In the documentary we watched for class, something that stuck out to me was that women are not mentioned in Confucius’s thinking. This was something I wanted to investigate further especially after seeing that in the documentary there were girls attending the Confucius Institute. According to “Women Existing for Men: Confucianism and Social Injustice against Women in China” by Xiongya Gao, there was inequality for women before Confucius, but his teachings made things worse for women. Gao details the idea of yin and yang, and the woman being synonymous with dark and passive, but still, an important part of society. Gao suggests that by leaving out women Confucius is intentionally teaching the reader that women should be silent and forgotten. The idea that women should obey their father first, then their husband, and then their son, also known as “The Three Obediences and Four Virtues,” is certainly something that Confucius would have agreed with in the idea of filial piety. One of his loyal disciples, also endorsed these ideas. Later, Confucian scholars made widows remarrying illegal, and a woman ending her life after her husband’s death was seen as honorable. While all of this information does not necessarily point to Confucius himself believing women were below men, he certainly did not give them a place within Confucianism which later led to their being mistreated in the name of the philosophy.
Categories