“Family” as a Site of Gender and Class Struggles in Catherine Lim’s The Song of Silver Frond
Abstract views: 465
,
PDF downloads: 555
Abstract
“Family” in The Song of Silver Frond (TSOSF) functions as a site of gender and class struggles to challenge the Chinese yin-yang and nei-wai tradition. Continuities and transformations in Chinese familial practices result from complex socio-cultural-generational dynamics. "Family" becomes a battleground of gender and class struggles for the preservation and transformation of those familial traditions. Moreover, the dynamic of ethnicity also intersects with gender and class relations. The traditional Chinese familial practices follow two fundamental Confucian gender foundations: yin-yang and nei-wai. The yin-yang delineation privileges man versus woman. Meanwhile, the private/public distinction of nei-wai relegates the woman's place to the domestic sphere. By employing Post-Structural feminist perspectives focusing on gender intersectionality, this article examines how "family" becomes the site of ethnic-gender-class struggles in TSOSF. The articles revealed that some family members, both men, and women, continue to apply the traditional Confucian rules from generation to generation. However, other members challenge those traditional practices to contest gender and class inequalities to adapt to different sociocultural dynamics in Southeast Asian Society. Thus, this article has articulated the way TSOSF displays "family" as a site of gender and class struggle in Chinese familial practices.
Downloads
References
Anderson, Benedict Richard O’Gorman. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991.
Atkinson, Jane Monnig, Shelly Errington, and Joint Committee on Southeast Asia. Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Barlow, Tani E. The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.
Burguiere, Andre, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Martine Segalen, and Francois Zonabend, eds. A History of the Family, Volume II: The Impact of Modernity. 1st edition. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1996.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Abingdon: Routledge, 1990.
Carsten, Janet. After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Chambers, Deborah. “Representing ‘the Family.’” In Representing the Family, 1–32. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2001. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446219546.
Chan, Sin Yee. “Gender and Relationship Roles in the Analects and the Mencius.” Asian Philosophy 10, no. 2 (2000): 115–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/09552360050121119.
Cho, Lee-Jay, and Motoo Yada. Tradition and Change in the Asian Family. Honolulu: East-West Center, 1994.
Chua, Liana, and Rusaslina Idrus. “Introduction: Unpacking Indigeneity in Southeast Asia.” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 37, no. 1 (2022): 1–26.
Clark, Kelly James, and Robin R. Wang. “A Confucian Defense of Gender Equity.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72, no. 2 (2004): 395–422. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40005811.
Cohen, Myron L. Kinship, Contract, Community, and State: Anthropological Perspectives on China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.
Collier, Jane Fishburne, and Sylvia Junko Yanagisako. Gender and Kinship: Essays Toward a Unified Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Confucius, and Zengzi. Xiaojing: The Classic of Filial Piety in Chinese and English. Translated by James Legge and Ivan Chen. New York: Oxford, 1979.
Evans, Grant. Asia’s Cultural Mosaic: An Anthropological Introduction. New York: Prentice Hall, 1993.
Herzfeld, Michael. “Anthropology and the Politics of Significance.” Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice 41, no. 3 (1997): 107–38.
Herzfeld, Michael. Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Ikels, Charlotte, ed. Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia. 1st edition. Calif: Stanford University Press, 2004.
King, Victor T., and William D. Wilder. The Modern Anthropology of South-East Asia: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003060277.
Koh, Eunkang. “Gender Issues and Confucian Scriptures: Is Confucianism Incompatible with Gender Equality in South Korea?” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 71, no. 2 (2008): 345–62.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1980.
Lang, Olga. Chinese Family and Society. Yale: Yale University Press, 1976.
Lim, Catherine. The Song of Silver Frond. London: Orion, 2004.
Malkki, Liisa. “Citizens of Humanity: Internationalism and the Imagined Community of Nations.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 3, no. 1 (1994): 41–68. https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.3.1.41.
Mills, Sara. Discourse. London: Routledge, 2005.
Morse, Ruth. “Novels of National Identity and Inter-National Interpretation.” College Literature 19/20, no. 3/1 (1992): 60–77.
Mulyani, Sri. “Enmeshing Class, Gender, and Ethnicity of ‘Family’ in Selected Fiction by Women Writers.” Kritika Kultura, no. 35 (2020): 44–71. https://doi.org/10.13185/KK2020.003505.
Parkin, Robert, and Linda Stone. Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Rosemont, Henry Jr. “Classical Confucian and Contemporary Feminist Perspectives on the Self: Some Parallels and Their Implications.” In Culture and Self, edited by Douglas Allen. Boulder: Westview, 1997.
Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Atlanta: The University of Georgia Press, 1998.
Stacey, Judith. Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Tu, Wei-Ming. “The Confucian Tradition in Chinese History.” In Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization, edited by Paul S. Ropp. Berkeley: University California Press, 1990.
Waltner, Ann. “Kinship Between the Lines: The Patriline, the Concubine and the Adopted Son in Late Imperial China.” In Gender, Kinship and Power, edited by Victor King and William D. Wilder. London: Routledge, 1996.
Xiaowei, Zang. “Family, Kinship, Marriage, and Sexuality.” In Understanding Contemporary China, edited by Robert E. Ganer, 3rd ed., 317–40. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781685850463-012.
Yee, Chan Sin. “The Confucian Conception of Gender in the Twenty-First Century.” In Confucianism for the Modern World, edited by Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chaibong, 312–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511509964.015.
Zheng, Wang. “Creating a Socialist Feminist Cultural Front: ‘Women of China’ (1949–1966).” The China Quarterly, no. 204 (2010): 827–49.
The journal operates an Open Access policy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
_(1).png)
.png)
.png)
1.png)
.png)
.png){kind=logo}
.png)
_-_Copy_-_Copy.png)
