According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, feminism is stated as “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” In the memoir No Name Woman in The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, there is a strong lack of feminism.
In the story Kingston is told by her mother “You must not tell anyone what I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born” (Kingston 3). The opening paragraph is Kingston learning that her aunt drowned herself. Her Aunt committed adultery with an abusive man and became pregnant. Shortly after giving birth, she committed suicide by jumping in the family well, also killing the baby. “The other man was, not after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders: she followed. If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week”(7). Woman in old China were forced into marriage and were put into abusive situations. Kingston learns that her aunt was technically raped by a man in her village and when she became pregnant, the man organized a raid on her aunt. As a Chinese woman, her aunt cannot defend herself against the village because men are in control of the community. Woman are treated drastically different from the men. “Woman in old China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil” (6). There is an absences of women’s rights throughout the memoir.
Kingston analyzes her own life in the memoir. She is torn between being a woman in American culture and Chinese culture. “I have tried to turn myself American-feminine” (11). Kingston does not know how to be a proper woman and she wants to be loved. “If I made myself American-pretty so that five or six Chinese boys in the class fell in love with me, everybody else-the caucasian Negros, and Japanese boys- would too. Sisterliness dignified and honorable, made much more sense” (12). This quote shows how Kingston wants to fit the stereotypical American woman standard. She is trying to understand her families past while attempting to balance life as Chinese American. She feels displaced between the two cultures.
Throughout the memoir, there is an underlining theme of what it takes to be a woman in Chinese culture. “Don’t Humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful” (5). In Chinese culture, their is an expectation to never talk about sex, especially if you are a woman. “Among the very poor and the wealthy, brothers married their adopted sisters, like doves. Our family allowed for some romance, paying adults brides’ prices and providing dowries so that their sons and daughters could marry strangers. Marriage promises to turn strangers into friendly relatives- a nation of siblings” (12). Woman were expected to obey their families tradition and take part in arranged marriage. Another expectation of women was to get their feet bound. “my mother said we were lucky we didn’t have to have our feet bound when we were seven. Sisters used to sit on their beds and cry together, she said, as their mothers or their slaves removed the bandages for a few minutes each night and let the blood gush back into their veins” (9).
Kingston observes how different female influences adapted to the Chinese culture. Woman have a prestigious role to play which is influenced by culture and tradition.
What are ways in which men were treated differently than women in old Chinese culture?
Do you think there was a better solution for Kingston’s aunt instead of committing suicide?
When you summarize the reading, you say ““The other man was, not after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders: she followed. If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week”(7). Woman in old China were forced into marriage and were put into abusive situations.” That’s a great quote from the reading and really relates to your focus on feminism and women’s rights because it shows that women were obedient and had to listen to men. However, you say women were forced into marriage and were put into abusive relationships, which yes, women did have arranged marriages in old China, but we have to remember that the father of the aunt’s baby isn’t the husband. She committed adultery while her husband was away in California (even though it was most likely rape, the village just sees it as adultery because men are superior and can do no wrong in old China) so I don’t really understand your explanation of the quote because the aunt wasn’t forced to marry this man that abused her.
As for your questions, I think the first one is pretty much answered by your blog post, because that’s what you focused on. The second one, however, I’m not sure about. I don’t think the aunt wanted to die necessarily, rather she wanted to protect the baby in a weird way. During the birth scene, there’s a line that says, “She may have gone to the pigsty as a last act of responsibility: she would protect this child as she had protected its father.” (15) I don’t know why she wanted to protect the father of the child, but I also think she was protecting her family and her husband, so in my opinion, it seems as if the aunt thought she had no other option.
I think you did a great job summarizing the reading and most of your quotes relate to your analysis of the reading. I found myself thinking about a lot of the same things you wrote about when I was reading it. Good job!
I like the fact that you started your blog post with the dictionary definition of feminism, then based the rest of your blog post on showing how old China lacked these qualities. When you said that, “Another expectation of women was to get their feet bound” I feel that this was important to bring up because the main focus of the story seems to be on the adultery that the aunt committed, and not so much focused on how she was physically different than the rest of the women in old China. Another example of this is when the author includes that, “On a farm near the sea, a woman who tended her appearance reaped a reputation of eccentricity” (Kingston,9). The aunt was always trying to adjust how she looked in order to try and attract men for who she was, not because she was forced to marry her, which as seen as strange during the time. She would pull out hairs that were out of place and pick off spots that were deemed unattractive or unlucky, but would try to do so subtly as to not draw the attention of the village.
There were many ways that men were treated differently than women in old China. You brought up in your blog post that men often commended women, and they did not have the right to choose. They were seen as far superior to women, and felt they needed to guide all of their decisions. Another example of how men were treated differently is how the goods from the west were divided. “When the goods were divided among the family, three of the brothers took land, and the youngest, my father, chose an education” (Kingston, 8). All of the boys were able to choose what they wanted from the goods, yet the aunt was never offered a choice.
Although suicide was a brutal choice for the aunt, she may have thought of it as her only option. If she were to have exposed the child to such an angry village, it may have been tortured for its entire life, and may have eventually been drawn to suicide itself. Also, the aunt and her family would have been equally as tortured. She may have committed suicide with her family’s wellbeing in mind, as she felt guilty for all of the harsh had already caused.
Overall, great blog post!! All of the quotes you used offered great support to your claims about the story.
Opening your blog with the definition of “Feminism” really helped to draw me into reading the rest of the blog because I was curious about the points you were going to make. I think that you are completely correct about women being treated drastically different then men. I also find it weird how pregnancy gets blamed on the women which also shows how women were viewed compared to men. This quote from the book exemplifies this:”Don’t let your father know that I told you. He denies her. Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful”. This quote just shows that one, she is very cautious to make sure that the father does not find out because who knows what would happen if he did, but two, that it would be her fault if she got pregnant. When she says “Don’t humiliate us” it makes it more of an impact because it will shame the whole family, not just herself.
I also liked how u said “She is torn between being a woman in American culture and Chinese culture.” which shows that she kind’ve has to make a choice between which she wants to be. She wants to fit in and be liked by the American aspect but she also wants to keep her Chinese culture a part of her life.
Melissa, make sure you proofread your comments (“you” not “u”) in order to receive credit. Also include MLA-style citations.
The definition of feminism, the title of your blog post, and your ideas are all a great connection to one another. Your title “What it take to be a Woman” really coheres with the idea that she is struggling between being a more “American woman” or a more “Chinese woman”. She tells the readers how she is trying to transform herself to a sort of American feminine, “Walking erect and speaking in an inaudible voice….”(Kingston, 11). Do you think she is acting more American to get away from the Chinese culture? I personally think she despises how women are expected to act in Chinese culture and would prefer the American culture over the Chinese. She speaks about many horror stories within the Chinese culture. Such as; her aunt drowning herself and the baby, the rape, the arranged violent marriages, the raid, and the inequality between men and women. I also feel there is a struggle inside her because she disagrees with many aspects of the culture, but the Chinese culture is her heritage.
Great blog post, great use of quotes and evidence to support your claims!
Firstly, your title really caught my eye and I got excited to read your blog post. I thought that adding the definition of feminism and contrasting it to the novel was really smart. While reading, I began to feel a sense of sadness for the women in this novel. I couldn’t imagine feeling so inferior. You cleared up the whole situtation of Kingston’s aunt for me. I was a little confused reading the story and wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. Now, I understand it completely. I have come to realization that Kingston was technically raped but the people were raided because it was thought to be a crime of adultry. On page 13, Kingston states, “adultery, perhaps only a mistake during good times, became a crime when the village needed food”(Kingston, 13). I was a little confused by what this quote means. Is this saying that adultry isn’t always a mistake? I think this quote goes hand in hand to what you are saying about adultry and Kingston’s aunt’s situation. Also, I agree with what you talk about of the pressure for chinese women to not talk about sex. Kingston states, “how useless then sexual mannerisms, how dangerous” (Kingston, 12). It is seen as dangerous to be sexually active in their culture. For men, it is not like this at all. They’re able to do whatever they’d like! Overall, you have a great blog post. It helped me understand what I was reading.
Do you think there was a better solution for Kingston’s aunt instead of committing suicide?
I honestly think that Kingston’s aunt killing herself wasn’t the best choice , but something she felt she had to do. The No-Named Woman was being mentally and physically abused by the villagers for committing adultery. In “The Woman Warrior”, it states, “At first they threw mud and rocks at her house. Then they threw eggs and began slaughtering our stock. We can hear animals scream their deaths…” (Kingston, 4). The villagers had no idea what happened to Kingston’s aunt, but they knew she was pregnant from a man who was not her significant other. I believe the abuse went on too long, and especially in this society and setting, it went too far. Kingston’s aunt had enough with the torture she was being put through and decided to end the agony by ending her and her daughter’s life.
The title of your blog caught my attention immediately! I also love the definition of the feminism as the first sentence. I think that you are 100% right about women being treated completely differently than men. I also found it weird how pregnancy gets blamed on the women which also shows how women were viewed compared to men. This quote from the book backs this point up: “Don’t let your father know that I told you. He denies her. Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful”. Now, with the second question. Suicide was an intense choice for the aunt. I don’t think the aunt wanted to die necessarily, rather she wanted to protect the baby in a weird way. I also believe she was protecting her family and her husband, so in my opinion, it seems as if the aunt thought she had no other option. Great job on the post! Super interesting! 🙂
Don’t forget MLA-style citations, Brianna!
I believe that there is an endless amount of better solutions for Kingston’s aunt instead of committing suicide. There is evidence throughout the text that proves that Kingston’s family members all believed there were better solutions. For example, Kingston says “Don’t let your father know that I told you. He denies her” (Kingston, 5). This sentence is talking about knowing what happened to Kingston’s aunt. The quote provides evidence that Kingston’s family is ashamed about what Kingston’s aunt did. They know that the act of taking her and her babies life was terrible and they wouldn’t feel so ashamed if a tragedy like that had never happened. Kingston’s father is so ashamed that he refuses to believe that her aunt ever existed.
Good job on your blog post! It would have been interesting to see what your thoughts were on whether or not there were better solutions regarding Kingston’s aunt’s death.
The definition of feminism was the first thing to catch my eye. I love how you were able to draw quotes from the text that related to feminism, which in turn described the difference between men and women. Women were raped and essentially told to “deal with it”. They had no say in what happened to them, yet men were allowed to get away with it. (Sounds familiar to the current American culture to me).
One quote really stood out to me especially in the sense of the difference between men and women. When Kingston tells us about her aunt taking the baby to the well she says, “Mothers who love their children take them along. It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys.” Both of those sentences hit me.
Notice that it says, “Mothers* who love their children..” and doesn’t say “parents”. Could this be Kingston showing us the difference in a mother’s love than a father’s love? Though she is talking about her aunt, the text wouldn’t change if she had said, “Parents who love their children take them along.”
Then the second sentence, “It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys,” shows that girls were disposable in old Chinese culture. Boys could be forgiven for the sins of their ancestors, but girls seemed to be a curse to the family in itself. This also rings true today in some traditional Chinese families. My step-sister had a baby with a Chinese man. They never got married, which is a problem to begin with in his culture, and now they’re on kid number 3, still not married. I digress. When his parents found out that the first child was a girl, they forced the father of the baby to cancel the wedding they were planning. My step-sister had already bought her dress, paid for the venue, sent out invitations, and everything else. The next baby was a boy. It seemed as if all was forgiven after that. Number 3 is a boy. None of this really matters, but I thought bringing in some current culture would help to understand that cultures have their traditions. Most of them don’t disappear and seem to have consequences to this day. Men and women have been treated differently since the beginning of time. It’s almost as if things haven’t changed…
Some food for thought.
“Mothers who love their children take them along. It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys.” (Kingston, 15)
Don’t forget MLA-style citations, Sarah!
Your title really popped out to me as soon as I read your title. “What it takes to be a woman” sums up the struggle that Kingston felt as she grew up fighting through her life. To then define feminism really pulled me in a direction that peaked my interest. It wasn’t simply “This is what happened in the reading, this is how I felt,” there was a sincerity to your post that immediately pulled me in, as the reader, to want to see where you were going with the rest of the post. Your post did a great job evaluating the content of the memoir, and did a good job making the audience sympathize with Kingston. The struggle of finding herself and fitting into a new society with different ideals was summed up in your post well and kept me interested in reading more. Overall, good job and can’t wait to see your presentation.
“What are ways in which men were treated differently than women in old Chinese culture”
Firstly I focused a lot on this aspect while reading “No Name Woman” as well. There were many distinct differences in their society that stood out in this small chapter. One quote i found from the story is speaking about the aunt’s growth and career/life choices, “They expected her(the aunt) alone to keep the traditional ways, which her brothers, now among the barbarians, could fumble without detection.”. Even earlier they speak about how she was forced into having sex with a villager that was not her husband, “I want her fear to have lasted just as long as the rape lasted so that the fear could have been contained. No drawn-out fear. But women at sex hazarded birth and hence lifetimes. The fear did not stop but permeated everywhere. She told the man, “I think I’m pregnant.” He organized the raid against her.” and then that villager had organized the raid that ultimately led to her suicide because she was pregnant and having his child that night. The man never got any punishment for committing such a deed. There were many more scenarios showing the differences and difficulties their women shared. All in all you did a great job going into detail on your topic!
Don’t forget MLA-style citations, Cody!
I’d like to argue that the Aunt never really had a choice in her own suicide. If she had lived, she would have lived a life of torment, while her inseminator would get off almost scott-free because she refused to incriminate him. Still, based off context clues, one can assume he would get a slightly more lenient punishment than her. I’d like to draw attention to the quote, “Adultery, perhaps only a mistake during good times, became a crime when the village needed food.”
The people viewed her pregnancy as a crime, and as such, she and her baby would be punished if they had lived. She could have run away to fend for herself, but this is far from wise. She could have stayed, but that would be at the cost of her saftey. To eliminate all chance of future pain- which was inevitable- suicide was the best, and, perhaps, the only option in her mind. The society was sexist, as you said yourself in the comment, “According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, feminism is stated as ‘the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.’ In the memoir No Name Woman in The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, there is a strong lack of feminism”, so I would argue that she didn’t stand a chance.
I forgot to include that the quote “Adultery, perhaps…. needed food” is from The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, page 13.
Practice using MLA-style citations, Taylor!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog post. I think you comprehended the text exactly how Kingston intended us to. To answer your first question, I. believed that women were seen as pretty much all equal and the same. They all played the same loyal housewife roll, with the same manors and expectations, the same look, and the same way of life. The men went to America for money and better education, while the women stayed in China with the kids and crops. A quote I believe best supports this is “All the married women blunt-cut their hair in flaps about their ears or pulled back in tight buns” (9). She’s using this example to prove that the style and look of pretty much every woman in her Chinese society look a certain way. Great blog post! I enjoyed reading it and discussing in class.
I do not believe there was any other solution for Kingston’s aunt to get away with getting pregnant other than suicide because on the very first page, in the introduction, we are given the information that Kingston’s mother was telling her secrets about her own aunt, as a warning. In your blog, you explained what she did and how she did it. On the same page it says “‘I remember looking at your aunt one day … she had such a protruding melon off a stomach.” (Kingston, 3) “We did not discuss it. In early summer she was ready to have the child, long after the time when it could have been possible.” (Kingston, 3) This already tells us that something is wrong with her being pregnant because she is pregnant a lot later than she must’ve been with her husband but then Kingston states “the village had also been counting. On the night the baby was born, the villagers raided our house.” This tells us that even the entire village had noticed something strange about one of their neighbors, and had been waiting and plotting for the day they were proven right, the birth of the baby, to cause mayhem. All of this evidence, including what you had stated in your blog shows us that Kingston’s aunts’ only two options were to either commit suicide, or be killed brutally by the villagers.