Confucianism as a Eurasian Driving Force: What Does It Really Mean for Women in China and Eurasian Space?

Abstract

Confucianism is persistently named one of the main Eurasian driving forces, cultural, legal, social and political. However, such definitions are usually given by male researchers that are often eager to ignore the real impact of Confucianism on women social roles and statuses in imperial China, modern China and in wider Eurasian space. In Confucian culture, although all rules and regulations are focused on the patrilineal, patriarchal, and patrilocal family system functioning to manage the state and the family, they promote the unequal gendered division of labor, social roles differentiated in a highly biased manner, and often unjust class hierarchy. In fact, Confucian norms strictly and rigidly regulate women’s roles, course of life and even destiny. Despite plethora of examples of women’s outstanding performances in the public sphere in China’s historical past, women are not regarded as social entities capable of occupying public tenures and positions within middle and late Confucianism. Even worse, several modern Confucian discourses degrade women to lowest social strata in the wide Eurasian space. In the paper, I examine what modern Confucianism – in additional to historical Confucianism – may really mean for a woman in Eurasia.