Women's place in Chinese history / Hu Shi -- Female rulers in ancient China / Yang Liansheng -- Feminist thought in ancient China / Lin Yutang -- Influences of foreign cultures on the Chinese women / Chen Hengzhe -- The Chinese woman past and present / Zeng Baosun -- Chinese women's fight for freedom / Song Qingling -- Historical roots of changes in women's status in modern China / Li Youning -- Opposition to footbinding / Zhang Mojun -- Remembrances of an elderly aunt / Chen Hengzhe -- When I learned how to cook / He Xiangning -- Remembrances of the May Fourth Movement / Deng Yingchao -- The family prison / Xie Bingying -- My escape from hardship to a free life / Xiuying -- Sorrows of a factory worker / Lu Lan -- A village schoolteacher / Fu Yixing -- Scientific entrepreneurship / Hongying -- Struggling against discrimination in business / Anonymous -- Shenshen / Xiangcun -- Problems confronting an ideal couple / A Rong -- Mother's books / Pan Qijun -- Why I parted with Tang Na / Jiang Qing -- My life in the imperial palace / Li Yuqin -- A young nurse in Manchuria / Chen Xuezhao.

Exemplary women of early China : the Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang / Anne Behnke Kinney, translator and editor.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-300) and index.
Translations of selcted chapters from Lienüzhuan 列女傳.

The maternal models -- The worthy and enlightened -- The sympathetic and wise -- The chaste and compliant -- The principled and righteous -- The accomplished rhetoricians -- The depraved and favored -- Supplemental biographies.

"In early China, was it correct for a woman to disobey her father, contradict her husband, or shape the public policy of a son who ruled over a dynasty or state? According to the Lienü zhuan, or Categorized Biographies of Women, it was not only appropriate but necessary for women to step in with wise counsel when fathers, husbands, or rulers strayed from the path of virtue. Compiled toward the end of the Former Han dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE) by Liu Xiang (79-8 BCE), the Lienü zhuan is the earliest extant book in the Chinese tradition solely devoted to the education of women. Far from providing a unified vision of women's roles, the text promotes a diverse and sometimes contradictory range of practices. At one extreme are exemplars resorting to suicide and self-mutilation as a means to preserve chastity and ritual orthodoxy. At the other are bold and outspoken women whose rhetorical mastery helps correct erring rulers, sons, and husbands. The text provides a fascinating overview of the representation of women's roles in early legends, formal speeches on statecraft, and highly fictionalized historical accounts during this foundational period of Chinese history. Over time, the biographies of women became a regular feature of dynastic and local histories and a vehicle for expressing and transmitting concerns about women's social, political, and domestic roles. The Lienü zhuan is also rich in information about the daily life, rituals, and domestic concerns of early China. Inspired by its accounts, artists across the millennia have depicted its stories on screens, paintings, lacquer ware, murals, and stone relief sculpture, extending its reach to literate and illiterate audiences alike."--Publisher's Web site.

Contents: Depicting domestic and social life in China : six European women writers -- An intimate view of Chinese women : the Chinese goddess of mercy and against footbinding, Mrs. Archibald Little -- At home in the American legation : diplomatic wife and friend of the empress dowager, Sarah Pike Conger -- Chinese women interviewed : professional traveller and lady journalist, Grace Seton Thompson -- Homesteading in China : company wife and best-selling novelist, Alice Tisdale Hobart -- A Chinese noble household : daughter by affection and writer, Nora Waln -- A Chinese peasant household : missionary daughter and popular interpreter of China, Pearl Buck -- A dual life : east woman, west woman.