Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China

Bray, Francesca

ISBN 10: 0520208617 / ISBN 13: 9780520208612

Edité par University of California Press, 1997

A propos de cet article

The item is very worn but is perfectly usable. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches, dents, worn and creased covers, folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting, but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing age related spots and browning . May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.

N° de réf. du vendeur BVV.0520208617.A

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China
• Éditeur: University of California Press
• Date de parution: 1997
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0520208617
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780520208612
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• État de l'article: acceptable

A propos de ce titre

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.

À propos de l'auteur

Francesca Bray is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of The Rice Economies: Technology and Development in Asian Societies (California, 1994).