I. Introduction
A. Background
The contribution to the idea of sexism manifested through belief of Confucianism and aids the identification of the controversial need to identify gender roles and the Chinese perspective of women's rights in modern China.
II. Identification of Gender Roles A. Taboo 1.Assignment of a Functional Role 2.Allocation of Roles B. Why a Woman Can't Be More Like a Man? 1. Vive la Différence
III. The Contribution of Confucianism to the Idea of Sexism A. Confucian Women 1.Deification of Reproductive Power 2.Minimizing the Rights of Women
IV. The Chinese
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The choice of the occupational and recreational roles of an individual was also unquestionable due to traditional definitions of maleness and femaleness and the determination of what actions and activities are appropriate for each. Those who choose to deviate from the norm faced a major dilemma associated with these sex roles that fell into two characteristics: severe social retribution and accepting or rejecting the socially prescribed role. When disturbing the balance of a society by deviating from the traditional standards one is subject to ostracism and alienation. Thomas and Znaniecki (1918-1920) introduced the idea that a person's thinking processes and attitudes are constructed by the interaction between that person's situation and his or her behavior. Those individuals who willing rejected the traditional values, beliefs, and ideas were ultimately subject to death.
The allocation of the roles is based solely on the most obvious differences between men and women. Men were larger, stronger and possessed a greater amount of endurance where as women were viewed as smaller, weaker and were considered flawed because of menstruation. Men were favored because of their physical strength, the absentness of periodic bleeding, and did not participate in any role of bearing and nurturing of children. Women’s bodies-female sexuality, their ability to procreate and their pregnancy, breast-feeding, and child care, menstruation, and
A woman’s role on the other hand does not consist of such significance and does not grant the power that the male role does. Rather, the female role consists of women acting modest and submissively; women are expected to be confined to being in their home, care for their family and depend on their spouses’ or males relatives.
Traditionally, men are viewed as strong, dominant and logical, while women are regarded as the weak sex, thus being dependent on the males to make decisions and to protect them as well as their children. These roles go far back in time when males in fact had to protect their families from other tribes, wild animals etc. Even today the same values are applied both in real life and in media. In general a woman is depicted as wife, mother or a sex object. (Sex, Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation”, Year unknown).
Throughout history, gender roles have been the foundation that determines the course of a civilization. These gender roles have undergone a change over time. It is important for every society to re-evaluate its preconceived ideas of gender and determine if that is still the norm for their society. When people think of gender roles we typically have set stereotypes in our head of what that means. Much of the time, what we believe, is not what is actually true. It is often argued what is right and what is wrong.
Today, women are believed to be equal to men however this was not always the case. During colonial times, women did not have the same roles as women do today; men and women had fixed roles in society. Roles between men and women do not exchange due to strict gender roles. Additionally, married women were not exactly considered as companions instead, as the husband’s property. Although gender roles were a significant issue among women in early America, another issue was the background of these women. Factors such as race, religion, geography/region, and social class were substantial to the extent of control a woman had over her own life. These factors significantly shaped the lives of these women. For instance, white women had differences
All throughout history, women have been thought of to be “weaker” and “not as capable” as men have always been thought to be. Due to this, gender roles were
Confucian culture, also known as Confucianism, was founded by Confucius during the Spring and Autumn Period, which was developed gradually after the Han Dynasty with benevolence as the core. Since the Han Dynasty, Confucianism was the official ideology and the basis of mainstream ideology in the vast majority of historical periods of China, and it also influenced many southeast Asian countries in history. After a variety of shocks, Confucianism was still the core values of China's social public, and represented the Chinese culture and national tradition in the world (Littlejohn, 2010). In the contemporary society, the Confucian culture in China increasingly spread, at the
The commonly held theories that women are inferior to men, because they lack the strength of character, mind, and body that men are attributed to having, are misleading for many reasons. To assume that men are superior in these three aspects is to assume that all men and women equally share the same strengths and weaknesses of their entire sex. To do this one must accept the fact that all
When thinking of gender roles in society, stereotypes generally come to mind. Throughout history these stereotypes have only proven to be true. Major historical events have had a huge impact on the way men and women are seen and treated. In this way, women have always been secondary to males and seen as the fragile counterparts whose job is to take care of the household and most importantly, be loyal to her husband no matter the circumstance. Gender roles throughout history have greatly influenced society. The slow progress of woman’s rights throughout humanities led to an explosion of woman’s rights throughout the 20th century and that trend will only continue on into the rest of the 21st century.
Then in society, men were portrayed as “dominant figures” and women were the “nurturers”. Men not only filled the fatherly role but they also usually earned the “breadwinning”, went to work all day, and financially provided for the wives and
We as a collective society can see how in the origin of humanity in its primitive state of hunter gatherers had women cooking and making clothes while the men hunted for food and protected the tribe. Although, each roll was a deciding factor for survival the males were seen as guardians of the people and had more social power compared to the women.
In china there has been no central rule in China for 70 years until the Song Dynasty created in 960. Things started to change in China, for example, the government started to aid the poor a lot more than what they have in the past. They were getting this money from the newly introduced income tax. This made a lot of people happy and everyone started to have more patriotism and pride. This pride gave the government a feel of legitimacy. Some of the major things the government is paying for is the roads, food, and education. Pottery at this time helps out the economy in China, because the pottery is so advanced that it was being exported for good money and it also led more people to come to China. Even though China was number one in the world for many things like technology and a sophisticated culture they were weak military wise (Holcombe p.127).
During the course, the History of Women in Asia, I learn that Confucianism has caused Japanese and Chinese female social status to fall into to a very low position for a long time. Being impacted by Confucian feudal ethical thoughts, people believe that “A woman’s duty is not to control or take charge”, “Women’s greatest duty is giving birth to a son” and “Men are superior to women”. Women have been at the bottom of the Confucian hierarchy during the era. Meanwhile, Japan is also profoundly influenced by Confucianism. Sexual division of labor, which is similar to the concept of breadwinner-homemaker family, takes shape in Japan and China. But with the wakened awareness of gender equality, female social status is improved, and ideas mentioned
When Western people think of Confucianism, they often think of it in a past sense- as something only relevant to ancient China that cannot be applied to modern day society. However, what these people fail to realize is that Confucianism’s roots have been so integrated into China’s society that the values have become a part of every day life. Without having to explicitly state that they are following specifics aspects of Confucianism, most Chinese people submit to them, often times unknowingly. However, Confucian values not only exist in the Chinese society, but also permeate into other areas of Chinese culture such as architecture and aspects of Feng-Shui.
Though not much is known about pre-historic man or woman, I have to guess that the struggle to stay alive alone must have taken all of early man’s time both day and night. Based on this thought, it is hard for me to imagine how roles outside the main task of staying alive would have been divided by gender. Women and men both probably foraged for edible foods and probably hunted together in pairs I would guess. Since groups were small I imagine roles were shared equally. As the groups became larger, more organized and more advanced in agriculture, gender roles probably became more prominent. In early times, a woman’s primary role became childbearing and keeping the home environment, whether it be in a cave, mud hut or other structure.
According to Posselt & Förstl (2012) previous research has shown that one main contributor to successful implementation of new services is a unique or superior service. Storey and Hull (2010) coincide and further explained that it is not possible to use a “one size fits all” approach when developing personal services. They conducted a study, which investigated the effect of different organizational knowledge management strategies on the process of service development. They stated that for organizations, which rely mainly on personalized information where services involve personal interactions and