What it means to be a Chinese woman … literarily

Am reading the English translated text of The Good Women: Hidden Voices by a long-time mainland Chinese broadcast journalist, Xinran.

The back jacket cover possibly captures the essence of the multiple facades of feminine identities in Chinese society:

For the ease of my discussion here, I will be converting these original characters into simplified Chinese texts.

Most Chinese would recognise the first character, 女, which stands for a female.

The second character is commonly used in the noun, 家庭主妇, which translates to home-maker or housewife in English. The noun 妇女 – which combines the second character with the first – is also commonly used to refer to women in general. So presumably, if we could assume that in Chinese societies – as implied in the character – women are expected to assume the duties of a home-maker.

The third pair of characters 姑娘 is the traditional Chinese honorific referential term for women. And since 良 also means kindness, this honorific term could also be taken to imply a general kindly character across Chinese womenfolk.

Now the last word arguably speaks volume of what is expected of women in Chinese patriarchy. The obsession with carrying on one’s family name explains the privileging of sons over daughters in a traditional Chinese family. Hence the word 好 (good) is a combination of 女 and 子 (son). It is commonly expected then of married women to fulfill their duties in carrying on the family name by bearing sons. Only then could a woman be considered ‘good’ by the moral standards of a feudalistic Chinese society.

In case you are wondering, I’m no linguist here. And no the above are all my conjectures. They are not indicative of the contents of the book itself, which I may be reviewing in a subsequent post.