TY - BOOK ID - 78068121 TI - Technology and Gender : Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China PY - 1997 SN - 0585104336 0520919009 9780520919006 9780585104331 9780520206854 0520206851 9780520208612 0520208617 0520206851 0520208617 PB - Berkeley ; Los Angeles, California : University of California Press, DB - UniCat KW - Sex role KW - Women KW - Technology KW - Applied science KW - Arts, Useful KW - Science, Applied KW - Useful arts KW - Science KW - Industrial arts KW - Material culture KW - History. KW - Social conditions. KW - Social aspects KW - China KW - Social conditions KW - adds technology to history of women. KW - concept of gynotechnics. KW - domestic production to commercial production. KW - eight centuries. KW - feminist interpretation. KW - history of private life in china. KW - inserts women into history of technology. KW - shell of domesticity. KW - textile industry. KW - the house. KW - three aspects of domestic life. KW - womens reproductive roles. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:78068121 AB - 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. ER -