Japan, Korea, and Vietnam
The Gender Relations

Overall Subordination
• Unlike China though, Japan, Korea and Vietnam
did not practice footbinding
• Women in all these states were subordinate to
men, however on different levels
• Take Japan for example, Japanese women of the
elite class were literate and made cultural
contributions writing diaries or novels, like Lady
Murasaki’s Tale of Genji
• In Korea, women played a role in negotiation or
disposal of land

Japan: The Commercial Classes
• Growth of commerce
gave some Japanese
women opportunities
to avoid drop in status
• Women in merchant
and artisan families
exercised
independence to a
certain extent
• Even some business
positions were being
inherited by the
daughters of the
family

Japan: Women in Warrior Elites
• In earlier
centuries, wives/daughters of
bushi households learned to
ride horses, use a bow and
arrow, and often joined in
hunts
• Sadly, the trend was destroyed
when daimyo families turned
to the limited inheritance to
the eldest son (primogeniture)
• Wives and daughters who
before shared the division of
family estate now received
little or nothing at all (no land
or income)

Japanese Traditions
• Women were given into marriage
to cement alliances between
warrior households
• Disinheritance played a major
role in showing how defenseless
women were to their warrior
fathers or husbands
• They were taught to slay
themselves rather than dishonor
the family line if they were raped
That person is actually a male…
• They even lost the role in
religious ceremonies and GASP! GENDERBENDER!!
replaced by Japanese theoretical
performances played by men that
were trained to impersonate
women

Traditional Korean Society
• It wasn’t rare for the women
to be confided within the
household, for their role was
housework
• Women in general could not
participate in society as men
did
• Marriages were arranged,
with the sole purpose to
produce an heir to carry on
the family line
• Dynasty law prohibited a
widow to remarry, but no law
said the same for males
• Only males were allowed to
divorce and remarry

Korea: Female Independence
• Allow women of lower class
more freedom as they worked on
the farms
• They could sometimes earn an
income by selling things
• Other than the women of the
lower class, all female
independence was looked down
upon
• Overall: strictly patriarchal
society where female gender role
was defined as obedient,
additional, family- and husband-
centered, and all deviations from
this rule considered to betray
“low status” and “low moral
qualities”

Women in Vietnam
• Historically had greater
freedom within family
and society at large than
its Chinese counter-part
• They were hostile to
Confucian codes and
family systems that
confided them within the
household and subjected
them to male authority
• Revolts such as by the
Trung sisters, and poetry
were made to show the The rebellious Trung Sisters
importance of women in
Vietnamese society