As the double burden of paid work and family demands leads Chinese women to think twice about marriage and children, we can rush to blame Confucianism’s sexism. But this is a mistake, writes Sor-hoon Tan. We need to separate Confucian philosophy from the oppressive patriarchal norms of its time. Confucian values of care and cultivation can enrich today’s feminism and support equal opportunities for all.

Is Confucianism a tradition that views women as inferior and subjugates them to men, whether fathers, husbands or even sons? Early twentieth century New Culture movement intellectuals who considered Confucianism antithetical to modern life certainly thought so. He-Yin Zhen (何殷震,1884− ca.1920), who may well deserve the title of the first Chinese feminist, also placed the blame of Chinese women’s oppression on Confucian teachings. The belief that gender inequality in Chinese society is rooted in Confucianism is practically conventional wisdom except in specialized academic discussions.

Consider a well-known passage from the Analects (17.25): “It is only women and petty persons who are difficult to provide for. Drawing them close, they are immodest, and keeping them at a distance, they complain.” This has often been cited to demonstrate Confucian denigration of women. “Petty persons” are ethically deficient in contrast to exemplary persons (junzi 君子) in the Analects, so the passage appears to question women’s moral character and capacity.

Some commentators suggest that, within its historical context, the passage is comparing “petty persons” not with women in general but with girls, concubines, or women of low birth. Rather than concluding that women are inferior to men by nature, one could argue that the specific observed behavior was the result of women being denied the opportunity of education and personal cultivation; furthermore, such behavior was probably also an expression of their sense of insecurity due to their dependence on men. Thus interpreted, the passage demonstrates the undesirable consequences of discriminating against women, especially in limiting their opportunity to learn and develop themselves, instead of endorsing conventional prejudice against women and justifying gender inequality.

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While many feminists both in and outside China continue to be hostile towards Confucianism, there is a growing stream of scholarly and philosophical works that not only defend Confucianism from feminist criticisms but also argue that there are philosophical affinities between feminism and Confucianism which could contribute to feminism in various ways. This has parallels in feminists’ re-reading of the Western philosophical canon. Chenyang Li’s suggestion, inspired by feminist care ethics, that the primary Confucian virtue of ren – usually translated inter alia as benevolence, humaneness, authoritative personhood – could be understood as promoting a kind of care ethics sparked a lively debate among Confucian and feminist scholars.

Sandra Wawrytko argues that, even if Confucius’s own behavior reflected the sexism of his time, the universal applicability of the Confucian priority on personal cultivation is supportive of feminist projects and there are ideas in the Analects that attest to Confucius’ potential as a feminist. Karyn Lai’s proposal of a Confucian epistemology based on reliability as embodied knowledge joins feminist theories in challenging the model of rationality dominating mainstream Western epistemology. Kevin DeLapp’s Confucian role epistemology goes further in employing Confucian understanding of how roles constitute a person’s identity to address criticisms against feminist standpoint epistemology for being either essentialist or arbitrary.