Women in Chinese and Indian cultures faced the issue of subordination to their male counterparts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In order to make sure women didn’t surpass them, men in Chinese and Indian cultures both physically and emotionally wounded women to the degree that they felt incapable of demanding equality. In China, some of the most prominent issues mentioned in the article, Liberating Chinese Women and Their Feet, translated by Nancy Gibbs, are marriage and the role foot binding plays in it, as well as women’s failure to rise up to their male counterparts. Similarly, some of the issues mentioned about India in the piece, The High-Caste Hindu System, by Pandita Ramabai, are lack of freedoms, especially to quality education for girls; and female dependence on men.
In regards to marriage in China, the man and his family held all the power in the relationship. Marriages were typically arranged wholly without the woman’s consent or interests for a husband in mind. Sometimes a matchmaker joined the two families, but if not, it was generally set up by greedy men looking to get rich- rather than meet a woman to love. If the groom’s family was not satisfied with the dowry the
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It elaborates on these frustrations by claiming that women should have rebelled against the practice of foot binding when the second Chen ruler promoted it. Instead, they began wrapping their feet once they found out men liked girls with small feet. Females in Chinese society should have argued with men when they denied girls the right to education for fear of women developing to be “superior to men” (Chinese.). Additionally, women walked away from responsibility by becoming complacent with letting men make their decisions for them; “When men said we were useless, we became useless”