confucianism and women

Confucianism's Impact Upon The Status Of Women In China

Confucianism was not an openly misogynistic or anti-woman system of thought. It did not post women as 'the devil's gateway' as did some philosophical strains of Early Christianity, for instance. However, Confucianism was a patriarchal system of ancestor worship that emphasized respect of one's past progenitors and how things used to be, rather than attempting to creatively change the future. Thus change was de-emphasized, minimizing the ability of women to institute change within pre-existing patriarchic family structures. Male control was reinforced by the system of thought, rather than creating ideological support for change.

Confucianism placed a strong stress upon the difference between the sexes. Crucial to Confucian ideology was the distinction between yin and yang, or the female and male principles inherent in the world. Thus, femaleness and maleness was not simply a matter of physicality, but of essential compositional essence to the natural framework of the heavens and earth. The female principle of yin was associated with passivity, darkness, and receptivity, in contrast to the active, male principle of yang. Although both yin and yang were integral to the maintaining of a functional household, the yang clearly dominated the yin in terms of leadership, power, and hierarchies of authority.

Confucian images tended to portray women as ideal wives, tending to household duties, or as shrewish and foolishly controlling wives. This stress upon difference of essence within male and female bodies also, perhaps ironically, meant that physical distinctions between the appearances of the sexes must be constantly reinforced in Chinese artistic images, in clothing, and also in the creation of physical practices such as foot binding that emphasized and rendered even more extreme the 'natural' distinctions between the sexes.