The Fight That Never Started Because It Never Stopped

Author Note:

Written in 2019 for Making of the Modern World 12 at UCSD with Professor Chang — a sweeping global history survey that I would later return to as a graduate teaching assistant, on the other side of the seminar table. The essay makes the case that resistance to patriarchy is not a product of modern feminism but a continuous thread running through Tang China, Han China, and the Roman Empire. I've left the voice intact, undergraduate swagger and all — it felt dishonest to sand it down.

Down with the Patriarchy: This Struggle Started Centuries Ago 

As members of the 21st century, we often have the misconception that change has only been caused by recent generations. This reasoning applies to the fight against patriarchy, an institutionalized male dominance that has been a creator of female stress for centuries. A logical reason for the endless struggle is that women in traditionally patriarchal societies were confined to the private sphere; in lay terms, women lived in the kitchen, making endless sandwiches for the male half of the Homo Sapiens species while simultaneously being treated like a breeding animal. Unfortunately for those who want to believe that this fight has only been spurred by “modernity,” there is ample evidence of the anti-patriarchal fight in ancient cultures. This idea can be supported by focusing on three cultures: the Roman Empire, Han China, and the Tang Dynasty. Even though the Han and Tang dynasties were both in the same geographical space that we refer to as China, they have evidence of different approaches to the fight, with one focusing on a strong female monarchy and the other tackling the household structure. In the Roman Empire, with the development of Christianity came a newfound freedom for women that can be supported with evidence from scriptures and accounts from the time. Therefore, although, historically, society was restrictive, the perspective that women were confined to the private sphere is inaccurate, and can be challenged with evidence from the Gnostic Gospels and Pliny’s letters in Rome, the Lessons for Women in the Han Dynasty, and the accounts of Empress Wu in Tang China. 

Unfortunately for the West (and “modern” countries without female presidents), women have had monarchical power in the East for centuries. A prime example of this is Empress Wu, who, as per popular opinion, created and ruled a dynasty in her own right. Coming from a humble background, the Empress became an unranked concubine for the ruler Taizong. After his death, she caught the eye of his son, and essentially ascended the throne. Ruthless to her enemies, she had a vast network of information and was in charge of the North Gate Scholars (Wills). Her control of scholars was effectively -- to put it dramatically -- a spit on the face of patriarchy, since women were considered weak and unfit to control information. This is especially important because China’s Confucian background along with their mainstream Buddhism emphasized control via knowledge. The Empress also adapted the Fengshan ceremony to justify female power; the ritual focused on the idea of a peak-mountain, in which the male (peak) and female (mountain) have to share power to preserve harmony in the world (Reader 249). In order to legitimize her power further, it was “prophesied” that “a Sage Mother shall come to rule mankind; her rule shall bring eternal prosperity” (Empress Wu 253). By having her own spin on the “Mandate of Heaven,” her power was justified and respected by the society, thus disproving the modern view that historical women were fully restricted by male-dominance. Another prime example from Empress Wu’s reign is Xue Huaiyi from the White Horse Monastery. He was her private lover and a merchant of cosmetics, who was installed as the abbot of the Buddhist Monastery. When he was given the title, he wrote the “White Cloud” sutra, which states that the emperor is a Maitreya-like figure. Although he never directly states that the current leader is a future Buddha, the sutra was easily accepted by the populus, who were already used to the traditional Chinese idea of the “Mandate of Heaven,” therefore reinforcing Empress Wu’s power. In addition, it was said that even in her 70s, the Empress had a strong sexual appetite, and was obsessed with the Zhang brothers. By openly discussing her sexuality, not only in the Zhang example, but in her background as a concubine and later on with her numerous private affairs, it fissures the anti-sexual stigma and makes it slightly more acceptable to be comfortable in a woman's body at the time. 

To move a little back in the Chinese timeline, Han China challenged the “private sphere” theory as well. Pan Chao’s Lessons for Women was written as a manual for women’s etiquette. Pan Chao came from a more established, education-positive family, and thus became part of the marginal group of literate women at the time. The Lessons were written in her old age for her daughters, and from the tone in which it was written, can be interpreted as reinforcing the patriarchal view of women. This text is layered and complex because she takes an underhanded approach that requires deep analysis. Firstly, just the fact that it is a text written by a woman deviates from the patriarchy since it would require women to learn to read or get some semblance of an education to understand. She states that men “only know their wives must be controlled” and therefore “teach their boys to read,” yet don’t “understand that husbands and masters must also be served.” This patriarchy- pleasing statement then underhandedly asks the “learned” men if it is right to “to teach men and not to teach women - is that not ignoring the essential relation between them?” Thus female education would be promoted by men who wanted to keep their household under control. To commence the book, Pan Chao states that she is “by nature careless and stupid,” thus appeasing the uneasy, egoistic male, and that she has learned how to “escape” from the fears of disgracing her family. Since the Han culture adhered to Confucian principles, filial piety and respect was placed at the forefront. Therefore, Pan Chao states that she wants to save her daughters from making any blunders, thus justifying her writings. In order to work within societal boundaries, but also to get some semblance of women’s rights, she states that “should actual blows be dealt, how could matrimonial relationships be preserved? Should sharp words be spoken, how could conjugal love exist?” While it seems like she is saying women should mind their tongues, she also states that men should not raise their hand since it will break the relationship, thereby (hopefully) attempting to prevent domestic violence. Overall, Pan Chao’s Lessons for Women is written in a way that appeases the patriarchy while subtly promoting basic women’s rights such as education and safety. 

Jumping to the Western World, women in the Roman Empire also fought against the conventional assumption of submission by using Christianity to their benefit. Traditional Roman society centered around all-powerful paterfamilias, where women were second-class citizens (Wiesner-Hanks et al,152). Christianity offered them an escape, in which they could have more choices in marriage and widowhood was respected. In the letters from Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, it is evident that women were challenging the orthodox society. In their attempts to quash Christian beliefs, Pliny reveals that he tortured “two female slaves who were called deaconesses.” Although he refuses to accept that the women could have a status above “slave,” in reality they were accepted by the Christian community as religious leaders. Another clear example of deviation comes from the Gnostic Gospels. Although they disappeared from the Christian orthodoxy after it became a mainstream religion, the Gospels reflected female power in the early stages of Christianity. In the Gospel of Mary, she is seen as “worthy” of Jesus’ higher teachings, a fact that Levi emphasizes when he tells other followers not to “disregard her.” In the Gnostic sources, according to Elaine Pagels, God is “masculofeminine,” which means that women were most likely given equal status in the eyes of the new religion. In the case of the Roman Empire, a marginalized religion was a source of power for women. Only after Christianity became mainstream and merged with middle class Roman values (patriarchy strikes back) did women revert to their subjugative roles. Therefore, the Roman Empire was a prime example of when historical women were able to break out of the private, male-centric sphere. 

In the Western “modern” World, there is an assumption that women from traditional, patriarchal societies had no opportunity to resist, and were marginalized by dominant ideologies. However, this idea can be disproved by just three of the numerous ancient cultures that have shaped the views of the 21st century. In Tang China, the Empress’s political power was shaped by positively using her sexuality as well as with a Buddhist “Mandate of Heaven”. In Han China, although the text seems to favor the rigid male society, Pan Chao cunningly promoted women’s education and non-toxic household relationships. Her written work even touches on the idea of male-female (or general social) distancing, an idea that would prove beneficial in our day. Christianity in Rome was also a medium for women’s attempts at liberation, since the original Nazarene Cult respected women as part of the religious community. Therefore, conventional assumptions can be disproven, highlighting the tragedy of the situation; the female fight against the patriarchy has stretched across centuries without any clear end date. The real question that arises is, will society ever learn from their past in order to truly embrace the meaning of the word “modern” in a world that scoffs (regardless of their value) at traditional viewpoints?