"Women in East Asian History" Seminar, Prof. Morgan Pitelka

[Anonymous]

I think this is what Griselda was alluding to, when she said,"we are robbing them further of their own voice and further victimizing them". We, quite possibly, meaning "we as women".

[Anonymous]

Hey Partners:
First of all, let me tell you that I appreciate it a lot that we are still talking this late in the game. Michael's latest challenge was the question as to how woman got into the predicament of foot-binding in the first place. I came across an article posted on a BBC website talking in some detail about the origins, and the history of foot-binding. It is interesting the I found this article while searching for a BBC video I had seen. It was on BBC a few days ago. It was about the Mosuo woman. It is getting late however and tomorrow is our last day at school. I just wanted to get these two links out there for now. I'll pick up the discussion again shortly.

Alfons

Link, foot-binding article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1155872

Link, Mosuo woman: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7456992.stm

[Anonymous]

Today is the 2nd round of the US Women's Open golf tournament. I watched the tournament on T.V. while eating lunch at the counter in CPK this afternoon. I could not help notice the number of Asian surnames listed on the leader board. I enjoy playing and watching golf. There was a time when I played golf 2-3 times per week.

When I returned home, I checked out the ESPN website and found a link for the tournament to check the list of players, 100+. Here's what I found:

South Korea = 32
Japan = 4
Taiwan = 3
China = 1

I estimate that at least a quarter of the tournament players are from Asia. Clearly, South Korean women are well represented in this tournament and are dominating the leader board. Three are in the top ten, five in the top fifteen, and six in the top twenty. In Fareed Zakaria's new book, he says that women are a good indicator of modernization in a country. As a country modernizes, opportunities for women increase and they are able to change traditional roles. This seems to hold true for South Korean. The tournament purse is $3,100,000, and the winner will take home a cool $560,000. There's a good chance that a South Korean woman will take home a hefty portion of this purse!

Valerie

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info on foot binding. I'm glad people are still posting this late in the game as well; espicially since I'm really just getting started. It was really hard for me to manage work, teaching an extra period, and running my six-year-old daughter around town. In any case, I'm going to focus my unit plan on the roles of women. I need to narrow everything down. I think that Chinese foot binding is an interesting topic. It shows the lengths women will go to please men. However, this must be juxataposed with the fact that women were socially forced into these humble positions.

In any case, I will definately check out these web sites.

[Anonymous]

I think that there are many things going on in this thread and it has been wonderful to read and be a part of. However, I think that the we I was talking about was actually everyone in this day and age. The women that existed at this point in time were products of the society in which they lived and found power and control the only way they could. I think that by following the practice of foot binding they were able to control something and have some power in lives that were, for the most part, controlled by other, be they male or female.

[Anonymous]

I read the article about foot binding and found it very enlightening. While I always knew that it was women who bound the feet of their daughters, I never knew that this was a 10 to 12 year process. Nor did I realize the severity of the pain the women went through. I had no idea of the true horror these women went through until now. Yet they did put themselves through this horror and they did have control of it.

[Anonymous]

I just viewed the BBC video about the Mosou Women. It is interesting to note that the women want to hold on to their tradition becuase they want to hold on to running their own businesses and maintaining control of their own lives. I hope that they can continue to do so and only marry if that is what they choose to do.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you. Footbinding should not be compared to American Slavery. While foot binding was a gruesome ordeal, it was conducted within the Chinese culture. Women made a choice to allow this process to be inflicted upon their daughters in the same way women choose to pierce thier daughter's ears. While I don't agree with the foot binding process, it is not in any way equal to American Slavery. Slaves were forced to come another country to be at the beck and call of someone who was not a part of their culture. Everything was stripped from a slave. He or she would be immediately seperated from other Africans who spoke his or her language. A slave could not practice his or her own customs after coming to this new land against his or her will. A slave's true identity was lost. While a Chiniese woman with bound feet could be proud of her identity, herritage and culture.

I think a more accurate comparison would be to juxtapose foot binding to female circumcision. Female circumcision, which is generally removing a young girl's clitoris, is still practiced today in some parts of Africa and Eastern countries. These girls are unaware of what is about to happen to them until they are in the midst of this painful ordeal. Genrally a woman (such as a midwife) would be the one to perform the surgery. Of course in areas where this is practiced, it has traditionaly been done to make the young girl a suitable match for a husband. A girl who has been circumcised will be less likely to stray.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, most likely, these woman will eventually succumb to "early" western traditions. They may become enamored with the image of the glamorous and submissive woman. Their men may learn about male chauvinism on television and try to apply it to their woman. One thing is sure, for the the next 20 years I will keep an eye on this society. I am very anxious to see how their traditions will evolve. The woman remind me a lot to woman in my country, in Switzerland. We have tribes in the mountains that wear very similar clothes like the woman in Mosuo. These woman too are very matriarchal. Swiss woman actually have emancipated themselves quite gracefully over the last three decades and that is due in great part to the fact that there has been a tradition of matriarchy. Woman achieved voting rights only in the sixties. In some states even as late as the nineties. But since most men used to vote in public with a show of hands, tradition has it that the woman used to tell them how to vote.
Anyways I am just drifting around here... but I can tell you that I am dating a woman who wants to have children with me, but is completely nonchalant about getting married.
Finally, I am excited that woman are achieving equal rights and I hope that this will become a global standard. So in the end, the Mosuo woman will eventually become mainstream again - and hopefully - emancipated.
Alfons

[Anonymous]

Here are some more observations related to the Mosuo woman: Ever since I was little, I held the theory that there is a culture which runs along the southern side of the Alps from Switzerland through Austria, then through Anatolia into the Carpathian Mountains, from there into the Himalayan Mountains. The silk road pretty much runs parallel to that, sort of like Foothill Boulevard from Pasadena to Rancho Cucamonga runs along the San Gabriel Mountains - just on a much larger scale. That explains why in Turkey they have the same cowbells as in Switzerland and Northern India. It was no surprise to me when I saw, for the first time, Tibetan monks play an instrument just like the Alphorn. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that that same culture would extend all the way into China. Today I looked at a photo book on the Xinjiang Province at Borders. I was stunned by the images of cows and snowcapped mountains. It looked just like Switzerland. So I went online tonight to see if I could find similar images. Low and behold, I found an image of a Xinjiang woman on horseback with an outfit almost identical to her Swiss counterpart. So here is another image in celebration of woman's independence. So maybe on this Day of Independence we should consider that the American Declaration of Independence not only freed our forefathers from the motherland, but also by extension eventually, also freed our mothers from the fatherland.

Xinjiang Woman: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cai.blogsome.com/images/Xinjiang_01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cai.blogsome.com/category/xinjiang/&h=450&w=298&sz=46&hl=en&start=6&um=1&tbnid=IL1xaoFHIcPwUM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=84&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dxinjiang%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN

[Anonymous]

Maybe these women will succomb to western traditions. However, maybe they will do so in a form that liberates them even more. You are correct that women's voices are much stronger all over the world than they used to be. This may benefit the Mauso Women.

[Anonymous]

Just to add to the discussion about foot binding and the fact that women did this to women. I did a little research and found some interesting information. There are a few videos and you-tube and there is some interesting background information about FGM. You can check it out for yourself by going to the following websites.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/fem_cirm.htm and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v-BJOl9yDgN-8

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