Traditional masculinity and femininity in family system - Essay Example

The Chinese mainly believed in two life forces that are: the feminine Yin and the masculine Yang. They believed that the two are irreversibly linked and that neither can exist without the other. They thus believed that an all masculine man would not be ideal but neither would an all feminine woman. They believed that in order to attain total completeness one must strike a balance between the two energies. Over time though certain beliefs became modified to fit in with western ideals for example it became an accepted notion that an ideal man should possess relatively more Yang than Yin.

A man should therefore according to this notion be more determined, have more self-control and have strength. This is not to imply that the ideal man was all masculine. An accurate depiction would be that a man should absorb the feminine traits of a woman while remaining masculine (Ba, 29). This is a tough balancing act for anyone. As a result of the differing economic and cultural trends, the perception of masculinity tended to also differ across the various regions of china. In the poorer regions where the people exerted every ounce of man power in order to grow crops there were rarely any true divide in gender roles.

It was expected that men and women alike put in long and hard hours on the fields otherwise the entire family would perish from hunger. In the richer areas however, the gender role was quite distinct primarily because the women were not required to do the more physical tasks. It was also common for men to be less physical in these regions and as a result, soldiers from the poorer communities were more valorous than those from the richer communities. In the more influential communities scholars and bureaucrats were held in higher esteem as opposed to warriors and workers.

The various beliefs have over time become evident in works of literature. One such example is in the book fortress besieged where we find the protagonist one Fang Hongjian in a summer of 1937 as he and other Chinese students are abord a steamer on their way back to china. He tries to liven up the journey by attempting to flirt with two of the female passengers although somewhat unsuccessfully. On arrival at Sanghai, which at the time has fallen recently to the Japanese he reconnects with one of the women.

The woman a PhD named Miss Su. He however falls for her cousin. He tries to court both these women for a time but finally decides to settle on Miss Su’s cousin and hence has to break up with her. This breaks her as she had expected her propose to her and not her cousin. In retaliation she works to and succeeds in destroying any hopes he might have had of settling down with her cousin. Fang decides to dessert shanghai after this unfortunate incident in favor of Sanlu where he gets a teaching position at the Sanlu University that is at the time a newly established university.

On his way there he and his companions encounter several hardships and hassles. Upon arrival at the university he discovers that the place isn’t any better than Shangai as his fellow teachers are proud backstabbing brownnosers. He even discovers that one of them has a fake doctorate from the same university that he has and is just as desperate as he is not to be found out. Fang finds himself in the arms of Sun Roujja who is a young English teacher. This is after his contract fails to be renewed