Beauty and Womanhood in China

[Kimberly de Berzunza]

The readings and lecture helped me reframe my thinking around the place of women in Chinese culture and perspective. As in other parts of the world, women in China have been traditionally thought to be oppressed, controlled, and limited in opportunities for choice in their own lives. However, I appreciated the examples of influence and agency reflected in, for example, the story of Mencius' mother, in the role of education in a woman's life, and in Daoism and the balance of yin/yang and the opportunity to live an independent life as a Daoist, rather than the tradionally expected life of wife and mother.

I try to present this to my students when teaching History already. For example, many think Islam oppresses women, yet many Muslim women would debate this. An example they might give is that the Q'uran, not just secular law, allows women to divorce for basically no cause.  Similarly, the American colonial period could be seen as oppressive to women- they couldn't vote in most cases, be lawyers or judges, etc. However, colonial American women were responsible for running the home and often large plantations or businesses, while husbands were away at war, working in politics, or working in other jobs such as lawyers and judges. So I saw a lot of parallels today in opportunity for agency and influence among traditional Chinese women and those of others.

I particularly found the conversation on Daoism to be enlightening, and yin/yang as equal parts of a whole, rather than separate entities.  This really helps me think about the value of the yin and of traditionally feminine attributes in connection to China as a counterbalance to the male yang.  I guess I could use this to push back on the tendency to automatically judge Chinese culture as oppressive to women.