a tripartite model of women study

Explicitly challenging the May Forth narration of women as victims and slaves under the Feudal system, this work suggests a dynamic tripartite model to study women of the Ming-Qing China: theory or ideal norms, practice, and self-perception (based on Scott’s study). Specifically, it studies “normative concepts of gender gleaned form Confucian classics”, “social institutions such as kinship and education”, and “subjective gender identity of elite women as revealed in their writings.”

Addressing a topic of significant social relevance, this study focuses on the writing, reading, editing and other literary practices of women. The introduction of print culture and the discourses of qing provides a social background(part i) against which emerged a new womanhood within an expanded female sphere(part ii). Part III of this work is devoted to the analysis of women communities, including traveling gentry poets, poetry clubs and courtesans.

Clearly, the focus of this book is the well-educated women, which enables it to make use of their writings and relevant historical materials. Meanwhile, as it is concerned with not only concepts and practices but also “self-perception”, it enjoys the freedom of using literary works, for example, Peony Pavilion.