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Read Today
Oct. 1st, 2012 09:13 pmBecause of sexual discrimination, women in ancient China seldom received education. Women were not expected to write so their work were usually lost to the time.
Really? Everywhere in China? Always in ancient China, never mind that (restricting it to imperial history) 'ancient' (or 'traditional') China goes from 221 BCE to 1644 CE (if you don't count the Manchus, 1911 CE if you do)?
And how come, then, that one of the most famous ancient Chinese historians is a woman, one who was also a poet and court librarian, taught the Empress and the ladies of the court and whose daughter-in-law was a writer too?
How come that Stanford University Press has published Women Writers of Traditional China a 928-page anthology including works by about 130 female poets (and poets only) from the Han dinasty to the end of the empire?
This kinds of extreme generalizations drive me crazy, they tend to pass from a divulgative book (or article) to the next without anyone bothering to check, much like the 'dirty and brutish' view of the European Middle Ages or the fable of the widespread hate of cats in said Middle Ages for being witches' familiars (never mind that the animals most often quoted as diabolical were black dogs and that the height of the witch hunts was in early modern times).
It isn't the case of the OP, but often, when I see this kind of statement about women being oppressed in ancient China I can almost hear a congratulatory self-pat on the back, an unspoken 'here it was different'. Pray, tell: how many women writers can you mention for the Roman Empire? How many Greek female poets but for Sappho?
Really? Everywhere in China? Always in ancient China, never mind that (restricting it to imperial history) 'ancient' (or 'traditional') China goes from 221 BCE to 1644 CE (if you don't count the Manchus, 1911 CE if you do)?
And how come, then, that one of the most famous ancient Chinese historians is a woman, one who was also a poet and court librarian, taught the Empress and the ladies of the court and whose daughter-in-law was a writer too?
How come that Stanford University Press has published Women Writers of Traditional China a 928-page anthology including works by about 130 female poets (and poets only) from the Han dinasty to the end of the empire?
This kinds of extreme generalizations drive me crazy, they tend to pass from a divulgative book (or article) to the next without anyone bothering to check, much like the 'dirty and brutish' view of the European Middle Ages or the fable of the widespread hate of cats in said Middle Ages for being witches' familiars (never mind that the animals most often quoted as diabolical were black dogs and that the height of the witch hunts was in early modern times).
It isn't the case of the OP, but often, when I see this kind of statement about women being oppressed in ancient China I can almost hear a congratulatory self-pat on the back, an unspoken 'here it was different'. Pray, tell: how many women writers can you mention for the Roman Empire? How many Greek female poets but for Sappho?
