Women: The Suppressed Sex in Chinese Literature. Literature Essay

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Women: The Suppressed Sex in Chinese Literature
The society tends to portray women as the weaker sex between the feminine and masculine genders across various social, political, economic, cultural, and even religious aspects of life. The heightened calls for equality witnessed around the globe in seeking recognition of women’s input in the society’s development as marching that of their male counterparts across the wide range of fields is evident of their resourcefulness previously restricted by conservative traditions. The society has no option but to embrace the reconnaissance of women in the current and future generation; women are taking up leadership roles in matters politics, academia, economics, and even religion. However, the transition has been on a continuous but constant wheel of change as the depiction of women in Chinese literature should reveal as the article unfolds. Literature, Chinese literature for that matter, is also guilty of denying women a common ground in its depiction or rather characterization of the feminine gender roles in most literary works. Hence, women as the suppressed sex in Chinese literature seeks to unveil the underlying traditions evident in various Chinese works of literature showcasing the subjectivity of women characters. The approach taken in carrying out the outlined task is an extensive analysis of various literature works by renowned women authors of Chinese origin who protest the traditional depiction of women as the suppressed sex through their depictions of the female characters as strong-willed individuals.
The authors portray their women characters as heroines who manage to withstand the whims of a patriarch society and its demeaning cultural beliefs and values to become independent and content with the self. In most of the works used in developing the article, women are no longer bound by restrictive traditions as previously portrayed in most Chinese literature, but embrace their individuality in making decisions appealing to the ‘self’ irrespective of the societal traditions and expectation. Traditionally, Chinese literature subject women to romanticism, marital roles, and obligations, family or filial associations and expectations, as well as societal perceptions or positions in the society. In most classical Chinese literature, for instance, the authors portrayed women characters as sex objects for their male counterparts meant to please the latter in their fairness, beauty, and submissiveness. Divorce or celibate women would often be scorned, and as most literature revealed, women revered being divorcees so much that most would choose to end their lives than being scorned by the society. The early 20th century authors such as Bing Xin, Ling Shuhua, and Bai Hui, express their dismay at the demeaning portrayal of women in Chinese literature by highlighting the desire of women to live differently from the preconditioned lives advocated by most Chinese works.
Women as the suppressed sex in Chinese literature, as outlined, would often take the form of objectification of their bodies as sex symbols or sources of pleasure to their male counterparts. Jing Ling, one of the most renowned Chinese authors, shows her transition and realization of the demeaning perception of women through her various works. Jing Ling’s Meng Ke, for instance, portrays the objectification of women as sex symbols and further portrays the use of their sexuality as the added advantage for social or economic gains CITATION Lyd \l 2057 (Liu). Meng Ke’s protagonist and the heroine of the story undergoes a terrible ordeal during an audition before a film director who is only interested in her sexuality and not her ability or qualification for the hiring position. But such was the nature of most works in the Chinese literature as women were reduced to the insignificant roles of appeasing their male counterparts and merely recognized for their positive attributes other than their sexuality, which restricted or suppressed their resourcefulness in comparison.
Jing Ling’s 1928, Shafenshi de riji or Miss Sophie’s Diary, showcases the transition and rebellion against the existing traditional restrictions or suppression of the woman in Chinese literature by questioning the existing norms CITATION Jin03 \l 2057 (Siyan). One could be permitted to assume that perhaps the belittlement of her female protagonist in the previous work, Meng Ke, provoked or rather challenged her to embrace womanhood and champion for her rightful place and recognition in the society, including the world of literature. The diary describes the narrator’s experience with the mirror, "Glancing from one side you've got a face a foot long; tilt your head slightly to the side, and suddenly it gets so flat you startle yourself... It all infuriates me,” as she looks at herself from the mirror CITATION Lyd \l 2057 (Liu). She takes a closer look at her life as a woman in the society, and she is not impressed at her image despite changing to various positions. It is a metaphoric cross-examination of the woman’s position in a patriarch society and attempts to analyze the available options to enact change and positively impact her life and the...