In a previous time, women’s rights were scoffed at and women were bound by the traditions of the past; while there are still many issues society still needs to tackle, living today has become an improvement of the past. Many early practices such as arranged marriages are thought of as old and unpleasant traditions. These old customs are represented in Janie Chang’s novel, Three Souls, which took place in China during the 1920s and 30s, inspired by the stories of Chang’s family. The author’s grandmother, Qu Maozuo, who came from a wealthy and educated family and had limited freedoms, was represented by the main character. The novel follows Song Leiyin, a teenager living in a wealthy family. She becomes interested in the politics of China and meets Hanchin, a left-wing poet. Leiyin becomes infatuated and pursues a teaching career. She eventually disobeys her father, causing an unwanted …show more content…
Her relationships and gender roles are dictated by her male relatives. The story retells the injustice and lack of choice that women faced in China from birth to death.
Firstly, during the 1920s and 30s in China, a woman’s relationships were dictated by her male relatives. The forceful placement of women in marriages and restrictions in other relationships was often seen as fate. Because of the grasp men had on their lives, women had a lack of choice and no input regarding the decisions of the relationships they would be stuck in for the remainder of their lives. To illustrate, women in the 1920s and 30s were only expected to become a wife or concubine; cooking, cleaning, and birthing children were their sole jobs. Any other ambitions were to be thrown away if their father or husband disapproved of it. It was seen as a woman’s fate to become a wife as a part of a man's family. Young women of every class abandoned their dreams of education and studying and were forced to accept their fate to ‘act like
May begins by exploring the origins of this "domestic containment" in the 30's and 40's. During the Depression, she argues, two different views of the family competed -- one with two breadwinners who shared tasks and the other with spouses whose roles were sharply differentiated. Yet, despite the many single women glamorized in popular culture of the 1930's, families ultimately came to choose the latter option. Why? For one, according to May, for all its affirmation of the emancipation of women, Hollywood fell short of pointing the way toward a restructured family that would incorporate independent women. (May p.42) Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, for example, are both forced to choose between independence and a happy domestic life - the two cannot be squared. For another, New Deal programs aimed to raise the male employment level, which often meant doing nothing for female employment. And, finally, as historian Ruth Milkman has also noted, the g...
The Gender roles of the 1900s were strictly defined in society, providing rigid boundaries for human existence and expression. Men were envisioned dominant and aggressive, and women were submissive. Male aggression was demonstrated through the playing of sports (Becker et Schirp). Society determined the role of the woman was to be a wife and a mother with little individuality. Jennifer Gray states, “The hegemonic institution of nineteenth-century society required women to be objects in marriage and in motherhood, existing as vessels of maternity and sexuality with little opportunity for individuality” (53). Women’s roles were strictly determined and any deviation from these roles could be grounds for isolation.
Women were confronted by many social obligation in the late nineteenth century. Women were living lives that reflected their social rank. They were expected to be economically dependent and legally inferior. No matter what class women were in, men were seen as the ones who go to work and make the money. That way, the women would have to be dependent since they were not able to go to work and make a good salary. No matter what class a woman was in, she could own property in her own name. When a woman became married she " lost control of any property she owned, inherited, or earned" ( Kagan et al. 569). A woman's legal identity was given to her husband.
This source provided the unique perspective of what was thought to be the perfect household, with a man who worked and a wife who cooked and cleaned. However, it also showed how a woman could also do what a man can do, and in some cases they could do it even better. This work is appropriate to use in this essay because it shows how men talked down to their wives as if they were children. This work shows the gradual progression of woman equality and how a woman is able to make her own decisions without her husband’s input.
“I remembered feeling immediately that I could trust this woman” (3). Thus begins a relationship built on the struggles of tradition and modernity between Pang-Mei and her great-aunt Yu-i in Pang-Mei Chang’s memoir Bound Feet and Western Dress. Yu-i shares her stories of growing up in a traditional Chinese life, getting married by age fifteen, divorcing at twenty-two, and breaking through the challenges of who to rely on in a world she didn’t understand. shy girl who has grown to revere Yu-i Pang-Mei shares her ideas that conflict between cultures is inevetible through her own experiences and those of her great-aunt. Pang-Mei faced many cultural challenges as she grew up.
Firstly, the relationship expectations in Chinese customs and traditions were strongly held onto. The daughters of the Chinese family were considered as a shame for the family. The sons of the family were given more honour than the daughters. In addition, some daughters were even discriminated. “If you want a place in this world ... do not be born as a girl child” (Choy 27). The girls from the Chinese family were considered useless. They were always looked down upon in a family; they felt as if the girls cannot provide a family with wealth. Chinese society is throwing away its little girls at an astounding rate. For every 100 girls registered at birth, there are 118 little boys in other words, nearly one seventh of Chinese girl babies are going missing (Baldwin 40). The parents from Chinese family had a preference for boys as they thought; boys could work and provide the family income. Due to Chinese culture preference to having boys, girls often did not have the right to live. In the Chinese ethnicity, the family always obeyed the elder’s decision. When the family was trying to adapt to the new country and they were tryin...
Zhong, Xueping, Zheng Wang, and Bai Di. Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing up in the Mao Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
The early part of the novel shows women’s place in Chinese culture. Women had no say or position in society. They were viewed as objects, and were used as concubines and treated with disparagement in society. The status of women’s social rank in the 20th century in China is a definite positive change. As the development of Communism continued, women were allowed to be involved in not only protests, but attended universities and more opportunities outside “house” work. Communism established gender equality and legimated free marriage, instead of concunbinage. Mao’s slogan, “Women hold half of the sky”, became extremely popular. Women did almost any job a man performed. Women were victims by being compared to objects and treated as sex slaves. This was compared to the human acts right, because it was an issue of inhumane treatment.
Kingston uses the story of her aunt to show the gender roles in China. Women had to take and respect gender roles that they were given. Women roles they had to follow were getting married, obey men, be a mother, and provide food. Women had to get married. Kingston states, “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband…she would be the first wife, an advantage secure now” (623). This quote shows how women had to get married, which is a role women in China had to follow. Moreover, marriage is a very important step in women lives. The marriage of a couple in the village where Kingston’s aunt lived was very important because any thing an individual would do would affect the village and create social disorder. Men dominated women physically and mentally. In paragraph eighteen, “they both gav...
The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan is a piece of literature that displays the power of femininity. Through the past couple of centuries the role that women play in society has drastically changed. Women in various societies have experienced turmoil due to being discriminated against and looked down upon often. Women were viewed upon as being the house caregiver and leaving majority of the other jobs in society to men. Women have moved up the social ladder, politics, jobs, and in households. Femininity is shown throughout The Joy Luck Club. These women each have their own life experiences and stories but through it all they remained strong. Rules and regulations for women in China were very restrictive. Women had to live up to the ideal model of being obedient, hard working, bearing children, hide her unhappiness, and to not complain about anything. In China the women had little worth and were only seen as valuable to their immediate family members. Most of the mothers left China for the reason of improving their daughter’s lives in America. The novel demonstrates various characteristics of how women are represented. The theme of women is demonstrated through the hardships experienced, ethics and self-worth.
It is limiting for women to be married off to a family in order to please the family since they have an higher status than her. This highlights how powerless women were in China compared to men since the man's family had a say for who he is to marry. Because of their life status, women were not expected to be great because of all the great
Kuttner also agrees, “a lot of ugly realities were concealed by “traditional values”; the legal and economic emancipation of women was long overdue, and the task now is to reconcile gender equality with the healthy raising of the next generation.” (124). Before the 1890s, females had no other options but to live with their parents before marriage and with their husband after marriage. They couldn’t work and if they did, their wages were way lower than men.
In the early nineteen- hundreds society operated tremendously different compared to society now in the twenty-first century. In the early nineteen-hundreds women were not given the same opportunities as men. Women were expected to conform to their husbands’ wishes, cook, clean, and raise children. A woman who wanted to obtain an education or one whom did not want to get married or raise children were looked negatively upon by society. Women did not have any voice in marriage, the husband made all decisions regarding finances, family issues, and even controlled what activities the woman could or could not participate in.
Throughout the early 1800s, British women most often were relegated to a subordinate role in society by their institutionalized obligations, laws, and the more powerfully entrenched males. In that time, a young woman’s role was close to a life of servitude and slavery. Women were often controlled by the men in their lives, whether it was a father, brother or the eventual husband. Marriage during this time was often a gamble; one could either be in it for the right reasons, such as love, or for the wrong reasons, such as advancing social status. In 19th century Britain, laws were enacted to further suppress women and reflected the societal belief that women were supposed to do two things: marry and have children.
Then there was the woman’s movement and women felt they deserved equal rights and should be considered man’s equal and not inferior. The man going out to work, and the wife staying home to care for the home and the children would soon become less the norm. This movement would go on to shape the changes within the nuclear family. Women deci...