The essay “Huizong’s New Clothes: Desire and Allegory in Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk.” by Lara Blanchard argues that “… Huizong’s scroll stands as a double-edged comment on his fitness as a ruler, one that takes a Tang Dynasty image of elite women’s longing and bends it to the will of the Northern Song Emperor” (129). This article is effective because of its thorough examination of Chinese allegories relating to Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk. This essay starts off by mentioning that depictions of elite women in Chinese painting often correspond with traditional Chinese erotic poetry. It then goes into the creator of this painting and how it is linked to Huizong.…
Imagine a life where on any given day, you may find your hometown destroyed and you and your family abducted by a group of warriors with an entirely alien culture. Imagine a place where idle gossip determines whether or not you will be executed in front of the whole community for crimes you did not commit. Such atrocities sound insane by modern standards, but they were all too commonplace in the 1600’s. Women especially fell victim to vengeful kidnappings from Native American tribes and false accusations of witchcraft in the Puritan villages of Massachusetts. Mary Rowlandson and Martha Carrier are just two of the many females who endured unbearable adversity, only to have their gender hinder their chances at survival.…
How sexual exploitation made slavery especially oppressive for women The time of human slavery is long gone, but the effect of slavery still haunts the human society today. 17th, 18th and 19th century were crucial times in human history with regard to slavery. Much has been discussed regarding this topic of slavery but little has been discussed regarding the sexual exploitation which made slavery oppressive to women. Harriet Jacob’s book captures the oppressive slavery which women were subjected to from a rare perspective.…
It is said that compassion is the result of shared suffering, and that in feeling another’s pain, understanding is born. Brutal beatings, heavy labor, starvation, separation and suffering were the realities of slavery for many African-Americans in the South in pre-Civil War America. Through their shared suffering, many slaves were able to develop strong emotional bonds and experience deep feelings of compassion for one another. Throughout the course of one’s life as a slave, it seemed that witnessing and experiencing beatings and lashings was inevitable. Those who fell and those who would fall under the lash all shared a wordless bond formed by this defining feature of their bondage.…
Often times, antebellum slaves had to undergo brutal living and working conditions. The constant fight for survival created an overall characteristic of resilience for the slaves. The hardships of malnutrition, disease, and overall abuse brought forth the “tough skin” that slaves needed to survive. Families became an obligatory part of slave life; they were necessary to keep up the spirits and hopes of its members intact. The slaves also used religion to look to some greater purpose for relief in this world, or in the life to come.…
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman was born into an enslaved family in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her parents originally named her Araminta Harriet Ross. Her mother’s name was Harriet “ Rit” Green and she was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess. Her Father’s name was Ben Ross and he was owned by Anthony Thompson.…
The 1920’s, this is the period in American history where the movement to ban handguns in the Northeast, led by the conservative business establishment began. In the south, the biggest fear was keeping firearms out of the hands of the free blacks or slaves before the Civil War. This is also the time period when the NRA began flexing their muscles and putting their stamp on the political scene. Their organization played an instrumental role in defeating a national proposal on handgun prohibition. The NRA did this by educating and urging their membership to contact their legislators concerning the proposed handgun prohibition through their magazine called the The American Rifleman.…
Zhang does point out in the story that women disregarding Confucian rules led to them ruining the lives of men. Zhang says, “Women either destroy themselves or destroy someone else…if she were to meet someone with wealth and position, she would use the favor her charms gain her to be cloud and rain or dragon or monster…” (Zhen 76). This means that a woman could flirt with a man in order to get what she wanted. She could be nice and beneficial for a man like rain helps the earth.…
In ancient China, woman’s status was always a social issue. Woman could’t get the equal rights as man and was always restrained by unequal social norms. The film describes the life of master and his four wives. The main scenery of this film is master’s house, and in this house, four wives live with different life. The film Raise the Red Lantern talks about how women were treated unequally and how the social atmosphere influenced woman’s thoughts and behaviors.…
Conflicts In The Work Of Maxine Hong Kingston And Alice Walker Recently I came across two readings that were strong-minded on conflicts that heavily affected the main characters path. These two readings I came across were " No Name Woman" By Maxine Hong Kingston and " Beauty: When The Other Dancer Is The Self" By Alice Walker.…
From the very first time that Northup is enslaved in Washington, he notices all of the women surrounding him. In his book, he gives the reader a detailed account their marital statuses, children, skills, personalities and physical attributes. Essentially, male and female slaves are treated differently. Throughout his book, Northup portrays differences in labor, demands and expectations of masters from female slaves. When Northup first meets Eliza in Burch’s slave pen, they are transported to a ship that will send them to the south, where they can be sold to other slave masters (Northup 53).…
The 1920s were 10 years of noteworthy social and social change because of the colossal financial blast and headways in industry. Moreover, the political scene had enormously changed after world war one. For the most part, mentalities turned out to be more liberal and this can be found in the changing part of ladies, xenophobia and in disallowance. Country America be that as it may, stayed much more customary than the propelling urban communities. States of mind towards ladies and migrants remained to a great extent negative.…
Traditional FGC has been in practice for centuries, and it is impossible to attribute the procedure to an individual responsible for its origin. Rather, it is the result of men and women doing what “they [find] easiest and aesthetically most satisfactory.” (Sapir, 558) The traditional practice has immense cultural background and significance, and attempts to quell it often lie with uninformed leaders. The British attempts at eradication were the result of imperialism, conquest, and assimilation rather than a culturally literate mission to protect young girls.…
The binding of feet created a woman who fit these ideals”. Origins of the practice remain unclear, but it is undeniable that one way or another, small feet became a conventional female beauty standard of ancient China. The process no doubt led to a great deal of pain, and it is easy to understand why Westerners with no cultural context condemned footbinding. Ko describes footbinding from the Western gaze as “... a perfect target for feminist critique: photographs of crushed bones are so grotesque that they provoke a visceral reaction, stories of women being reduced by pain to hobbling on their knees produce moral outrage.” However horrific, within Chinese society, footbinding was viewed as the only way to secure a good future for women.…
The Rise of Eunuchs in the Middle of Confucianism The Ming Dynasty witnessed the highest point of the eunuch system and its political influence in the Chinese government during the 15th century. The eunuch system was the system where castrated men were responsible for carrying out assignments as servant for the Chinese emperor and government officers in the palace, also known as Ceremonial Directors in the Ming court (Scholz 129). Despite the conflict against traditional Confucianism, which was the founding belief in creating a Chinese virtuous government, the eunuch system continuously flourished and even led to the creation of voluntary eunuchs (Mitamura 70). Indeed, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was more than 70,000 eunuchs, which…