Gender Roles In Traditional Chinese Society

In traditional Chinese society each person’s role in life is assigned to them based on social class, gender, and hierarchical position within their family. Because of this constricting belief that a person’s assigned roles were more important than their individuality many young individuals during the May-Fourth era sought after the freedom of individuality to break free from roles that traditional Chinese society had imposed upon them. An example of this desire to break free from defined societal roles occurs in Ba Jin’s "Family", "He felt he was being cut off from her by an invisible high wall, and this wall was his gentry family. It prevented him from attaining the object of his desire; therefore he hated it (Ba Jin 22).” Chueh-hui expresses his contempt for being defined by the role assigned to him as a member of the gentry class, because this role causes Chueh-hui to be unable to express his individual desires of love. This desire for freedom to be their own individual self, left the younger generation determined to decide their own role rather than simply accept the role that traditional society had decided for them and spurred the May-Fourth era forward.
As education for women began to become available the younger generation started to yearn for independence from their oppressive roles and to be viewed as more than just burdensome "money-losing goods" by their parents, or as virtuous women who have still minds with no thoughts or emotions of their own as they embroider all day by society. Qiu Jin's Stones of the Jingwei Bird, illustrated the problems many young women of the gentry class in traditional Chinese society faced and how they attempted to overcome these