Women and Gender Relations in China

An overview of the changing roles of women (and men) in Chinese society. We begin with the cosmological views that defined the genders and their separate spheres in early China; and the institutions (the family, the imperial state) that regulated gender roles and factors (class, religious belief) that complicated and at times undermined these regulations. We focus then on how the economic, social, and intellectual changes of the early modern period precipitated a re-examination of women and their roles in the family and society; and trace the impact of the resulting changes on modern and contemporary gender roles and relations. P