Women are breaking down barriers in today’s society. Some are CEOs, doctors, councilwomen, scientists, lawyers, and businesswomen. They have rejected the norm that says that a woman’s only role is to tend to the home and be obedient to their husbands. Unfortunately, that has not always been the case. In Ancient history, women have more commonly been inferior to men. In earlier times, women were responsible for taking care of the home and being submissive to their husband. They often had little or no access to education or job opportunities. This is seen in countries like China and India. Although this tradition had become the norm in ancient history, not all women were subject to these restrictions. Some of them became important figures, …show more content…
In imperial China, women were inferior to men. According to the text, “with the rise of imperial bureaucracy and the increasing emphasis on filial piety, a more rigidly hierarchal, patriarchal model of proper women’s behavior gradually developed.” With men as the head of the family and as the most superior, women were restricted and had to follow more rules. During the same time, sons began to become more important than daughters in the Chinese family. Sons were said to “carry the ancestral line and their potential to win admission to official state service led to a gradual devaluing of daughters.” When times were hard economically, parents often had trouble taking care of multiple children. Thus, daughters were the ones to suffer first. Parents sometimes sold the young girls into prostitution and if they had infants, they were killed. Daughters also were considered ‘expendable”, meaning they would marry or be placed with another family through adoption or servitude. Women, whether they were young or old, were not respected. Young girls were not as valuable as young males. Women ultimately had no status. In other parts of China, the life of a woman was the complete …show more content…
The historian Ban Zhao (48-116 CE), women of the Shang, and women of the Zhou era are some examples. Ban Zhao was an elite woman that achieved prominence intellectual pursuits. Ban Zhao is considered the foremost woman scholar and teacher in Chinese history. “Yet only to teach men and not to teach women—is not ignoring the reciprocal relation between them?” is a quote from her book, Admonitions for Women. In China, men and women were said to have a reciprocal relationship. They were supposed to feel the same way about each other and value each other the same. Elite women of the Shang participated in political and military affairs. Fu Hao, one of Wu Ding’s 64 wives was one of the most prominent women in the Shang. She was buried with artifacts such as hundreds of bronze, jade, and bone ornaments, sacrificial skeletons of 16 people and six dogs. In Patterns of World History, that he inscriptions on oracle bones that were found in here tomb indicate that she had a “considerable amount of power and influence before she even became the wife of Wu Ding.” She owned and managed a family estate that was close to Shang’s capital of Yin. She was said to have been well educated in several areas and this knowledge would equip her for life in a palace. Unlike some women in China, Fu Hao had many leadership positions. She supervised and conducted religious rituals at work and during military expeditions. She also was her
October 12, 2015 Classical Athens and Han China: How Great Were the Differences? Comparatively speaking, Han China and Classical Athens are two very unique and distinct regions of the world. Peculiar in both a physical and spiritual sense, Classical Athens and Han China vary greatly in terms of secular phenomena, including the varying forms of government, roles of individuals, man and nature, and attitudes in regards to women and children. The deeper one looks into the these varying and systematic characteristics, the more variations one is able to discern.
However, they were still suffering from equal rights with men. Women were only seen as “child bearers” and the head of the house, but rarely could make decisions about their pregnancy which often led to
In the book Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, the author talks about the stories of her grandmother and mother as well as herself during their journeys as women in China. The book discusses how gender roles, political ideology, and economic ideology in China change over time. During the entirety of Chinese history, many changes and continuities transpired and had crucial impacts on China. However, a great amount of change occurred during the time period from the 1900s to present day. These changes and continuities incorporate happenings in areas concerning the treatment of women, political structure, and economic capacity.
Chinese word for the female I-which is “slave.”(47). Kingston was told many stories about China, and how women are treated as being slaves. Her mother talks about lots of stories of her time, and it made her think is this a message to should not do
Confucian ideas highlight the need to have a heir, thus the Emperor need to be sexually active, which explains the very large number of women in the inner court. However, according to Confucian ideals, the Emperor was not supposed to retain any pleasure from this encounters. therefore leading to a paradox hard to overcome by the Emperor and even harder to enforce by the outer court officials depute their moral concerns. Song women were also granted for the first time considerable legal rights. In fact, Song Dynasty is seen as a high point for women property point in China, further challenging Confucian traditional patrilinality.
Throughout history up until her time women are property of someone else or treated like incomplete people and the impacts of this kind of treatment ripple through time and do not leave just because women have their own college. The long hammered in the idea that women are less than will not go away until women are able to make their own history and have their own voices heard for generations. Woof’s exploration of this idea is vital for other women finding their own voices. Every moment a woman puts her ideas out into the world with her name on it and her ideas boldly thrust through, the anthology and history of
Throughout Chinese history before the Tang and Song dynasties, the daily lives of women and issues from their perspective have not been adequately recorded, due to a male dominated society. However, from the Tang to the Song dynasty, visual and material sources appear which further explains the status of women in society, cultural values, but most importantly, examples of acts of courage, selflessness, and strength. The discussion of women starting with the Tang dynasty is especially important since this is the start of open-mindedness and liberal ideas resulting in women in politics, a woman as empress, and even freedom of expression through poetry and art. However, once shifting to the Song dynasty, the status of women declined further in
There were high standards for women in society as well as in the home, as their main job was to be
This goes along with the gender inequality within the household. They brought that attitude into the workforce which helped transition the gender hierarchy that existed in the household, into the factories and other production facilities. Ideas of women’s placement in society were underpinned by legal, political, and social practices which subordinated women. They were seen as less important. One circumstance that made women seem less powerful was how poorly they were paid compared to men.
The women were expected to create a happy home, guard the religion, and the morality of her family. The unmarried and married women who tried to seek work outside the home faced limited employment opportunities because of their gender. Women were expected to only focus on domestic duties and her role were limited to continue living in the man’s world. Women roles were expected to be in line with the culture and norms set by the society. The American culture perceived that women were not intellectually and emotionally stable to be involved in the complex world of work and, therefore, women did not take up leadership and political roles.
They would take on feminine jobs like cooking, caring for the children, and making sure that their husband is satisfied. The lowest part of the hierarchy consists of children, in which the boys were superior to the girls. Boys, when they were younger, would spend time with their mothers, staying in their huts and listed to stories
The system continued to play a major role, not only in education and government, but also in society itself. In the act of improving the community, Wu “encouraged lower ranks of bureaucracy by creating new posts, providing more opportunities for advancement, and increasing their salaries” (Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, 2002). These exams allowed the voices and ideas of the people to be heard and used to refine China. Empress Wu helped promote the exchange of ideas in protesting against the system of society controlled by men by advocating women’s academic growth and sexual freedom
Different societies view women in different lights. Therefore, a woman’s position is greatly different from one society to the other. The societies in question do not necessarily have to exist at the same time. Even in the same time frame, two societies could exist, where one treat women as equals to men, and another that treats women differently than men, whether better or worse. The societies in question are: Mesopotamia, Greece, China, Rome & Europe, and this essay aims to study different societies’ viewpoints on women, and to compare and contrast them against each other.
During the 1890’s until today, the roles of women and their rights have severely changed. They have been inferior, submissive, and trapped by their marriage. Women have slowly evolved into individuals that have rights and can represent “feminine individuality”. The fact that they be intended to be house-caring women has changed.
The part and role in which women played in their society significantly varies throughout the world, depending on the place and region. However, they all share a common similarity in which men are the most dominant in every aspect of society, therefore, men are perceived to have more authority and power than women. In the comparison of ancient civilizations and modern times, it is significant how the rights and roles of women have positively changed, giving women more chances and opportunities in society, therefore, influencing and impacting society in many beneficial ways as well as, nowadays, women and men are finally seen as