The Tang Dynasty Empress Wu-Advent of Feminine Domination

The only thing Empress Wu proved is that if you're expecting a kinder, gentler world with women at the helm, forget it.

12-15-2008 10:39 PM

Maggie Thatcher (UK) and Golda Meyer the Israeli also proved that, I bet Cleopatra was no angel from reports of her predilections with Roman soldiers.The cruel Russian women's unit at Stalingrad also tortured all German prisoners to death while that struggle went on for the city.The English Queens Mary & Elizabeth took turns at imposing their rain of terror. It is some how comforting to hope though that a female ruler like Helen Clark from NewZealand (Labour Party) was will be a more compassionate ruler but the nature of the game seems to require a ruthless streak to obtain and hold it.The Empress if you googled her (ha ha oops) got up to some murderous tricks to get to the top of her world ...

12-17-2008 2:01 PM

Judge Judy is a little tyrant.

The Empress if you googled her (ha ha oops) got up to some murderous tricks to get to the top of her world but considering those before and after her society was better for both sexes and families

I believe such assessments are subjective in that they are made by us centuries later rather than by the Chinese who actually lived after the Empress. But isn't that the way of historians?

12-17-2008 3:42 PM

Yeah life under the Pharaoh might not have been a whole lot of fun. Lots of Chinese had harems and that cruel foot-binding has only up until recently been unfashionable one good thing the Commo,s wouldn't have went for. I have seen photos of some poor old dears with feet unbounded.

12-18-2008 7:25 PM

Jorjor

Her reign might have been even worse if it hadn't been for this guy.

12-19-2008 6:34 AM

@ dear friend Jorjor , Di Renjie,,,thank you so much for that link it was a great read, my former HK reader in literature pen friend never mentioned him ,she preferred the sexual peccadilos ha ha.
He was described as "a pearl from the coast and a treasure of the Southeast",,an efficient & fair judge some 17000 cases & no complaints,, he showed courage & integrity in speaking out against excessive killings.Also a humanitarian with refugees at one pasage in time.
She often referred to him "the state elder" she wept bitterly when he died, seems he was wise in his recommendations up until the end restoring the Tangs.

12-19-2008 2:10 PM

Jorjor

We could use one or two like him in the here and now. He's also mentioned in Lin Yu-Tang's book Lady Wu: A True Story. Don't forget to look in on the exploits of his fictional counterpart, Judge Dee (Also here and here).

12-19-2008 5:05 PM

@Jorjor you are indeed scholarly it should have been you at HK uni

I found the detective story Judge Dee and series mentioned at end of series.There are wise among us in each generation I suspect just its harder for them to surface amongst all the psycho babble and suck-hole party politics, he wouldn't have got preselect-ion as he risked his life not towing the party line. Thank you kindly I used to send my former friend back quotes from O.Wilde,'Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry,their passions a quotation" and some from the romantics Byron Shelly & Wordsworth after 60 odd letters I complained of cost and being "required read...

12-19-2008 6:51 PM

@Jorjor dear I,ll spare you long waffle but my former friend was titillated to have a copy of banned writer Liu Binyan ~"A Second Kind of Loyalty" also they (women)had been failed by the revolution ,the main "lesson" is that "they must win and hold power themselves". Fat chance after Dengs crack down on "bourgeois liberalism" in 87, politics is not of great interest just hedonistic pursuit of making ends meet & keeping away from trouble.

12-19-2008 7:11 PM

I found this to be very interesting. Now I have a question for you guys. Which of these factors had the greatest influence on Empress Wu's domination, her being a women or culture?

12-19-2008 7:58 PM

@chestnut501 hi I was introduced to her by a Chinese woman and in past history it was mainly strong arm men that dominated, I also liked poor Boadicea , Joan of arch and of course Cleopatra they all seem to come to a bitter end at hands of men but Wu seemed to be the exception till old age at least.I think she was careful and wise enough to use male means to eliminate any competion as in her culture another woman tried to do same thing later, but failed; Wu was outstanding and a strong woman even defying traditions by her sexual predilictions.A feminist by any yardstick opposite to Cleopatra.

12-19-2008 8:18 PM

Being a woman & culture were against her the (church) Confucians , she broke all new ground had two lovers besides humiliating men!

12-19-2008 10:02 PM

Fascinating women, unfortunately I know of no one like her, unless she was also a seductress.Not a good night on clipmarks, I can't even find any good music to clip. Unless I get a sudden burst of energy, I just might go to bed at a reasonable time tonight.

12-19-2008 11:22 PM

You should have warm arms of love or a bosom friend to snuggle up to on cold nights,I just left message for jimbo1000, saying how envious I was of happy couples like them, his wife has been in hospital and hoped that they would be together again for Xmas.Got to be careful about saying much or some one will jump on you ha ha.I hated going through translators in Russia to China you payed 3 times to get right information across sometimes.Cream would be cheese all sorts I wondered some times if it was deliberate or just uneducated translators.Gave that a way as a bad joke.I was also a bit taken back by the lack of compassion if they didn't know any one hurt it didn't seem as big a deal as disast...

12-20-2008 12:14 AM

Jorjor

I rather doubt, though, that Empress Wu was the first dominatrix. There have always been sadistic women as well as sadistic men, and there always will be.

12-20-2008 12:59 AM

@Jorjor gday mate she has to be up there amongst the most powerful in her own right and was the only Emperor in Chinese history one of the oldest civilizations.I was quite intrigued by their justice system that if the public torture obtained a false confession the magistrate was in for it, & if the crowd not 12 good men didn't think the condemned was (tortured) was telling the truth they could have a riot and the magistrate was held responsible for the civil disobedience.Ironically the book based on the magistrate by Van Gulik "The Chinese Gold Murders" is being published by a friend locally I discovered after following your info.

12-20-2008 1:01 AM

It was nice of you to send that message to Jimbo. He's a nice guy. Those loving arms sound real nice. It's hard telling about the translaters, that's where the cultural differences play a role.
So Empress Wu did practice the art of seduction. Most women do at some time or another. Perhaps I do know some women like her LOL. Not as smart however, she had to be a genius to pull off as much as she did.

12-20-2008 1:47 AM

Hey Hi chestnut501 you are not sleeping

.Europe was still to go into the dark ages while the Chinese were struggling financing armies to fend off attacks from the west in distant provinces and north.It is a vast country you can not under rate her unique ability to organise all the different states (provinces) governments and ambitious generals in that age ,they had an advanced system of law and for my money no one else was so powerful over such an empire.As a European descendant I like poor Boadicea British warrior Queen but for greatness Wu takes some beating ,they had good written records for the times.

12-20-2008 2:19 AM

Of course, I don't know nearly as much about China as you, however I do know that it is the oldest country/culture by far. Considering Wu's accomplishments and status I find it somewhat amazing that she isn't more well known. I mean, considering how "sex" orientated the world is, one would think that her name would be a household word. Hey, you don't think that's where the expression of wooing someone came from do you. Perhaps wooing a women could be likened to performing cunnilingus on her?.....well, probably not.

12-20-2008 2:47 AM

Ha ha ha dear chestnut501 no I don't think so Wooing I;ll google it,, in those days women were treated like chattels in the west, property of men, hundreds of years later when Marco Polo came back from China telling them in Italy about coal that burnt and gunpowder that made explosions they locked him up as a mad man.The Chinese were much more advanced in many respects and male egos really don't like to be din-ted by knowledge of smarter eastern women too I suspect than they were by hundreds of years earlier.Courtship is my understanding of wooing like in Romeo and Juliet singing out side her window bringing flowers chocolates.Wu was more like a Caesar , if she wanted you, you had better be good or good at it.

12-21-2008 3:20 AM

That's ok, I'm going to use it as a line anyway.

12-21-2008 4:11 AM

Hey hi chestnut501 that "stairway to heaven" track brought back memories I was changing lights onstage at an out door concert and you could smell the grass rising off the tennis courts where it was staged, they joked about it. I googled "wooing" it was 12 century English 600 years after Wu her name is a "pinyin" Sp? English version of Chinese.Good-luck wooing and enjoy yourself while your at it

.... Seems to be a rush on guns in US on news are you a pistol pack-in mama, stay safe ,cheers...I thought of clipping pickup-lines but then again I,ll leave the sexy stuff to experts ha ha ha

12-21-2008 4:49 AM

A lot of those 70's concerts smelled like that. You never saw any police busting people either. I rather doubt if that's the case now. I'll have to ask my nephew, he would know.
Yes, I guess a lot of guns are being sold. A lot of them in Texas which is strange because everyone there already has a gun. It doesn't look good. Fortunately I'm in a pretty safe place, far North of any cities. There's no reason for anyone to come up here on their way to any place else. If they're going to Canada, they would cross over down in Detroit. I won't need a gun, I'm tough.

12-22-2008 6:58 PM

@chestnut501 Mmm I forgot the Emperor who liked her "so" gave her a name Wu (1character)meaning "charming and beautiful" and she has a longer one(3) the Chinese called "Miss Charming & beautiful" for when you go a "Wu,ing"... Jorjor has no info to, but his opinions re "sadistic dominatrix" I doubt he read any of the information on her and has western tunnel vision in my humble opinion, she was referred to as "a keen feminist" too in another book, by G L Simons on Records & Sex.Any way as he infers debate about so long ago is futile... The Chinese have now seen her in a better light, my world view of her is that she was "Great" later Emperors were crushed by the invaders(Khans) she repelled a...

12-24-2008 1:37 PM

Kelika

This is an absolutely fascinating topic. I know very little about her (thanks to this string, I've learned much more), but I do remember learning when I was a kid that she was extremely intelligent which helped her in her rise and longevity in power. Off to the library to do some reading on her.

12-24-2008 2:29 PM

@Kelika hi I am not sure what you,ll find in the library , but if you google you,ll get Wikipedia, also on Jorjor ,here & here about one of her administrators Di Renjie who himself at times fell from favour and was sent to provinces contrary to Jorjor,s inference that he was her influence more than any others. She was no mans puppet or put there by nobles(Had Aristocratic background so well educated) as was the case by religious factions & men with Mary & Elizabeth the latter was strong but not a law unto her self as Wu was. Their has never been a more powerful woman in history in her own right breaking tradition making her self Emperor like Napoleon did.

12-28-2008 10:54 PM

I've been following.

I do not believe we can condemn the practice of foot-binding anymore than we can condemn all the castrates that Chinese culture once produced..

Most Americans consider themselves pretty "classless and free," to quote that unfortunate Beatle. But casual observation of people's opinions and politics will revel these are, as a rule, rooted either in convention or some fashionable ideology. Few there are who think outside these parameters.

Lastly,

History is an interpretive narrative. As such it represents itself in at least three ways, aesthetically (in the choice of a narrative strategy), epistemologically (in the choice of an explanatory paradigm), and ethically (...

12-28-2008 11:01 PM

chadare,

My views on men, women, and change differ from most.

Your posts reminds me of earlier comparison between ideological feminism and fundamentalist religion. Appeals to the bandwagon assume the rightness of joining it. The corollary is also taken to be true: If you don't join, convert, agree, you are bad, out of sync, prejudiced, etc.

As I've made clear elsewhere, I disagree with feminist assumptions about the nature and history of the relations between men and women.. The feminist narrative relies on commonly accepted platitudes. "Women had no say," "women were under foot," "women were slaves, sex objects, second class citizens, mere property, etc." These simplisms encourage a...

12-28-2008 11:06 PM