthroughout the country.
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