November 8 - Pitelka - Women in EA History

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Hello everyone,

Please share your thoughts about our November 8 afternoon session with Professor Morgan Pitelka on "Women in East Asian History" by replying to this post.

-Miranda

[Anonymous]

China:
Robin Wang, trans. "Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture" (Hackett, 2003)

Japan:
Kate Nakai, trans. "Women of the Mitto Domain" (Stanford, 2001)

Korea:
JaHyun Kim Haboush, trans. "The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong" (California, 1996)

[Anonymous]

Foot binding is an incredible topic and as un-nerving as Western society feels towards foot binding, it can be as equally portrayed as a positive part of livelihood and family acceptance. One of the issues is beauty and throughout history one common cultural goal is to achieve beauty. Just as a we as a people all look different, all people have a different outlook on what is beautiful? There was a time during the 19th century when the American definition of Beauty was wearing corsets, making womens' wasist as small as possible. Over time beauty has resulted in lot of pain, and in this case broken ribs and internal damage. I like how Pitelka re-iterrated what Clay had said about plastic surgey, tatoos and piercings. Great pain has occurred over centuries for women to achieve percieved beauty. Foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, yet it is hard to understand what foot binding was like with the modern outlook we have today. The reason why women binded their feet went deeper than fashion and reflected the role of women in Chinese society. I now unerstand that is was necessary in that time in China for women to have bound feet to achieve a good life. Thank you Professor Pitelka.

[Anonymous]

Professor Pitelka also allowed to make a correlation to the female figures in ancient East Asian cultures that had historical signifcance in a male dominated society to those that I teach about in the ancient Israelite society that I teach about (Deborah and Ruth) in a male dominant society. Thank you

[Anonymous]

As I listened to the different practices talked about by Prof. Pitelka regarding women in E.Asian history, I couldn't help but compare some of them with the ones I remember from my own African culture. I remembered how my grandmother would bind the legs of a baby in our family if it was bow-legged. Of course as she did it, it seemed barbaric to me then, but as I would later learn, tying the baby's legs would eventually cause them to straighten out. As a result of that 'tedious and limiting ordeal' their gaits would also improve considerably, so this practice seemed to be beneficial to the unsuspecting infant.

The dowry for your wife practice that was also a norm in the East Asian woman's life is, as I mentioned during the lesson, a beneficial (for the woman and her family) practice. Our Luo men seem to take us more seriously in our marriages when they have payed dowry for us.

Finally, I come from a society where until recently, polygamy and 'concubinism' was a norm in marriage. The older wife benefited from having co-wives and concubines in their marriages because they would be helped by these new comers in doing chores such as tilling the huge acres of land. In the modern day era however, women have grown more possessive over their spouses and do not want to share them with anyone- not even concubines or mistresses - and with disease being so rampant in Africa, "one man, one wife" is a more palatable agenda![Edit by="lizatieno1 on Nov 13, 11:27:02 AM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Morgan had a dynamic voice and he was so easy to listen too. After all, it was a 6 hour day of listening!
I thought that Morgan made it easy for us to understand by clearly spelling out the differences between Korean women, Japanese women, and Chinese women. It was not hard to follow his lecture at all and I appreciated that.

I found several of his facts to be amazing;
1. All property was owned by men.
2. Men could get a divorce!
3. Women could do neither???!!!
Tough question, I wonder which gender made these laws??? Good thing that I didn't live in that place during that time, is all that I can say about that.

Footbinding: I actually never gave it any thought at all prior to taking this class, but I loved Morgan's analogy to today's modern women and dying their hair, having lyposuction and facelifts!!!! Pretty funny, if you ask me. But, footbinding was continuual pain, so I think it is the worst of them all. Again, I am glad that I wasn't in that country during that time-period.

[Anonymous]

Great thinking and great analogies. Thank you Elizabeth!

[Anonymous]

Professor Pitelka was informative and interesting, especially when he talked about how cultural beliefs influence the concept of female beauty in a society. As families wished their daughters to marry well, they were willing to do things we might consider barbaric. Interesting if view of the fact that much unnecessary plastic surgery is performed here in the more affluent areas of our homeland, like Beverly Hills. The class made me think about the roles of women throughout history, and I thank Morgan for that insight.

[Anonymous]

Good points, Elizabeth. I never thought much about dowries associated with marriage as it never affected me personally. I had knowledge of the practice from movies about Ireland with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Your post adds reality to my limited knowledge of the subject. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Professor Pitelka gave us a fine class. The history of women in east Asian history was informative and, of course, troubling for me, as a woman. It seems the men have always been in charge and it shows. The information about the foot binding shows just how the double standard of women trying to please men affected the lives of upper class women trying to marry well. Thank you, Professor Pitelka, for a good class.

[Anonymous]

I would be very interested to hear more discussion about how Deborah and Ruth compare to the women of East Asian culture. I have written a book about women in the Bible and Deborah and Ruth are two of my subjects.
Susan Dubin

[Anonymous]

Women seem to be consrained by their gender in many societies. Think about the discussions here in America about whether women should be allowed to hold political power even as late as this year's elections! What was amazing to me was the power that women actually had in early Chinese and Japanese history. A woman emperor? Women as the main authors of classic literature? These were unthinkable in early European history. Then again, we did have Elizabeth I...

Susan Dubin

[Anonymous]

I think the practice of polygamy and concubinism you describe was a necessity in some cultures because ofthe amount of work that needed to be shared. A monogamous relationship limits the number of people in the household who can contribute to the livelihood. Especially in societies where most people dependedon agriculture for their livelihood, the more peole working the farm the better. And one's own children were the cheapest laborers. More women producing more children equaled more labor (no pun intended )

Susan Dubin

[Anonymous]

I enjoyed the writing of women. For example how they wrote for the masses (men), but were able to creatively sneak in the truth of the times and the treatment of women. Also, I have shown the Disney version of Mulan for many years, but was never aware of "The Ballad of Mulan", which I will now integrate into my lessons. And finally, throughout time, for whatever reasons, women have struggled to be in a world of male dominance: it is amazing all we have done and all we do, regardless of our culture, to live.

[Anonymous]

Prof. Pitelka's talk seemed to dovetail nicely with the information from the morning session.

By zipping across the continent and keeping us informed of the changing times and women's roles, I felt empowered enough to begin having some intelligent discussions on the roles of women behind the scenes and surprisingly enough, on the throne.

Miranda, thanks for posting the books, I will be considering those for our library.

Prof. Pitelka did an amazing job of keeping the information concise and topical. The further explanation of the foot binding seemed to wrap-up (no pun intended) the discussion started with Clay.

[Author]

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