In today's ancient Chinese historical materials, from the princes and generals to the common people, men are the absolute subjects recorded in the history books. The inferior status of women in historical accounts is either a brush stroke, or it is criticized as a red face that has brought calamity to the country and the people, and only a very small number of women have been truly recorded. Has the role of women really been so insignificant in China's thousands of years of history? Of course not! Women have played an important role in the development of history and cannot be ignored. In the same way, the history of women, which is dominated by women, is equally significant.
(1) The development and research content of women's history in ancient China
In the more than 30 years since the rise of feminist historiography in the 1960s and 1970s, feminist historiography has gone through three stages: "add history", "her history" and "gender history". In the stage of "adding history", feminist historians mainly pursue "returning women to history, and returning history to women", emphasizing the excavation of thousands of years of women's historical materials from the dust of history, adding and integrating them into the traditional elite male historiography. "Her History" focuses on women's positions. Women's life experiences, women's desires, and women's values become the subject of the narrative, so it is no longer concerned with war, power, and bravery in the public sphere, but with the lives and experiences of women in the private sphere. Thus all aspects of women's lives became the main body of the narrative: marriage, sisterhood, childbearing, family, children, etc., and all aspects of women's lives were excavated and studied. The study of feminist historiography abroad has developed to a prosperous period, and the study of feminist historiography in China has also developed by leaps and bounds. Ms. Du Fangqin summarized the study of feminist historiography from 1980 to 1989 in "Discovering the History of China- A Collection of Treatises on Chinese Women", and she said: "The results of the decade can be summarized from two aspects: First, women's studies from the perspective of social history; Second, historical research from the perspective of women has achieved fruitful results." The study of feminist historiography has broadened the field of historical research and stepped out of the barriers of traditional historical male elite research. People began to investigate and study the education, marriage, family, and population mobility of lower-class women, and gradually got out of the trap of male History.
The research content of women's history in ancient China is very large, mainly in the following aspects:
(The picture shows the research content of Chinese women's history)
(ii) The significance of women's history
When it comes to the significance of women's history research, the first point is to break free from the shackles of male elite research and broaden the horizon of historical research. We know that whether it is ancient Chinese history or the ancient history of other countries in the world, the main body of historical records will always be some male elite. Zodiac Po is undoubtedly a great woman, but there are very few historical materials about her, and Tao Zongyi's "Record of Quitting Cultivation" is only a few strokes to write about the achievements of Zodiac Po: "Zodiac Po Min Guang a variety of wooden wool, textile as cloth, known as Ji Bei." Songjiang Province went east to Fifty Li Xu, known as Wu Ni Jing. Its land and fields are barren, and the people do not give food, because they seek tree art to make a living. Then the seed was planted on the other side. At the beginning, there was no system of treadmill vertebral arches, and the rate was cut off by hand, and the string bamboo arc was placed between the presses, and the vibration was turned off into an agent, which was very difficult. At the beginning of the country, there was a woman named Zodiac Woman, who came from Yazhou and taught to make a tool for making bullets and weaving, as for the wrong yarn color matching, the thread of the flowers, each had its own method, so as to weave a futon belt. The words on it are folded branches and wind chess games, which are written as if they were written. Man is taught, competes for action, and transfers goods to other counties, and the family is yin. A few years later, the concubines, do not weep with gratitude and weep and bury them together, and they are also built as a shrine, and they are enjoyed when they are old. Thirty years later, the shrine was destroyed and the townspeople Zhao Yuxuan was re-established. The temple was destroyed and no one built it. The name of the Taoist mother is gradually disappearing and becoming unknown. In this way, the researchers' research subjects were mostly male elites. This kind of research method cannot be said to be wrong, but it is indeed bound, and it is not possible to look at historical facts very objectively and comprehensively. Nowadays, the rise of women's history and feminism have begun to enter the study of historiography, which has stimulated scholars to rethink the progress and regression of the overall development of human history, the authenticity of history and other issues such as gender perspective. Feminist historians have sought to establish new paradigms and standards of historical research through the perspective of women, and to rethink the universal history of mankind. All these provide a new perspective for historical research.
(The picture shows the zodiac)
The second significance of the study of women's history is the introduction of the concept of gender. What is gender? The concept of gender refers to the understanding of the differences between men and women formed in sociocultural and the group characteristics and behavior patterns belonging to women or men formed in social culture. It includes the following implications: biological differences are not the decisive factors for differences in gender roles and behaviours, institutional and cultural factors are the causes of differences in roles and behaviours between men and women; Gender is different from biological sex. Gender, like class and race, is a social relationship and should be regarded as a basic dimension of history. The analytical category of gender is the vitality of feminist historiography. In short, it is the system or social rules that lead to differences in the behavior of men and women, and it can change. For example, in ancient China, women were required to have three subordinates and four virtues, and only by complying with this restrictive provision could women be identified as "women" who were recognized by the public, and this "woman" was gender. Why is the category of gender analysis the vitality of feminist historiography? The theory of gender points out the shortcomings of the current society, points out the irrationality of the patriarchal system, and hopes to establish a new order of equality and harmony. When observing, analyzing and dealing with things, people are aware of the unequal situations, interests and rights of different gender groups, and take measures and actions to promote gender equality. This kind of theory attaches importance to the neglected historiography with women as the main body, provides a steady stream of basis for feminist historical research, and is also a supplement to the improvement of the entire historical research.
The third significance of the study of women's history is to change people's habitual perceptions of women and understand the important role of women in historical development. Here, I think of two questions raised by Mr. Mengman in the open class of "History of Women in Ancient China". First, "In ancient China, women did not go out of the door, and the second door did not go out?" The second is: "In ancient times, a woman's talentlessness was virtue?" The answer is all no. In response to the second question, the teacher also specifically talked about the Ming Dynasty boudoir to refute the second question. From this, we can see that many of our habitual views on women in ancient China are wrong, and the study of women's history can correct this error. Women played an important role in the social environment of the ancient smallholder economy. According to the Songjiang Chronicle, Songjiang in the Ming and Qing dynasties, "rural textiles, especially shangjingmin. In the time of farming, the cloth produced is tens of thousands of days, weaving to help cultivate, and the female red is powerful. It can be seen that "female red" has made significant contributions to the development of Jiangnan's textile industry and commodity economy. In terms of politics, women are not only the role of harming the country and the people, there are many women who have greatly promoted the development of politics, such as Lü Hou, Wu Zetian, Shu Luping, Xiao Qi, and so on.
(Pictured is Boudoir)
All in all, women's history is of great significance. In fact, the low status of women in ancient China does not mean that they are insignificant, and they are an appendage of men, which can be ignored by history. On the contrary, as an important part of human society, women should leave a deep mark on history.
"People shut the woman in the kitchen or in the boudoir, but are amazed at her limited vision; people break her wings and lament that she cannot fly. Hopefully, people will open up the future to her and she will never be forced to stay in the present again. "I think that women's history may be a future open to women, let women move forward, let history move forward."
Resources:
[1] Wang Li, Wang Xiuping, "A Brief Discussion on the Research Significance of Feminist Historiography", Journal of Shaoguan University, No. 7, 2007
[2] Jin Lijie, "Re-understanding feminist historiography," Women's Studies Series, No. 1, 2014
[3] Zhang Hong, "Several Theoretical Issues in Feminist Historiography", Women's Studies Series, No. 4, 2006
[4] Lu Weifang: "His History? Her history? Its History: Women/Gender Studies in China from the Perspective of the Development of Women's Historiography," Journal of Shandong Branch of China Women's University, No. 3, 2005
The image comes from the Internet