Outstanding mothers: feminine virtue and the state in China
by (06/12/29 04:02)
The representatives received awards last Friday.
The Chinese government this month announced the names of China’s 100 Outstanding Mothers. Last Friday some of them came to Beijing with officials
Wang Zhaoguo, vice president of the National People’s Congress (NPC), praised the women for their spirit of selfless maternal love, outstanding moral character, and the self-esteem, self-confidence and self-relianc that are the characters of a ‘proper modern woman’The purpose of the awards was to hold these mothers up as inspirations and exemplars for Chinese women. Wang added building a harmonious society begins at home, and one essential element is the training and education of children.
Women’s virtue has long featured in official and popular moral discourse in China, with women often, in the words of one scholar, vessels of the symbolic? Almost all the didactic works for women in the past were written by men, representing distinctly male concerns, and often in response to behavior that flew in the face of what fathers, husbands, sons and officials considered acceptable.
In pre-modern China, women and girls had few rights and little freedom. Confucius, thousands of years ago, barely mentions women at all except to say, “By nature, women and servans are much alike. If you treat them well, they take advantage of you and if you ignore them, they resent you.” The image of women in late Imperial China owes much to the intellectuals of the May Fourth era who presented a vision of the powerless, illiterate, crippled Chinese woman as a symbol of China’s backwardness and weakness. Global voice online
