Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China - Softcover

Bray, Francesca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520208617 ISBN 13: 9780520208612

Publisher: University of California Press, 1997

Synopsis

In this feminist history of eight centuries of private life in China, Francesca Bray inserts women into the history of technology and adds technology to the history of women. Bray takes issue with the Orientalist image that traditional Chinese women were imprisoned in the inner quarters, deprived of freedom and dignity, and so physically and morally deformed by footbinding and the tyrannies of patriarchy that they were incapable of productive work. She proposes a concept of gynotechnics, a set of everyday technologies that define women's roles, as a creative new way to explore how societies translate moral and social principles into a web of material forms and bodily practices.

Bray examines three different aspects of domestic life in China, tracing their developments from 1000 to 1800 A.D. She begins with the shell of domesticity, the house, focusing on how domestic space embodied hierarchies of gender. She follows the shift in the textile industry from domestic production to commercial production. Despite increasing emphasis on women's reproductive roles, she argues, this cannot be reduced to childbearing. Female hierarchies within the family reinforced the power of wives, whose responsibilities included ritual activities and financial management as well as the education of children.

About this title

Product Description:

Technology and Gender In this feminist history of eight centuries of private life in China, the author inserts women into the history of technology and adds technology to the history of women. Bray takes issue with the Orientalist image that traditional Chinese women were deprived of freedom and dignity. Full description

Review:

"Illuminating; [Bray's] investigation of the techniques by which cultures reproduce themselves over time also breathes new life into the history of technology."--"Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0520208617
• ISBN 13: 9780520208612
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 436