Gender Hierarchies In Tang And Song China

Gender in China Gender hierarchies have been a central pillar of social orders almost since its inception. However, the balance has not been remotely even throughout history, with patriarchies far outnumbering matriarchies. Despite the large dominance held by men, it was not all black and white in East Asian societies. Even though Tang and Song China were all patriarchal, they were very different in their application and influences of gender hierarchies. The Chinese Tang dynasty was the second major unified dynasty of China, and it ruled from 618-907. The Tang built upon the foundation laid by the predecessors, the Han. The religion of China, Confucianism, held the greatest influence on gender. Confucianism’s primary beliefs were based

Elite women were able to use to their advantage. Around the year 900, the influences of new religions and the declining power of the Tang led to the ousting of Confucianism as China’s main religion. Theoretically, advancing women’s rights. Following a rough period of half a century, the Song dynasty took power in 960. This began a “Golden Age” of Chinese society. However, the role of women did not advance all across the board. It was more in the northern regions that were influenced by nomads. Unfortunately, the new Neo-Confucian influences held almost everywhere else, with the new influences of Buddhism and Daoism. (Strayer 371) In fact, conditions were terrible everywhere else, if not more so than they ever had been before. One example of the terrible factors women had to deal with was foot binding. Foot binding involved the wrapping feet tightly with gauze and stuffing them into specially designed “lotus shoes”. (Foreman) his process, repeated over many years, shrunk a woman’s feet at the expenditure of vast amounts of pain and broken bones. An outside onlooker would ask themselves ‘Why would people do this to their daughters?’, and the answer is quite

Due to a shift in views in Chinese masculinity, sewing was deemed manly. Men began to stop their wives from sewing materials such as silk, decreasing their roles in the household. The Song dynasty collapsed in 1279 due to Mongol invasions. Patriarchies ruled the world. It’s an almost in-arguable fact. That cannot be clearer than the example of Tang and Song China. Their views on women and why they were below were influenced by two main factors, religion, and social influences. The more powerful of the two is religion. Religion unites people, it controls their daily lives, it changes what people do. It also sets laws and boundaries. Therefore, leading to divisions in gender in some cases like that of Confucianism. There were also the influences of society the ‘status quo’ as so to say. This is what other people think about a way to do something one way or another so as to fit in. It also had a daily impact on the lives of people living in Song and Tang China. They were particularly influenced by views of marriage and beauty, for example, it was deemed not beautiful for a woman to have large feet in Song China. These factors of religion and societal influences continue to affect