Page 272 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

women’s and gender history 2049

Informal Sources of Power among Women

Although men have more power than women in China, nations that prevent its attainment.The power women
women certainly do exercise power. However, their have is their capacity to alter a family’s form by
power tends to be informal and to be most obvious in adding members to it, dividing it, and disturbing male
the family and in the community, as indicated by this authority; the danger they pose is their capacity to
description of women in community on Taiwan.This is break up what men consider the ideal family. . . .
typical of many societies and because female power is We once asked a male friend in Peihotien just
exercised in private, it has often gone unnoticed by out- what “having face” amounted to. He replied, “When
side observers. no one is talking about a family, you can say it has
face.” This is precisely where women wield their
The power young women wield as they build their
power. When a man behaves in a way they consider
uterine families and attempt to manipulate their hus-
wrong, they talk about him—not only among them-
bands is of a peculiar kind. It consists in subverting
selves, but to their sons and husbands. No one “tells
and disrupting the family form that most Chinese
him how to mind his own business,” but it becomes
men hold dear—the family that grows from genera-
abundantly clear that he is losing face and by con-
tion to generation without interruption and without
tinuing in this manner may bring shame to the fam-
division. Sons, their wives, and their children should
ily of his ancestors and descendants. Few men will
live in harmony under the guidance of the eldest
risk that.
male.The goals and desires of young married women
Source: Ahern, E. M. (1978).The power and pollution of Chinese women. In A. P.Wolf
conflict with this ideal, and it is largely their machi- (Ed.), Studies in Chinese Society (pp. 276–277). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

tural differences. They sometimes characterized non- The interaction of changing understandings of gender
European cultures not only as “hideous” and “dark- provides an interesting approach to the study of cultural
colored,” but also as exhibiting unsympathetic char- encounters. Growing opposition to British rule and west-
acteristics such as “more than feminine cowardice.” Later ernization strengthened the need for the family as a
male colonizers could construct the notion of colonized refuge for Bengali middle-class men.This paved the way
women as representing “true femininity” since they served for more education for women so they could become
and obeyed men, in opposition to their Western coun- intelligent mothers and wives who would uphold Bengali
terparts, who increasingly refused to do so and even historic traditions within the family. But in the long run
demanded the same rights as men. this also led to the formation of Indian women’s organ-
Ironically,women missionaries,in their ardent attempts izations, and for a while to cooperation between Indian
to spreadWestern values and lacking a full understanding and British women in the fight for women’s suffrage.
of the workings of gender in cultures other than their own, British repressive policies at the end of World War I, how-
often encouragedVictorian feminine behavior in colonized ever, damaged these cross-cultural contacts, and Indian
women.This they did despite the fact that many of them women rebelled against being seen as young daughters
had intentionally broken out of the limitations implied in to be educated by British protective mothers.The spread
Victorian ideals. of Western feminism after World War II raised similar
The Western understanding of masculinity was also at questions about cooperation and conflict among women.
play.The British would perceive a physically strong and
athletic male body and the capacity for self-control and Critical Dialogues?
restraint as necessary for those who intended to rule a As in so many other fields, the uneven growth of histori-
nation. Seeing Bengali middle class men as small, frail, cal sciences around the world has implications for the gen-
effeminate, and lacking self-control, British officials dering of world history.Women’s and gender history first
might find them unable to govern themselves, let alone evolved in the United States and Canada, and was taken
a whole society. up soon afterward byWestern European universities; the