Neo Confucianism of Song Dynasty

In China, there has been a problem of sexism since ancient times. The Neo Confucianism of Song Dynasty put forward the three cardinal guides (ruler guides subject, father guides son and husband guides wife) and the five constant virtues to restrain people’s thoughts and behaviors. The meaning of husband guides wife is that the wife must obey her husband unconditionally; otherwise, she will be considered as a violation of ethics. In the Qing Dynasty, there was also a lousy custom of requiring women to bind their feet. Although it did great harm to women’s bodies, many women still bound their feet at that time. There are two reasons. One is that women should obey the orders of men at home. The other is that the aesthetic standard of men at that time was that women’s feet were small for beauty.
In Chinese characters, gender discrimination against women was also reflected. For example, the derogatory words of Chinese characters such as “rape,” “whoring,” “slave,” “jealousy,” “prostitute,” and “prostitute” were all composed of the radicals beside the female characters. This shows that since ancient times, the status of Chinese women is deficient. Although the 70th anniversary of the founding of the people’s Republic of China and the rapid development of China’s economy, politics, ideology, and culture, sexism still exists, and the idea that men are superior to women has not been completely eradicated. In some weak areas, people are particularly affected by the traditional ideas of feudal society. In those areas, there are still many families who think that only men can let the family pass on. Not only that, in some developed cities, the idea of gender equality has not been widely used. In many companies, there are some “hidden rules” for women in recruitment, which leads to women’s more considerable difficulties than men in the process of job hunting or promotion. As a woman, I think the phenomenon of gender discrimination against women in society is worth studying. Although physical and psychological differences between the two sexes are challenging to make gender entirely fair, we can at least try to find ways to reduce the adverse effects of gender discrimination.