Technology and Gender

Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China

Francesca Bray

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520208612
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520919006
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

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.


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

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 1
• Illustrations and Table
• Chinese Dynasties
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction The Framework of Everyday Life: Technology, Women and Cultural History
• PART ONE Building a Tradition The Construction of Chinese Social Space
• 1 House Form and Meaning
• 2 Encoding Patriarchy
• 3 The Text of the Chinese House
• PART TWO Women’s Work Weaving New Patterns in the Social Fabric
• 4 Fabrics of Power The Canonical Meanings of Women’s Work
• 5 Economic Expansion and Changing Divisions of Labor
• 6 Women’s Work and Women’s Place
• PART THREE Meanings of Motherhood Reproductive Technologies and Their Uses
• 7 Medical History and Gender History
• 8 Reproductive Medicine and the Dual Nature of Fertility
• 9 Reproductive Hierarchies
• Conclusion Gynotechnics and Civilization
• Glossary of Technical Terms
• References Cited
• Index