EA 170 Study and Discussion Questions for Week 3b-4a

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS WEEK 3b:

Week 3b READINGS

a) Review Murasaki Shikibu's Diary (p. 137-139) section in which she discusses learning Chinese and teaching it to the Empress.

b) Review Tale of Genji "Broom Tree" (Chapter Two) Rainy Night discussion of women's education (around pp. 37-38)

c) Robert L. Backus, trans., "The Lady Who Admired Vermin" [click here]

d) Jo Boaler, "Paying the Price for Sugar and Spice," What's Math Got To Do With It (Penguin Books, 2009)

e) New York Times article (1/18/2005) on then Harvard President Larry Summer's comment that one reason there are more men teaching in math and science departments is that differences in math ability between men and women may be innate.

Study Questions:

1. From Murasaki Shikibu's Diary and Tale of Genji, what do you think Murasaki Shikibu's attitude was to women learning Chinese? What appears to be the general attitude of the men and women of the court?

2. As you're reading “The Lady Who Admired Vermin,” look for and list instances of opinions by the various characters about the proper behavior of a well-bred young woman and how the Lady of the story fails to act properly (i.e. according to Heian society norms). Do any of these qualities make her more "masculine"? Think carefully about whether you're using the term "masculine" in Heian terms or from a modern perspective! Also, why is this an appealing story to us today?

3. Jo Boaler, "Paying the Price of Sugar and Spice": feminists and liberal educators have spent the last thirty years arguing that gender stereotypes are for the most part socially constructed, not innate. But what if fMRI studies show us that women and men *do* think differently? How does that change the discussion?

4. New York Time's Article on Larry Summers: again, here the issue is whether differences beween men and women in certain fields (here math) may be innate, and that these innate differences explain men's dominance in the sciences and math. What would Jo Boaler's answer be?

Week 4a

Hitomi Tonomura, "Women and Inheritance in Japan's Early Warrior Society"

This is another fairly technical discussion of changes in women's economic and political position in late Kamakura and Muromachi Japan. Concentrate on figuring out what the main changes in women's position with regard to inheritance were, and how those changes reflected the shift which took place at this time from a relatively centralized and stable court society to a relatively decentered and unstable warrior society. Read especially carefully the first few pages (592-594) where Tonomura outlines her argument, and also summarizes (p. 593) the changes that took place in the "recentralized" Tokugawa period. Pay careful attention to the end (620-623) as well, where she summarizes the effects of the legal changes in women's ability to inherit etc.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1) What were women's basic inheritance rights in the early Kamakura period? What rights did widows have?

2) [609-611] What sorts of rights and responsibilities did "Stewardship" (jitô) of land entail? Why was this seen as a problem for women? When did this problem first become apparent? [also discussed pp. 613-14]

3) [611-614] Why did the splintering of family property into smaller and smaller parcels which came about when women (as well as secondary sons) inherited, come to be considered problematic in the Muromachi period? What other social and economic problems contributed to this change of attitude?

3) [615-620] What sorts of methods were used to try and keep women and their property within the natal (birth) family? What was the effect on the social status of women to have "lifetime grants" of properties rather than inherit it outright?

4) Approximately when did women stop being "daughters" all their lives (i.e. always attached to their natal family regardless of marriage) and start being thought of as married "into" her husband's family? What sign does Tonomura point to as indicating this shift?

5) Generally, what were the effects on women in the Kamakura period of the increasing competition between individual warrior families for territory and the subsequent increase in militarization? How was this justified ideologically/philosophically?

Donald Keene, "A Neglected Chapter: Courtly Fiction of the Kamakura Period" pp. 1-3, 10 (starting with Ariake no Wakare)-21[

Robert Omar Khan, trans., "Parting at Dawn" (Ariake no Wakare) [click here]

Synopsis of Torikaebaya (click here)       

STUDY QUESTIONS

1) Why are Kamakura monogatari (tales) referred to as "pseudo-classical"?

2) In Ariake no Wakare (Parting at Dawn) how does Udaishô feel about becoming a woman? How does this compare to Chûnagon's feelings about becoming a woman in Torikaebaya?

3) Keene compares the description of the possession scene of Aoi no Ue by Rokujô in Genji with the one described in Ariake no Wakare. How is the scene different? How is it the same? Why do you suppose that when Aoi no Ue and Sadaijin's first wife are attacked, they stop being haughty and become gentle and loving? What possible function might possession have for women (both the possessors and possessed)?

3) The narrator of Waga Mi ni Tadoru Himegimi says that she wrote the tale "to show not only the [women's] natures but also the forces of circumstance that determined their fate." What would you consider to be the different characters' "nature" here? What part does "circumstance" seem to play?

4) Keene refers to a "decline in the cult of beauty" which he links to a "decline in morals" in the Kamakura period (p. 36). From reading Tale of Genji, what do you think counted as "moral" behavior in the Heian period? What sorts of things does Keene consider to be a "decline" in moral standards? Do you agree?

General Question:

In the “pseudo-classical” tales we read for this week, there is a good deal of gender confusion among the characters. How do gender (masculine or feminine), biological sex (male or female), and sexual orientation (same sex or heterosexual) seem to link up (or fail to link up) in Torikaebaya (the son and daughter), Wakare no Ariake (Udaishô in the first half of the book) and Waga Mi ni Tadoru Himegimi book 4 (The Ise High Priestess and her attendants, Chujô and Kozaishô)? (You can simply list characters with gender identity and sexual orientation.) What might this tell us about the understanding of gender and sexual orientation in this period?