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Introduction
In today’s world, the Chinese women widely reputed for their decency, chastity, harmony and unrelenting love, commitment devotion to their men. They are known to shun marital infidelity and regard it as odious and highly dishonorable. To a Chinese woman, there is nothing more important that her family, which she will defend fiercely. But her fight to equality and recognition as a functional member of society has been a long and challenging process, with bottlenecks challenging her determination to emerge victorious.
Long before China evolved into the super power and economic powerhouse status is presently boast, China was in many ways a backward and discriminatory country. It was one of the most dominantly patriarchal societies, with the males’ literary domination the country. The women had no basic humanitarian right and were considered the most low in society.
Main body
Unfortunately, the Chinese woman has been the beast of burden, which unquestionable obedience and servitude for her husband, father and brother being her only duty in life. So severe was the situation that a woman was often considered as the property of a man. Despise for women was captured in the justification that “disorder was not sent down by heaven; it was produced by women” (Women in History, 2008). Women in ancient China were expected to perform tasks within the household to ensure that the man was as comfortable as he deemed fit. She was supposed to care for the elderly and pay particular attention to the needs of her sons. In the event of the death of her husband, she was to obey her sons as she did their father. They were expected to work twice as hard as their ale counterparts in order to make ends meet (Bossler, 2004).
A researcher made a critical analysis of the images of women depicted in a Chinese pictorial magazine, the Young Companion of 1927. It was established that in all the eighty seven adverts investigated, women were dominantly portrayed as mothers or wives who had no other role in life beyond their domesticated existences. Women in these adverts were not objectifies but rather, women had shapeless clothes that highlighted unattractiveness. This was the political and gender ideology of the time.
In her 1997 book, Precious Records: Women in China’s long eighteenth century, Susan Mann presents a rich analysis of the life of traditional Chinese women during the 19th century. She further highlights the subjugation and oppression that characterized the gender relations during the High Qing reign. By placing women at the middle of the Qing era, Mann effectively illustrates the importance of gender in molding political, cultural, economic and social changes of the time. The High Qing era placed a lot of emphasis on the art and literature of the elite group of the society. The women of this era contributed to literature developments by writing poetic and literary works. The women were actively involved courtesan duties, household roles and participated significantly in religious and ritualistic practices.
The lowly position of women was manifested from the first day of her life. Three days after she was born, the baby girl would be placed under a bed as a remainder of her second class status. This also symbolized her weakness and her life long duty to serve others, particularly of the male folk. She was also given a piece of broken and dirty pottery which was a symbol of her duty to labor tirelessly, be highly productive and defend her family. Thirdly, it was believed that by publicly announcing her arrival into this world to her ancestors, she would be made aware of her duty to preserve and continue the home’s worship of their ancestors. It was not uncommon to her a girl being named daughter no. 1 and so on simply because their fathers saw no point in assigning them names.
In the poem, Black bears and brown Mean men-children. Snakes and serpents Mean girl-children, the absolute favoritism and preference for the boy child is portrayed. It is written that… “So he bears a son, And puts him to sleep upon a bed, Clothes him in robes, Gives him a jade scepter to play with. The child’s howling is very lusty; In red greaves shall he flare, Be lord and king of house and home. Then he bears a daughter, and puts her upon the ground, Clothes her in swaddling-clothes, Gives her a loom-whorl to play with. For her no decorations, no emblems; her only care, the wine and the food, And how to give no trouble to father and mother”. So dire was the situation that even geese were believed to be more profitable that girls! Land ownership was the mark of wealth and a man would pass his land to his sons, never his daughters, on his death. In fact, while alive, a man would never include his daughters while listing the members of his family (Think quest, 1998).
Marriage should have presented the opportunity for an improved situation; if anything, things only got worse because of the mother –in law addition. As has been the earlier scenario, absolute servitude and obedience was expected from the woman. Woe unto the unfortunate woman who failed to bore here husband any sons; she was until then considered worse off than even the hired servants in the household. Polygamy was accepted and so a man could marry as many women as he chose. In the even of his death, a woman could not remarry as that was considered the height of disloyalty. In fact, it was the general consensus that it was preferable that a woman died of hunger and poverty as opposed to remarrying. If the worst happened, that is remarried, the woman had to peel of her skin in remorse. Some women simply took their won lives after the demise of their husbands as a way out of imminent poverty and misery. This whole situation was simply because the woman had no skills beyond the household, where her only skills were to entertain the man and respond to his every whimper. Ironically, a woman who had no skill whatsoever beyond the household was held in high regard and it was said that “the woman with no talent is the one who has merit” (Women in History, 2008).
In the Chinese marriages, there were questionable practices such as concubine, female slavery and female infanticide. Foot binding was yet another practice which was said to be the mark of a dainty and beautiful woman. This was ancient tradition began in the early ages when a certain emperor felt that the concubines who has small feet were the most beautiful. So, once a young girl was between the ages of three and eleven, her toes were turned inside and tied against her foot. After two or so years, her feet would be three inches only. Such feet were called lily feet and were often painful, disfigured and deformed. This was the mark of aristocracy among women, with women getting into good marriages having falsely small feet. Other than the proposed aesthetic value of lily feet, it was intended that they would prevent a woman for wandering aimlessly because the pain would stop her from so doing (Askeric.org, 1994).
Due to this glaring dominance of the males and preference for the boy child, incidences of infanticide were rampant. Due to the predominantly male inclined social ethos, there was a persistent need to have male children, while the birth of a girl was received with skepticism and was considered a curse. The unfortunate death of a boy child was seen to elicit sadness and remorse, while the family was literally jubilant when a girl passed on. More girls were killed off because they were considered a burden to the family, in particular, to the father. Million of children missed out on a chance to live life simply because they were born as girls. The patriarchal nature of this society defined the nature of relations of gender. In fact, so ingrained was this practice that is has failed to fade way, centuries later.
The Confucian classics were philosophically and ethically inclined and they constituted to one of the most basic avenues for political and social power within Han China. However, the Confucian doctrine considered women as incapable and unworthy of any form of literary education and hence, did not accord equal status to the sexes; men were considered significantly superior to their female counterparts. The Confucian doctrine made little reference to women, with most of the reference highlighting the subservience of women to their men as the natural and proper order of affairs. This doctrine further specified that there would be an absolute breakdown of social order if there were not proper relationships between the two genders because women were unequal to men. Confucius was so discriminatory against women that he was many a time referred to as the ‘eater of women” (Ling, 1990). However, this was simply one aspect of the Confucian and Chinese traditions. Women were given a lot of honor in society that emanated from the family structure. Women were seen as the custodians and nurturers of society (Chao, 1932, page 82).
Despite the insurmountable odds stack against women in this society, a handful of exceptional and talented women managed to break through and acquire substantial literary education. This eventually catapulted them to positions of significant authority and influence. One of the most notable Chinese women of this confining era was Ban Zhao. She pursued literary endeavors and became widely reputed for rare compositional skills. In her time, she accomplished feats that had never been the reserve of women such as serving as the imperial historian and a state adviser.
However, the China of today has accorded women with their rightful position in society. The most likely cause of this was the infiltration of western traditions and customs into china; their traditions came across as savage and primitive. Egalitarian philosophies, science, technology and Christianity played significant changes in redirecting the path of Chinese history. There arose a group of reformists who demanded that women must be exposed to literacy as much as their male counterparts. Furthermore, communism went a long way it o improving the situation at the ground., Meo Zedong, a communist leader, encourages society to hold women in high regard because it was the women who held together the moral, social, economic fabric of any given society. He said that for absolute freedom to be attained in China, child weeding must be outlawed; concubines and brothel casted out of society and that a woman should be allowed to actually possess marketable skills that would develop their autonomy and independence as human beings (Ling, 1991).
Conclusion
Today, these changes have been effected. Over half of the Chinese population comprises of women and a significant proportion of this group is informal or informal employment. However, it is not uncommon to hear of discrimination against women along the lines of traditionally assigned roles. China has a one-child policy, which means that very family can only have one child. This makes sense when your country is the most populated county with over a billion people. This has resulted in high infanticide incidence rates, with the less learned families killing off the girl child because a girl cannot continue the family’s linage as she will be married off at some point and take up her husband’s name. Moreover, the boy is physically stronger than the girl and is therefore to perform labor intensive tasks. In China, it is the girl who pays the dowry, hence bringing more financial and economic burden to the family. With technological advances, female fetuses have been aborted (Tiscali, 2008). Infanticide has thus been adopted as a form of family planning, irrespective of it moral implications. There is also a disparity in the school enrollment rates between boys and girls, with less girls attending school.
Works Cited
Asteric. Org (1994). Bound feet. 2008. Web.
Bossler, Beverly (2004). “Gender and Empire: A View from Yuan China,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Vol.34, No. pp.197-223.
Gendercide Watch Case Study: Female infanticide. 2008. Web.
Ling, Amy. 1990. Between Worlds: Women of Chinese Ancestry. New York, NY: Pergamon Press, Inc.
Susan Mann. Precious Records: Women in China’s long eighteenth century (1st edition). Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1997.
Think Quest (1998). Women in China. 2008. Web.
Women in History (2008). Web.
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