Mary Wollstonecraft (1759- 1797) wrote both A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman within a matter of weeks. Why she wants to write the second book about rights continued from the preceding one? I would try to probe into the correlations between these two works. In her argument for women¡¦s rights (even all human being¡¦s rights), Wollstonecraft contested the gendered construction of reason and virtue in political theory. I situate the pioneering feminist as a canonical thinker alongside Locke and Rousseau. Yet, although I admit that Wollstonecraft¡¦s works have been largely been overlooked by mainstream political theorists, in this paper my analysis will offer little explanation as to why Wollstonecraft has been marginalized within the conversation of political thought. To explain why Wollstonecraft¡¦s works has not been included in the canon I pose the question of how this revolutionary woman was authorized to write about political rights. In addition to her perspectives of politics, she also challenged the idea of contemporary patriarchy to fight for women¡¦s citizenship. Therefore, Complex conversations between past and present are involved in any attempt to read Wollstonecraft¡¦s texts or to find the problems of traditional liberal feminism. My study makes no pretension to offer answers to pressing problems. It does, however, provide insights into how present concerns make us resonant to themes in Wollstonecraft¡¦s writing, such as her dealing with the politics of gender difference, her awareness of sexuality and romance, her passionate wrestling with reason, and the relevance of her version of the Enlightenment humanist project to women¡¦s citizenship today. On a more somber note, her proposition makes clear how much exclusion and subjugation of women has taken place within Western feminist tradition from Wollstonecraft onwards and how attentive we need to be to decolonizing the thinking in our own heads while we dream of liberating wider theory.

Confucian philosophy preached women's inferiority to men. Women were to remain ignorant and to obey--first, their fathers; after marriage, their husbands; during widowhood, their sons. Marriages were arranged, and a woman's responsibility was to remain married, no matter how undesirable the match. Divorce was not allowed or remarriage by widows. The major role of women, considered the private property of men, was to please their husbands and to bear children. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the family status of rural women in China changed dramatically. The Chinese Communist Party and the people's government recognized that the liberation of rural women, who constituted half the population of China, was necessary for the country to realize complete emancipation. The new government promulgated a series of laws, policies, and regulations that protected women. The Chinese Constitution of the early 1950s stated clearly that Chinese rural women enjoyed equal rights with men in political, economic, social, cultural, and family life. The state protected rural women's rights and interests, practiced equal pay for equal work, and provided equal opportunity for women's training and promotion. China's Marriage Law eliminated arranged marriages, stipulating that both women and men were free to choose their marriage partners, and widows were allowed to remarry. The Inheritance Law recognized the equal right of women to inherit family property. The Land Reform Law of the early 1950s provided rural women with an equal share of land under their own name, thereby protecting their economic independence. . With the enlightening of Feminist discourse, I analyze the sexual division of labor in the china¡¦s women ethnic group, and find china¡¦s women to be both oppressed by patriarchy and capitalism in their family lives and their working environment as the Socialist Feminists has found in their earlier research. As a china¡¦s woman, no matter she be a daughter, be a wife, or be a mother, she has to carry more unequal responsibility under the traditional gender norm. They have no choice but do all the caring works, such as bearing children, doing housework, which were thought to be women¡¦s obligation. China¡¦s women also an important part of the labor force in the farm. Yet, china¡¦s women have been cheap labor because of their low education, few choices of jobs, and their heavy load of housework. Although the economic structure of china has changed, the life experiences of china¡¦s women keep influenced by their traditional ethnic/gender norm. In sum, the research tries to make the points on the china women¡¦s labor and virtues, and attempts to understand how the patriarchal ideology and structure works on the china women

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Women's and Gender Studies." Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-309).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Women's and Gender Studies." Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-204).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1997. Graduate Programme in Social Anthropology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-190). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ27343.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2002. / Advisor: Dr. Barry Faulk, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 1, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.P.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-63).

Thesis (M.A.)--Catholic Theological Union, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-106).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Marshall University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains p. vii, 120 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-108).