Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie Hands and welcome to Stuff. I've
Speaker 1: never told your production of I Heart Radios how stuff works.
Speaker 1: So was a third attempt. Well, it is an exciting day,
Speaker 1: so perhaps that's why we're making your mistakes because it
Speaker 1: is the final female first of twenty nineteen of a decade. Yes,
Speaker 1: which means you're once again joined I for our good
Speaker 1: friend and co workers. Thank you. I didn't even think
Speaker 1: that this was the last one of the decade, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is the last one of the year,
Speaker 1: but no, it's a whole decade that's ending right now
Speaker 1: right this very Yes, time compresses in my world really easily. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am grateful to be here as always, so glad
Speaker 1: you're here. Yeah, it's a bit of a mess in
Speaker 1: the studio. So many peanut butter. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: peanut butter, a lot of beverages, a lot of beveraging.
Speaker 1: But that I feel like that's kind of status quo
Speaker 1: part of course when you come use Well, this season
Speaker 1: is about abundance as well, It's true, and we're collecting gifts,
Speaker 1: so the more the merrier. Correct, Yes, thank you punch
Speaker 1: peanut butter. See are you counch peanut butter. Is the
Speaker 1: thing is is that going to somebody's Christmas present? You know?
Speaker 1: Is that going to something? I could do this because
Speaker 1: through various sponsorships, I now have no exaggeration a creative
Speaker 1: peanut butter. So I mean, I guess if I want
Speaker 1: to be really lazy in my gift giving, I could
Speaker 1: just start handing out peanut butter. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it to a food kitchen. Yes, yes, yes, um, and
Speaker 1: we are very excited to have you as always eaves.
Speaker 1: Um it is this is our final final chord of
Speaker 1: the year. Is it will congrats to y'all people to
Speaker 1: rest a little right right. I've had people stopped like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're recording this weekend. I was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: oh no, yeah, it's I guess there's two weeks left
Speaker 1: in the year as we record this. So this is
Speaker 1: pretty good. I'm pretty happy. I think we did well. Yeah. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I'm also pretty excited to talk about the person
Speaker 1: not Todays. I am too. I'm really excited to talk
Speaker 1: about Bungoo. Who's who we're talking about today. Um, We're
Speaker 1: going way back in history for this one, yes, almost
Speaker 1: to the BC year it's kind of dipping there for
Speaker 1: a little bit. I'm always excited to go into the vcs,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when we get into the twenties. Let's
Speaker 1: look all the way back. Let's go all the way back. Yes.
Speaker 1: And she's known as China's first female historian. Yes, China's
Speaker 1: first female historian, and a very influential scholar in general
Speaker 1: at the time. Not just female scholar, but she was
Speaker 1: also one of like the only female scholars early on,
Speaker 1: the only female historians early on. Yeah. And I was
Speaker 1: reading some of the stuff that she wrote, and it's fascinating,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yes, isn't it fascinating, especially to look at
Speaker 1: it from my point of view as an American, as
Speaker 1: an American woman living in I'm already ahead of myself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's um. Once the twentieth century rolled around, people
Speaker 1: like viewed it a lot differently than they did during
Speaker 1: her time, which she was born in forty five, so
Speaker 1: early early ideas. Many people had a lot of thoughts
Speaker 1: on over the years. Yes, And as we always say
Speaker 1: on these these episodes, these females first context is always
Speaker 1: really important when we're talking about this. And the spoiler
Speaker 1: not to confuse anybody. She wrote things about how basically
Speaker 1: how to be a woman in China, and so it's
Speaker 1: just an amazing window into what it was like back then.
Speaker 1: And yeah, now with our eyes so different, Yeah, well
Speaker 1: we're I mean, I'm not a historian, and I imagine
Speaker 1: a lot of people here aren't historians. So it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting as a civilian, non historian to look at
Speaker 1: things that happened this long ago and in cultures outside
Speaker 1: of my own that I'm not typically studying, and like
Speaker 1: developing my own perspective around that and learning a lot
Speaker 1: more about it. It's so easy to get caught up
Speaker 1: in the way that we think today. So yeah, once
Speaker 1: the twentieth century rolled around, the views on her started
Speaker 1: getting a lot more complicated. Like women started thinking a
Speaker 1: lot differently around that time, women's lip movements popped up,
Speaker 1: and people who were in that realm saw her as
Speaker 1: an important scholar and figure in women's education before then,
Speaker 1: and then later on others started thinking that she was
Speaker 1: perpetuating the oppression of women. Yeah, so it's a complicated history.
Speaker 1: And I also think that on the other hand, and
Speaker 1: in conversations beyond just ones about history, that we can
Speaker 1: get in a space where we're like, Okay, because this
Speaker 1: happened at this time, or because this happened in this context,
Speaker 1: that means that we can excuse those things, or like
Speaker 1: this person was just a person of their time, and
Speaker 1: this person was just doing the same thing that everybody
Speaker 1: else did, so that means it's excusable when it's acceptable.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I just it's just always important obviously,
Speaker 1: always try to gain more knowledge about things, because when
Speaker 1: we're more knowledgeable than we were, more able to have
Speaker 1: nuanced and deeper conversations about things. But obviously, as we know,
Speaker 1: the world changes a lot, like the world changes a
Speaker 1: lot in the world is also at one specific time
Speaker 1: very different everywhere. And I just think having this conversation
Speaker 1: about her after we featured a lot of women who
Speaker 1: are kind of without much doubt or without much hesitation
Speaker 1: or without much like discrepant see our controversy, like this
Speaker 1: person did good things and contributed to feminist history in
Speaker 1: a positive, moralistic, positive way. Like that's not how it
Speaker 1: always was, and we had to evolve to be able
Speaker 1: to get to where we are today. And it took
Speaker 1: a long time before things changed from how it was
Speaker 1: in Bunchow's time, Well, it was literally over nineteen hundred
Speaker 1: years ago. And then also in context, that culture has
Speaker 1: so much history even then in comparison to again when
Speaker 1: we talked about the U s, it's so young, and
Speaker 1: like that's not relevant to where we are to what
Speaker 1: we know of the history of the land today because
Speaker 1: it's back at that point in time, This land, when
Speaker 1: we talk about America, was a completely different existence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the population of itself, right, and then China, China's history
Speaker 1: just they recorded so much. There's so much recorded history
Speaker 1: in China. Let's get into Okay, let's get into buncho.
Speaker 1: So she was born in the town of online fou Phone, China,
Speaker 1: and that was around the year of forty five, and
Speaker 1: that place was around shen Yang and Shanshi province. That
Speaker 1: was during the Eastern Han which was also known as
Speaker 1: the Later Han dynasty. And so one of her ancestors
Speaker 1: made a bunch of money raising livestock after the fall
Speaker 1: of the Joo dynasty, and eventually they got money and
Speaker 1: the family got into scholarship as well. So scholarship is
Speaker 1: a huge part of her family's history, part of her elitism.
Speaker 1: How they got there because a lot of the time
Speaker 1: people valued scholarship. So someone in her lineage whose story
Speaker 1: had a big influence on her was her great aunt
Speaker 1: Bungee and that was her court title. Her personal name
Speaker 1: is not recorded, but and breathe. Bungie was a sort
Speaker 1: of Emperor Chung and she was close to him. So
Speaker 1: there's a story in her life that they say, like
Speaker 1: is one of the things that made her kind of
Speaker 1: a big name, and that she once turned down writing
Speaker 1: in his sedan chair with him when he asked so
Speaker 1: because that was against norms. She kind of like she
Speaker 1: was like, no, I don't want to do it. So
Speaker 1: that earned her favor as a respected woman of high
Speaker 1: moral values and wisdom. The fact that she said no
Speaker 1: to it, even though it was kind of like this
Speaker 1: flashy thing that she could do, that said her decision
Speaker 1: could have been more practical than it was moralistic, as
Speaker 1: she could have just been trying to avoid revenge plots
Speaker 1: of the envious people around her. You know, survival is
Speaker 1: important people either way. That idea of womanly humility which
Speaker 1: show up in Buneau's work later. And so bun Biao
Speaker 1: was Bungeau's father, and he was a scholar and an administrator.
Speaker 1: He was really into confus Susianism, which will come back
Speaker 1: to a little bit later. We'll talk a little about
Speaker 1: what that was, and he stuck to the moral classics.
Speaker 1: He went through several official positions in the Han dynasty,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't so hot on those, so he kind
Speaker 1: of skipped around from one to the next, and he
Speaker 1: favored scholarship, so he wasn't able to maintain his family's wealth.
Speaker 1: Though I can say I have no idea what it
Speaker 1: feels like to be an elite, but I can identify
Speaker 1: with that a lot because I just feel like I'm
Speaker 1: a person who's like I don't care how much. But well,
Speaker 1: I'm a writer, right, So I mean that's like I
Speaker 1: don't care how much money I make. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do the art thing, even though scholarship is very different.
Speaker 1: But yeah. He died when Bunga was young. She had
Speaker 1: two older twin brothers who were Bung Chow and Bung Goo,
Speaker 1: and Bunau drew a lot of inspiration from them. Too.
Speaker 1: Was Too was in the military in Central Asia for
Speaker 1: over thirty years, and Goo was an avid reader and
Speaker 1: a scholar who wrote holmes and researched history. Following in
Speaker 1: his father's footsteps, so she wrote poems to later, so
Speaker 1: she got some inspiration from him. So she had her
Speaker 1: style name Bunao style name was Hibun and her given
Speaker 1: name was g And she had this love for reading,
Speaker 1: so as we know, that's something that's really big in
Speaker 1: her upbringing and in her history. She her parents made
Speaker 1: sure that she was really well educated. So she was
Speaker 1: taught Confucianism, which is a system of social and ethical
Speaker 1: philosophy that originated in China, and it really stressed the
Speaker 1: importance of correct behavior and loyalty and obedience to hierarchy.
Speaker 1: And obviously I want to say that I'm I'm really
Speaker 1: reducing this like it's a lot more to it. We
Speaker 1: don't have time for that, clearly, and I'm nor am
Speaker 1: i Confucianism expert. It also stressed humanus and social harmony.
Speaker 1: So while it was a lot about social rituals and
Speaker 1: conformity kind of on the surface, it was also about
Speaker 1: building contents and character over lifetime. Punjab was also taught Taoism,
Speaker 1: which was a Chinese philosophy that was born from observing
Speaker 1: the natural world, and it really emphasized being in step
Speaker 1: or in line or in tune with the Tao or
Speaker 1: the natural order of the universe, so it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: about strict rituals like Confucianism was. But she was she
Speaker 1: was educated. She was her parents were made sure that
Speaker 1: they gave her, you know, a good education growing up,
Speaker 1: and she learned to write. She learned about history, like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, she learned about poetry and the classics
Speaker 1: and those She wrote a lot of poetry. Few of
Speaker 1: her poems still exist, though you can read some of them.
Speaker 1: She wrote court poetry a lot, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it got into metaphysical stuff later on, as people were
Speaker 1: gearing their poetry towards that others who were writing poetry.
Speaker 1: She was often also called to court to teach women
Speaker 1: in the palace, and she taught them poetry, history and literature.
Speaker 1: And she was also given access to the Imperial Library,
Speaker 1: which was something that not everybody got, but a lot
Speaker 1: of important works in there, obviously, and it was important.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, she did court poetry because it
Speaker 1: was important to mark things that happened in court life
Speaker 1: with poetry. And the Emperor was a fan of her work,
Speaker 1: and so she wrote it some and Bungeau also advised
Speaker 1: Empress Dowager Doom on affairs of state, though much of
Speaker 1: the advice she gave is unknown because it wasn't recorded.
Speaker 1: It was happening in private, and she got married around
Speaker 1: the age of fourteen, but not much is known about
Speaker 1: her husband, whose name was chaw sh Shoe, and it's
Speaker 1: known that he came from the same district as the
Speaker 1: Bunn family, which was often the case for people in gentry.
Speaker 1: They had several children together, but her husband died early
Speaker 1: on in the marriage. She didn't get remarried, which is
Speaker 1: something that comes up in her writing um, which we'll
Speaker 1: get too later, that you had on all those moral
Speaker 1: prescriptions which she was talking about earlier, which is going
Speaker 1: to be the major chunk of this um for obvious reasons,
Speaker 1: very very interesting, which I'm sure y'all will have thoughts
Speaker 1: on the things and that um. Even though it was
Speaker 1: not against custom for women to get remarried, they often
Speaker 1: did after their spouse died. But you know, this could
Speaker 1: have been due to her Her not getting remarried could
Speaker 1: have been due to her strict code of ethics, because
Speaker 1: she may have done so to remain loyal to her
Speaker 1: deceased husband, and so This is where we get into
Speaker 1: her writing work in her history and her history research.
Speaker 1: Her father started working on history of the former Han,
Speaker 1: this big text history on the former Han dynasty, and
Speaker 1: so the former Han dynasty was the first two hundred
Speaker 1: years at the Han dynasty when Chanan was the capital
Speaker 1: of the empire, and her brother Baron Gou continued work
Speaker 1: on the history. After her father died and Bung Goo
Speaker 1: also died, Bile working on it, and from that point
Speaker 1: Bungao took over the task and she wrote some of
Speaker 1: the last parts of it and did some of the
Speaker 1: final editing. Even though her exact extent of contribution to
Speaker 1: the work has been debated by some scholars. Some have
Speaker 1: said that she given her the credit of co authoring it,
Speaker 1: saying she was the one who did so much work
Speaker 1: because she did all these chronological tables towards the end.
Speaker 1: But that's neither here nor there. And in the larger
Speaker 1: context of this conversation, she put in work on the books,
Speaker 1: so she she was integral and creating the book and
Speaker 1: getting it out to people. So the completed book was
Speaker 1: released around one of lemon See. This book was very complicated.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of moving parts to it, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't so easy for everybody to understand, so that
Speaker 1: meant that the book had to be taught to people,
Speaker 1: or people had to be guided along in the process
Speaker 1: of trying to understand it. Um and Bungao even taught
Speaker 1: the scholar Majong the book since it was so plex
Speaker 1: and it required that guidance to understand it. So it's
Speaker 1: been considered by some historians the second most important or
Speaker 1: most famous of China's formal dynastic histories. The second there
Speaker 1: was this guy I can't remember his name, like Cmchen
Speaker 1: who wrote other imperial dynasties before that, but under the
Speaker 1: Han Emperor Wu, Confucianism became accepted as state ideology and orthodoxy.
Speaker 1: So from that point the imperial state use that philosophy
Speaker 1: as a means to maintain law and order and to
Speaker 1: maintain the status quo. So our favorite party, I'm ready
Speaker 1: admonitions for women a k A. Lessons for women, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to pronounce this neogio. Yes, it
Speaker 1: works a book um on a female propriety that she wrote,
Speaker 1: and I call it a book, but it's only really
Speaker 1: several pages long, so it's it's really not long at all.
Speaker 1: So a lot is communicated in it. A lot. I
Speaker 1: can say a lot in so many words. Yes you can,
Speaker 1: Yes you can. Um. It kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: did you did you all do that thing when you're
Speaker 1: growing up? Or you had to watch that video and
Speaker 1: it like taught you posture, you had to put the
Speaker 1: book on top of your head, how to be a
Speaker 1: woman essentially, you know. I never, I never. I never
Speaker 1: watched that video, but I did go to etiquette school.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that. It wasn't terrible. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've brought this up with you all before,
Speaker 1: but maybe not. It wasn't. Um actually had a really
Speaker 1: fun time in it. Um. You still remember the lessons? No, well,
Speaker 1: I remember one okay, so one was some more very problematic,
Speaker 1: but someone was where to put the forks on the tables?
Speaker 1: That was one and that sticks into what I remember.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a cotillion type of level
Speaker 1: of stuff. Like eventually you go and graduate to become
Speaker 1: a debutante. Is that what you're talking about? Not me,
Speaker 1: not the one that I did. Yeah, it's similar to that,
Speaker 1: but the one I did was much more like here's
Speaker 1: this video on how to be a lady and it
Speaker 1: involved posture, and yeah, really it was something that I did.
Speaker 1: Actually really appreciated the camaraderie that I like made with
Speaker 1: the other girls who were there at the time. That's
Speaker 1: what I really liked about it because I wasn't expecting it.
Speaker 1: I did not want to go when I did it.
Speaker 1: My mom just put me in it, and I didn't
Speaker 1: have that manners. So I'm trying to figure out why
Speaker 1: she put me in it. I don't remember, but um,
Speaker 1: I remember Chili from TLC being there for whatever. She
Speaker 1: came and visited us to talk to us about girl things.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't I don't know what girl things are,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what she don't remember what she's saying,
Speaker 1: but I remember her being there, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Take it with a grain of salt. How you feel
Speaker 1: like it's made, What kind of person you feel like
Speaker 1: it's made me? Because all together now, yeah, both of
Speaker 1: you have me baffled. YEA, whether I'm a lady now
Speaker 1: or not. I can't wait until you hear uh Bons
Speaker 1: thoughts on vulgarity language become ready. I don't know that
Speaker 1: you qualify. I don't not many people have them are
Speaker 1: called the ladies. Let's keep going, So we're gonna stay
Speaker 1: on this text for a while because it is her
Speaker 1: magnum opus. Uh. There were previous works or Morality for
Speaker 1: boys and men, but Lessons for Women was specifically aimed
Speaker 1: to girls and women, since at the time men and
Speaker 1: women's nature were thought to be fundamentally different from one another,
Speaker 1: and because of that, so what their ethics be different
Speaker 1: from one another? So the exact date is written is unknown,
Speaker 1: though she's believed to have the gun writing it around
Speaker 1: one or six. Buneau said in the intro to the
Speaker 1: text that she wrote it to prepare her daughters for marriage,
Speaker 1: but the fact that it was widely circulated says otherwise.
Speaker 1: When so some context for this, which is always important.
Speaker 1: When a woman got married, she left her family and
Speaker 1: then went to live with her husband and in laws,
Speaker 1: and Chinese families typically had several wives and concubines and
Speaker 1: many children, and in Bungoo's text, the advice was for
Speaker 1: women to subjugate themselves to the men, so the husband,
Speaker 1: the brothers, the brothers in law, and father, father in law,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And Lessons for Women codified those rules of behavior.
Speaker 1: So before this point there wasn't a ton of instruction
Speaker 1: regarding the duties and the virtues of women, but Bungoo
Speaker 1: approached that subject through a lens of Confucianism. It's also
Speaker 1: important to remember that it was a time of a
Speaker 1: lot of transition and reform in China's history. So there
Speaker 1: was the old feudal system, which sometimes afforded Chinese women
Speaker 1: the opportunity to move up, sometimes afforded them the opportunity
Speaker 1: to rule in powerful political positions. Um that was replaced
Speaker 1: with the imperial system, and Confucianism at this time was
Speaker 1: central to the Han court, and because of this, women's
Speaker 1: role was considered inferior to men's. So that said, there
Speaker 1: was social mobility in the culture, and there was an
Speaker 1: emphasis on education and scholarship that did not change. And
Speaker 1: because times were so turbulent, you know, politically, every socially,
Speaker 1: everything that was happening at the time, it was important
Speaker 1: to support this kind of Confucian lifestyle which provided a
Speaker 1: sort of political order and social stability as the government
Speaker 1: was doing declining and everything could be chaotic, and so
Speaker 1: there were there was a way that gentry families used
Speaker 1: that Confucianism to say, hey, look everything's orderly for me,
Speaker 1: and separate themselves from everywhere else by adhering to that
Speaker 1: those straight guidelines of those rituals. So that's a little
Speaker 1: bit of context for lessons for women. We have some
Speaker 1: more with our conversation with Eves. The first we have
Speaker 1: a quick break for word from our sponsor, and we're back,
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor. There are seven sections in the text,
Speaker 1: and like we said earlier, it's about like a page
Speaker 1: per section, like it's very short. They're the first three
Speaker 1: are called servile and meek, husband and wife, respectful and cautious,
Speaker 1: giving leeway for translations, and they reinforce the importance of
Speaker 1: women taking a subservient role. And the next two are
Speaker 1: wifely behaviors and wholehearted devotion and there about how lives
Speaker 1: should behave. The last two are absolute obedience specifically as
Speaker 1: a daughter in law and harmony with younger sisters in law.
Speaker 1: And the gist of those are essays, and he smiling,
Speaker 1: She's like, I feel like you've got a lot going
Speaker 1: on in your hand right now. Oh yeah, yes, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read an excerpt from these um so we
Speaker 1: get a sense of what she was talking about. In
Speaker 1: these a woman ought to have four qualifications womanly virtue,
Speaker 1: womanly words, womanly bearing, and womanly work. Now, what is
Speaker 1: called womanly virtue need not be brilliant ability exceptionally different
Speaker 1: from others. Womanly words need be neither clever in debate
Speaker 1: nor keen in conversation. Womanly appearance requires neither a pretty
Speaker 1: nor a perfect face in form. Womanly work need not
Speaker 1: be work done more skillfully than that of others. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot um more that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: like a summaria taste of the things that she says,
Speaker 1: because she gets into a lot more specificity she does that.
Speaker 1: The section that's some momently qualifications goes on to say
Speaker 1: that a woman has to guard her chastity, she has
Speaker 1: to speak at appropriate times, and not to love gossip
Speaker 1: and silly laughter. According to the tests, these qualities are
Speaker 1: really easy to have. You just desire them deeply enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even need to leave now your silly giggles are
Speaker 1: too much. Well, we haven't even talked about the vulgarity.
Speaker 1: I'm annoying that part. Yeah, it's really just to have
Speaker 1: it written out like this is how you be a
Speaker 1: good woman. And essentially it is you be quiet and
Speaker 1: I love, don't speak too keenly, like, don't be too
Speaker 1: educated just and she was one of the more educated
Speaker 1: women of the time, so that is interesting. Yeah, she said,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be educated, you don't have to
Speaker 1: be intelligent, you don't have to be that type of
Speaker 1: person to be humble basically, and that's the key. As
Speaker 1: long as you're humble, yes, that you're good. Yes, humble
Speaker 1: equals I mean there are a lot of people today
Speaker 1: who could use more humility. This is true. And to
Speaker 1: be fair, even though this was way back when, I've
Speaker 1: heard this in different formats in the Christian world as
Speaker 1: I grew up in it. Once again, not bashing religion
Speaker 1: in any way, but this is actually fairly not so shocking,
Speaker 1: and it makes to me this makes more sense because
Speaker 1: of the time frame. Is it great? No? Is it
Speaker 1: still like? Oh God, why? For sure? But I've not
Speaker 1: It wasn't more than five years ago that I've seen
Speaker 1: that in like Christian texts as this is who you
Speaker 1: are as a woman, yet subservient, kind woman. Yeah. To
Speaker 1: put it in terms of morality, like this makes you
Speaker 1: good to be good to be a good person, you
Speaker 1: have to be less than to be subservient men. It
Speaker 1: is sort of shocking, and that it isn't that far
Speaker 1: off from Yeah, when I think about some lessons and
Speaker 1: things I might have picked up from my etiquette class
Speaker 1: or they're teaching, I think at fourteen, um that to
Speaker 1: be a good woman, I have to sit quietly essentially
Speaker 1: and know how to serve people at a table, and
Speaker 1: that that makes me good and to host the party. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I can imagine as you say, and during this
Speaker 1: time there's a lot of transition and chaos and having something.
Speaker 1: This reminds me of when the first cookbooks came out
Speaker 1: and women just love them because it was it is
Speaker 1: a resource in a way that they felt they could
Speaker 1: control things in their life. And I can imagine that
Speaker 1: women at this time we're like a hare had to
Speaker 1: be a good woman and maybe I can like move
Speaker 1: up or get a better situation than I have now.
Speaker 1: And like you said earlier, she was a woman of
Speaker 1: she had you know, she had privilege, so her experience
Speaker 1: is a lot different than people who weren't in her situation.
Speaker 1: When it comes to I need this order in my life. Well,
Speaker 1: some people are worried about a little bit more basic
Speaker 1: survival needs. So there is that as well to think about.
Speaker 1: So I want to point out some more of the
Speaker 1: things that she said in the text. She said, women
Speaker 1: must always think of themselves. Last, widows should never remarried,
Speaker 1: as we spoke about earlier. Women must be clean and neat,
Speaker 1: and reading and education are as important for women as
Speaker 1: they are for men, though later Confucian scholars would reject
Speaker 1: this notion, and women's education went through a lot in
Speaker 1: China after after bon Jo died and all that, all
Speaker 1: that said in Lessons for Women, a wife wasn't just
Speaker 1: a husband's servant, like that's not the only thing her
Speaker 1: role was. Spouses shouldn't use harsh language, is one thing
Speaker 1: she said in the text, And that they shouldn't resort
Speaker 1: to domestic violence either, and that women don't have to
Speaker 1: be super talented and like we said, early and intelligent,
Speaker 1: but must be humble, chaste and diligent and obedient. H
Speaker 1: And that's that. I thought that was interesting about the face.
Speaker 1: It could be you didn't have to be beautiful, Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that to be you know, pretty much quiet? There's
Speaker 1: a lot of middle lines, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: be or and either or, but be does instead. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just overall, be cool about it, right, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: When you were talking and we're talking about the qualities
Speaker 1: and such, it kind of pushed me back to the
Speaker 1: Mulan reference at the beginning of the Disney movie in
Speaker 1: which that she's reciting to find a husband and you know, like, wait,
Speaker 1: that which makes sense because it would have been kind
Speaker 1: of in that time frame, kind of um in that
Speaker 1: lesson of trying to come up in society and bringing
Speaker 1: honor and all of such. Is to marry into which
Speaker 1: is actually everywhere, like for the longest time, you as
Speaker 1: a wife, your privileges to bring in the best whatever
Speaker 1: merging of the families, my privilege. Yes, your duties as
Speaker 1: the daughter to be a good person. I must do this.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's just a moment. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was like the beginning of the plot of Mulan.
Speaker 1: And then she reveiled yes, well good for her, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean all of her cheat notes, right, that's what
Speaker 1: do you do this and be that? And I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't remember that saying really well, I don't know
Speaker 1: what exactly she said, but I know it's in that reference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's also a section in there that I liked
Speaker 1: about um watched and scrubbing filth, right, and yeah, the
Speaker 1: the body regularly and keep the person free from disgraceful filth.
Speaker 1: And that's maybe called characteristic characteristics of womanly bearing trying.
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like good for anybody, right right,
Speaker 1: it might be just a health Yeah, get that lines
Speaker 1: off of you. He's gonna make life better, I promise.
Speaker 1: And I may have missed this at the beginning when
Speaker 1: I was trying to keep up because there was a
Speaker 1: lot of things happening. What was this in reference to
Speaker 1: why was she writing these? So she said that she
Speaker 1: was writing in preparation for her daughters to be married, right,
Speaker 1: so that was the only Were they having a hard
Speaker 1: time finding husbands? Or was this such a big deal
Speaker 1: for the women that you must do this in order
Speaker 1: to continue the family line? Well, that kind of it
Speaker 1: kind of goes back to the order um thing. But
Speaker 1: we'll talk about another reason that historians think that she
Speaker 1: wrote this are what she was trying to provide with
Speaker 1: it in a little bit, but just in general, like generally,
Speaker 1: night Confucianism was the way of the crime, So that
Speaker 1: was in line with people thinking this is what men
Speaker 1: should do and this is what women should do. But
Speaker 1: obviously she was the first person to lay this out
Speaker 1: like this, so it's kind of like, oh, she probably
Speaker 1: had a reason for it, which we'll get you in
Speaker 1: a second. Um, no spoilers. So this is a work
Speaker 1: that made her a well known author, but it caused
Speaker 1: a lot of debate, as you could imagine, um, And
Speaker 1: that's within the historical record. Like over the years, its
Speaker 1: historians were like, oh, look at this Chinese gender studies
Speaker 1: and feminist history. We're feminists now, like you know, so
Speaker 1: they're going back and finding her work and thinking about
Speaker 1: it a lot more. You know, first Westerners didn't get
Speaker 1: into it until much later. But this is a work
Speaker 1: that kind of blew up her name and cause all
Speaker 1: this talk about it. At the time, it earned her
Speaker 1: a lot of acclaim as a wise and a moral woman.
Speaker 1: But later, particularly towards the end of the King dynasty,
Speaker 1: which was the last imperial dynasty in China and that
Speaker 1: lasted until about nineteen eleven, people began to question her
Speaker 1: values about how the book or the text stripped women
Speaker 1: of their autonomy. So there were a lot of people
Speaker 1: like that, like later on, this was repressive, This held
Speaker 1: women to outdated and regressive standards, all those things. But
Speaker 1: then there were also people who thought the text should
Speaker 1: be placed within the context of all norms of proper behaviors.
Speaker 1: So women and girls weren't the only ones who were
Speaker 1: held to certain standards of behavior. Boys and men also
Speaker 1: were so to them, bun Jao was just another person
Speaker 1: who was perpetuating and recording those norms. And then a
Speaker 1: lot of way more interpretations you know that you can
Speaker 1: get into of the text, But there was a change
Speaker 1: to critics thinking and viewing it as a more pragmatic
Speaker 1: strategy to answer your questions, Samantha. That may have helped
Speaker 1: women thrive at the time because it was such a
Speaker 1: patriarchal environment and following those strict rules could provide women
Speaker 1: who were getting married and leaving their families and going
Speaker 1: to this environment in this house that they didn't know
Speaker 1: like you're having to. That's a big experience even for
Speaker 1: people today, like leaving their homes and going to a
Speaker 1: different one. That's a big life experience and a life change.
Speaker 1: And you never know how these people might be. They
Speaker 1: may be envious people they may be vengeful. They maybe
Speaker 1: you never know, um, a lot of dynamics going on
Speaker 1: back at this time, you know, um, so leaving that
Speaker 1: environment and stepping into it. So this text could be
Speaker 1: a strategy for survival. Like, once a woman won everyone's
Speaker 1: approval through following these guidelines and all these ingratiating rules,
Speaker 1: she could then gay and prestige and power, And as
Speaker 1: a means of avoiding conflict and surviving that new life
Speaker 1: of hers would who knows how it's going to be,
Speaker 1: this text could be a practical manual for that. So,
Speaker 1: regardless of all of those different thoughts that critics had
Speaker 1: on the text over the years, it did have an
Speaker 1: impact on traditional views of how women should behave. Um,
Speaker 1: there were elite men who praised her for what she
Speaker 1: was saying in the work. And also there is a
Speaker 1: it's clear that later works that came on female ethics
Speaker 1: can be traced back to lessons for women, so it
Speaker 1: inspired later works. That said, some scholars do suggest that
Speaker 1: her work didn't have a ton ton of influence on
Speaker 1: women's education and family relations in her dynasty and in
Speaker 1: later ones, And so there can be an I like
Speaker 1: the idea that her influence has been overrated. It's honestly
Speaker 1: very like the interpretations of her work go very deep. Um,
Speaker 1: what did you think about digit? Do you have any
Speaker 1: feelings on the various interpretations over the years. I it
Speaker 1: is hard to when things are that far removed. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I find myself feeling like, it's just hard to imagine
Speaker 1: it really happened, you know what I mean. And I
Speaker 1: was reading some criticism, especially when the Western world kind
Speaker 1: of learned about this, and people were writing like, look
Speaker 1: at how she helped maintain the oppression of women, and
Speaker 1: people called her like Trader Bond or Trader gile Um,
Speaker 1: And I guess I get sort of torn. And we
Speaker 1: have come so far, and it's hard with history and
Speaker 1: historical the way we interpret things, especially written kords, some
Speaker 1: things don't mean the same thing that they did then,
Speaker 1: and I'm always like, well, what is their missing meaning here?
Speaker 1: What else was going on? There's so much of the
Speaker 1: picture we don't have, So it's almost kind of funny
Speaker 1: to me to see all of this really in depth
Speaker 1: criticism of her work, which there should be, But at
Speaker 1: the same time, there's just so much we don't know
Speaker 1: about it, and that doesn't mean it's not worth having
Speaker 1: the conversation, but it is funny to some people get
Speaker 1: really angry about it. Yeah, it's in fighting, Yes, there is.
Speaker 1: I didn't know the historian world was so no, actually
Speaker 1: I did. I'm not going to act like on that night.
Speaker 1: History and context is very important as to what is
Speaker 1: relevant what isn't relevant, And again, what was occurring at
Speaker 1: that time kind of like the same idea with the
Speaker 1: Old Testament ideas that is still being used as fore
Speaker 1: front of this is what should be have? And you're like,
Speaker 1: you're taking this a lot of context. You've got to
Speaker 1: remember where this is coming from. And again, like we
Speaker 1: were saying, you were saying, what if this is a
Speaker 1: health benefit? What this what if this was a survival
Speaker 1: guide more so than this is how it should be
Speaker 1: because we've got to honor these men or honor whatever
Speaker 1: on a religion, and Confucianism was very much about what
Speaker 1: you were talking about, just kind of finding peace and
Speaker 1: a balance in things. And at this point in time,
Speaker 1: at this time, in this context where she got brought
Speaker 1: up because of her family and because of the male
Speaker 1: members of her family, what did that look like? She
Speaker 1: got made really young? Correct? And then he died off
Speaker 1: and no one really knew what was going on, and
Speaker 1: then the debate of okay, does she disrespect how does
Speaker 1: the marriage come about for her? Or remarriage? And she
Speaker 1: had children at that of an age too, so that's
Speaker 1: a lot of yeah. And now that you mention it,
Speaker 1: it's like that wasn't It was typical for girls to
Speaker 1: be married like she was a girl when she was married.
Speaker 1: So imagine being at that stage just as a human
Speaker 1: being in your life and all these different things and
Speaker 1: changes happening to you, and on top of that, going
Speaker 1: through the whole really rigid marriage process that require so
Speaker 1: much of you, and then you're having all these people
Speaker 1: asked more of you and have all these expectations placed
Speaker 1: on you. And I'm still fourteen, and I'm still sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I'm still seventeen. You know, Um, then you're taught.
Speaker 1: Because the thing about for me, we're not looking at
Speaker 1: myself at sixteen. I'm embarrassed about some of my values
Speaker 1: that put that point in time, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh my gosh, I was reiterating the
Speaker 1: ignorance that I had thought were true at one point
Speaker 1: in time. And therefore, because if you look back on
Speaker 1: some of my journals. That's super embarrassing about what I
Speaker 1: thought was perfection and the goal of life and all
Speaker 1: of that, and I couldn't imagine that being taken as
Speaker 1: this is the holy context of what you should be.
Speaker 1: It's so helpful when you're young to have somebody telling
Speaker 1: you what you should do, and then later on you
Speaker 1: take that and say, oh, they gave me this, and
Speaker 1: now I can continue to delve into these ideas and
Speaker 1: see what works for me. It's kind of like the
Speaker 1: typical five sentence paragraph that they used to give you,
Speaker 1: or the five paragraph I say that they used to
Speaker 1: give me, the say this is your your topic sentence,
Speaker 1: and then this is your and then these ones you
Speaker 1: explain the three points you're gonna say the next three paragraphs,
Speaker 1: and then you have a conclusion sentence. And like when
Speaker 1: you're young, like, oh, look at my look at my essay.
Speaker 1: I just did that, did five paragraphs and did everything
Speaker 1: the teacher said, and I get these checks. I did
Speaker 1: this right, I did this right, did this right, got
Speaker 1: a hundred on the paper, And then you take that
Speaker 1: paper to your college later and they're like, m, this
Speaker 1: is so stilted. This is so formulaic. What is this?
Speaker 1: Like everybody told me this was right like years ago,
Speaker 1: and like that's what it's like to have guidelines like that.
Speaker 1: Like if you think about it in that way, where
Speaker 1: these girls were girls when they were get go, getting
Speaker 1: married and having to deal with all the things that
Speaker 1: have to do with maturity and uh, maturity and sex
Speaker 1: and relationships and like all the rules and all the
Speaker 1: like social practices that were very ingrained in the culture.
Speaker 1: And I just think about also, especially and even today,
Speaker 1: the idea of maintaining a reputation for her to go
Speaker 1: and be placed that Okay, you're this person's family member.
Speaker 1: We're gonna make you finished this because you know you
Speaker 1: have some education. I'm gonna give you this. And I
Speaker 1: like what you're saying, So finish my historical reference here
Speaker 1: that's been started by your father, your brother, now you,
Speaker 1: and so I have maintained that level of respect. What
Speaker 1: does that look like in the eyes of whomever. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of like when you hear and this is
Speaker 1: very very obviously a broad generalization and broad comparison, when
Speaker 1: women are like or girls. I'm a girl, I'm a
Speaker 1: guy's girl. I don't really like girls because and in
Speaker 1: a lot of majority of these girls think that's how
Speaker 1: you get in with guys are being liked by, you know,
Speaker 1: dismissing or being um negative about others, putting them down.
Speaker 1: So you don't look like that whatever you're afraid of becoming.
Speaker 1: You know, could you I couldn't imagine in that historical
Speaker 1: context of you have this reputation already because of your family,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to maintain this and how do you keep
Speaker 1: going with that? It's a lot of it's a burden,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of responsibility. Does it excuse those things? Now? What?
Speaker 1: I think these things are great now? But I've been
Speaker 1: burned at the stake by her standards. Yes, yes I would,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you got you have to come back. And
Speaker 1: this was over nine years ago this and isn't very
Speaker 1: weird time frame because you had those dynasties and that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist anymore. And you kind of just know the
Speaker 1: historical romancing context of what it was back then, what
Speaker 1: you imagine had happened then two now it's kind of like, huh,
Speaker 1: I wonder you take those words, what does that look
Speaker 1: like then today? What was that comparison? What was her life? Really?
Speaker 1: A lot yeah, and I also think that for me,
Speaker 1: I can read all I want to about these times.
Speaker 1: I can't embody it, like I have no idea what
Speaker 1: it's like to live in that time. I can't fathom it.
Speaker 1: It's like trying to figure out what a billion light
Speaker 1: years is, Like I can't fathom it. So, yeah, we
Speaker 1: do have a little bit more for you, but first
Speaker 1: we have one more quick break for word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and we're back. Thank you. Fun. She lived to her seventies,
Speaker 1: so she was really all. It was around one sixteen
Speaker 1: around that time, and Empress Dowager Dune reportedly mourned her death.
Speaker 1: They said that she did that for her, So that
Speaker 1: would ad meant that Button Jail was an important person
Speaker 1: in the Empress Dowager's life. And like I said about
Speaker 1: her poetry, you can read a lot of her literary
Speaker 1: works and you can read Lessons for Women and all
Speaker 1: of the scholarly debate that's happened over the issues of
Speaker 1: gender and her work, and just delve into that beyond
Speaker 1: this description, because there's only so much we can get into.
Speaker 1: But the point is, like historians returned to her work
Speaker 1: over time to view it through lens of gender as
Speaker 1: society was transforming a lot, and as people were developing
Speaker 1: different views on women's roles. Yeah, it is fascinating to
Speaker 1: see something like being a woman quantified almost like and
Speaker 1: it's it's such a good snapshot. It makes me wonder
Speaker 1: if we wrote now, like if if we almost kind
Speaker 1: of satirically wrote, these are the things society expects you
Speaker 1: to be a good woman. You are these things, and
Speaker 1: then two thousand years from now, if somebody read it
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't make any sense. I actually love
Speaker 1: that idea, just like a I can't think of the
Speaker 1: word just some of some sort. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: historical fiction, like historical realmaging, but with current commentary on it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to do that. Yeah, we should be cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a new decade doing things. It's time. What could
Speaker 1: have been we'll never know, speculation perhaps, but yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's she's that deep history and being that important
Speaker 1: in in that culture and being a historian and someone
Speaker 1: who was brought on even that's m hm. Intimidating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as are most of the women we talked about. Doesn't
Speaker 1: she have a crater? That's right, I knew it. She
Speaker 1: does have a crater as a crater on Venus named
Speaker 1: after her, and that's how you know you've made it.
Speaker 1: Don't you want to have a name to that even
Speaker 1: happen People who discover it are like, let's name it
Speaker 1: after nobody knows unless you look up that person, and
Speaker 1: like the crater was named after that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: get I wanted though, Okay, you want to know what
Speaker 1: you're saying. Yes, if anyone listening has that power. If
Speaker 1: I created one on the earth and said this as far,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, we could probably if we raised enough money,
Speaker 1: we could probably get it done, honestly, and thank you.
Speaker 1: You know what I learned last night how to name
Speaker 1: it crater? No, so my dad named me after um,
Speaker 1: his mom, but also Mickey Rooney. That's why I spent
Speaker 1: my name with an E. Y. I thought Mickey Rooney
Speaker 1: was a baseball player, and I learned last night he's
Speaker 1: an actor. My whole life, I thought I was named
Speaker 1: It took you to the last Have you never heard
Speaker 1: the stories of Judy Garland and Vickey Rooney, Like we
Speaker 1: all have stories like that. Though we just realized something
Speaker 1: after however many years we've living historian. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I said something recently, like yesterday we were port in
Speaker 1: something else. I never knew that. But this is my namesake.
Speaker 1: I've been telling people my entire life. I was named
Speaker 1: after a baseball player. He didn't die until recently, like
Speaker 1: it was. I don't know. My point being if if
Speaker 1: you name a crater after me, at least I'll know
Speaker 1: where the name comes from now. But he was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he died in fourteen. Like I don't need the judgment.
Speaker 1: I don't need the judgment. I got it last night
Speaker 1: because I found this out at a party and everybody
Speaker 1: had like you didn't know that. They just kept going
Speaker 1: and going and going. And I got all the texts
Speaker 1: this morning. I remember when you didn't know Mickey or
Speaker 1: any one, like, oh my god, Okay, don't think of
Speaker 1: anything like that ever happened to me, so we can
Speaker 1: commits right in arms. I'm trying to think of it too,
Speaker 1: because you know, I told you I love old movies
Speaker 1: and I loved Mickey Mooney and Judy Garland films because
Speaker 1: that was before Judy Garland. Well that was during the
Speaker 1: midst of them abusing Judy Garland and started her drug addiction.
Speaker 1: And he was a part of that too, because they
Speaker 1: would feed both of them, uh different drugs to keep
Speaker 1: them awake, to put them to sleep, and then that
Speaker 1: kind of just because they were making a lot of
Speaker 1: money for the studio, so they were Yeah, and Judy
Speaker 1: Garland's whole story story is so dramatic. He was a
Speaker 1: part of that, not as in like he was main
Speaker 1: or anything, but he was a part of that trope
Speaker 1: of Okay, one of our mini stars. This is what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We've gone really really often. Yeah we have.
Speaker 1: Now I've got to look him up and see if
Speaker 1: there's anyway I'll do it that later any other final
Speaker 1: But no, I think that works for me. I love
Speaker 1: that history. I also love that it's not it's not
Speaker 1: just setting easy tones like there are so many complications
Speaker 1: and so many debates, and because that's absolutely reflective of
Speaker 1: that time and generation and we've got to acknowledge for
Speaker 1: what it is and also acknowledge the historical context. And
Speaker 1: I think it's very portant because again, one of the
Speaker 1: things we talked about and we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: forever obviously, but even when politics and such, when there's
Speaker 1: like that back and forth like yeah he did this,
Speaker 1: but they did this as well. It's kind of that
Speaker 1: same level of she did some amazing things, she was
Speaker 1: recognized for these amazing things, but then she did this,
Speaker 1: which became problematic. So how do you, especially in this culture,
Speaker 1: when when it's one sided, it seems like you're you're
Speaker 1: either this or that and you can't be both. I
Speaker 1: think it's very good to keep looking at that as
Speaker 1: relevant in what we're talking about today and how things
Speaker 1: are changing today. When I also think two things that
Speaker 1: One often when we look back at stuff like this
Speaker 1: and say, oh, it's so horrible, but like that's not
Speaker 1: always the case, like too easy to judge. It's they
Speaker 1: were living fine lives within these kind finds still. And
Speaker 1: just because it isn't the type of freedom and movement
Speaker 1: that we're able to have today doesn't mean that it
Speaker 1: was horrible, And to that it is encouraging to see
Speaker 1: how long things can take. We often think, oh, this
Speaker 1: is never going to change, and we had to do
Speaker 1: and thinking bureaucratically, like specifically staying in the US, it's
Speaker 1: gonna take forever for this legislation to happen, and this
Speaker 1: is never gonna happen because there there's this is two partisans,
Speaker 1: and like we think all that all those things which
Speaker 1: are important parts of the conversation obviously matter in terms
Speaker 1: of things actually happening. But if we can be so
Speaker 1: humble to think beyond our own lifetimes, that we can
Speaker 1: imagine change and continue to have hope excellently put Eaves excellently.
Speaker 1: Happy freaking New Year. That's right, Happy New Year everyone year.
Speaker 1: Where can the listeners find you? Eaves? So you can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at this same
Speaker 1: in history class. Just look up that podcast, which is
Speaker 1: another one that I'm on, is a daily history podcast,
Speaker 1: and you can find me on all those things. Look
Speaker 1: up I'm Popular. It's a podcast about people in history
Speaker 1: who challenge the status quo and we're persecuted for it
Speaker 1: in some way, and what lessons we can learn to
Speaker 1: be able to link those to today's world and from elsewhere.
Speaker 1: My names Eves, Jeff co Y, b S. Jeff cot
Speaker 1: Not named after Mickey Rooney, Not named after Mickey Rooney,
Speaker 1: named after Eve St. Lauri. And I was thinking about
Speaker 1: when you said that, maybe I'll find out that I wasn't.
Speaker 1: One day. I'm gonna I'm gonna check in on the
Speaker 1: history again. You should do a devil check, really really through.
Speaker 1: I think that was partly hers, wasn't it also adjusted
Speaker 1: today this day in history class. It was, but I've
Speaker 1: already offered her the Pinot beter Um. Anyway, well, it
Speaker 1: was a pleasure, as always, Eaves, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: If you would like to contact us, you can our emails,
Speaker 1: Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom suf podcast or
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as
Speaker 1: always to to our super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks to
Speaker 1: you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You. He was
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio, as how Steff works for
Speaker 1: more podcast from my Heart Radio. You can listen to
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.