Chapter 11 - Reappraising Ban Zhao

Summary

Ban Zhao (c. 45–117) was the first woman public intellectual in ancient China. Her Lessons for Women (Nüjie), composed around 100 CE, was the earliest Chinese written work known to be authored by a woman scholar solely intended for women’s education. This text was widely studied since its publication until the early twentieth century. Besides being an accoladed scholar, Ban Zhao was also a mother of several children. Her life and writings exhibited an interesting contradiction between her independent spirit as a contrarian and a conformist compromise to constrictive social norms on women. Consequently, she was both praised as an exemplary woman philosopher and condemned as an accomplice of the patriarchal oppression of women. This chapter argues against the overly-simplistic anti-feminist charge of Ban Zhao by examining her life and a wider range of her writings than is usually considered, including not only her Lessons for Women but also her poetry and official memoranda, in order to reappraise her philosophy and her distinctive strategy to gender politics.