Gender dan Keselamatan: Sumbangan Maharani Cixi Dalam Dalam Reformasi China (1861-1908)
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Abstrak: Terdapat kekurangan kajian gender dalam Bahasa Melayu dan Inggeris yang membincangkan perihal kepimpinan wanita silam, seperti kepimpinan Cixi (1861-1908). Majoriti kajian hanya membincangkan naratif umum kehidupannya. Maka, artikel ini tertumpu kepada kajian inklusif membabitkan kepimpinan dan sumbangan Cixi. Baginda adalah di antara pemimpin wanita yang berjaya memerintah dengan menafikan dominasi praktik patriakalisme. Keterlepasan pandang sumbangannya itu disebabkan kepimpinannya diwarnai kontroversi negatif yang mencacatkan reputasinya dalam naratif akademik. Justeru, menerusi kaedah kajian kes, kajian kepustakaan dan metod analisis wacana kritis, artikel ini membincangkan mengenai sumbangan Cixi kepada Qing yang sekaligus memenuhi kelompangan kajian hubungan antarabangsa mengenai keterlepasan pandang sumbangan Cixi yang merupakan sebahagian cabang kajian “missing women figure under the gender scholarship”. Hasil kajian menunjukkan sumbangan Cixi itu boleh dilihat menerusi reformasi sudut politik seperti pembangunan sektor pertahanan moden dan aspek ekonomi, serta sektor sosial seperti pemerkasaan wanita. Cixi menafikan halangan gender untuk menjadi pemimpin, namun sumbangannya dipinggirkan dan sepatutnya diraikan sebagai salah seorang pemimpin silam yang berjasa.
Kata kunci: China, Cixi; kepimpinan dan sumbangan wanita, politik strategi gender China purba.
DOI: 10.17576/sinergi.0302.2023.07
Maklumat artikel: Tarikh Penghantaran: 15 Ogos 2023; Tarikh penerimaan: 12 September 2023; Tarikh penerbitan: 31 Disember 2023.
Penghargaan dan pengisytiharan: Para penulis ingin merakamnkan rasa terima kasih mereka kepada pengulas tanpa nama SINERGI dan maklum balas membina mereka dalam meningkatkan kualiti manuskrip. Pengarang juga amat berterima kasih atas komen mereka pada versi awal draf. Tiada potensi konflik kepentingan dilaporkan.
Abstract: Research on gender and ancient female leadership, like that of Empress Dowager Cixi (1861–1908), is lacking in English and Malay. Most research only discussed Cixi’s general narrative. The majority of studies merely covered Cixi’s overarching story. Cixi was one of the women leaders who defied the patriarchal status quo to rule. Nevertheless, her contribution was overlooked due to the controversy surrounding her, which tarnished her reputation. Thus, through library research and content analysis methods, this article discusses Cixi’s contribution to the Qing dynasty while filling in the research gap of international relations scholarship by overlooking Cixi’s contributions, which fall under the scope of the missing women figures under the gender and international relation scholarship. The study shows that Cixi’s contribution could be traced through the reformation of political sectors, such as the development of modern military and defense sectors, economic sectors, and social sectors, such as women’s empowerment. Cixi successfully defied the gender barrier to become a leader; however, her contribution has been overlooked. It is time for her leadership to be recognised.
Keywords: China, Cixi, women leadership and contribution, ancient Chinese politics and gendered strategies.
DOI: 10.17576/sinergi.0302.2023.07
Article information: Submission date: 15 Ogos 2023; Acceptance date: 12 September 2023; Publication date: 31 December 2023.
Declaration and acknowledgement: The authors would like to show their gratitude to SINERGI’s anonymous reviewers and their constructive feedback in improving the quality of the manuscript. Authors are also immensely grateful for their comments on earlier versions of the draft. No potential conflict of interest was reported.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
To learn more about our Open Acess and Copyright Policy, click here
References
Barish, Daniel. 2019. “Empress Dowager Cixi’s Imperial Pedagogy: The School for Female Nobles and New Visions of Authority in Early Twentieth Century China.” NANNU: Men Women and Gender in China 20, no. 2: 256-284.
Boon Dar, Ko. 2021. “Maharani Dowager Cixi: Wanita Yang Memerintah China di Belakang Tabir, 1862-1874.” SEJARAH: Journal of the Department of History 30, no. 1: 1-19.
Cassan, Benjamin. 2005 “William Jardine: Architect of the First Opium War.” Historia 14: 106-117.
Chan, Ying-Kit. 2016. “Mourning During the Tongzhi Regency: The Case of Li Hongzhao (1820-1897).” Monumenta Serica 64, no. 2: 389-410.
Chang, Chiyun. 2020. “Sir Robert Hart and the Writing of Modern Chinese History.” International Journal of Asian Studies 17, no. 2: 109-126.
Chang, Jung. 2013. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. New York: Knopf,
Chen, Fei. 2017. “Negotiating for Modern Education: The Politics behind the Curriculum and Admissions Reforms at the Tongwen Guan.” Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 17, no. 1: 41-60.
Fairbank, John K., and Albert Feurwerker (Eds.). 1978. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 13: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ferla, Hannah. 2021. “From Concubine to Ruler: The Lives of Emperor Wu Zetian and Empress Dowager Cixi.” History in the Making 14, no. 1: 103-134.
Gao, Xiongya. 2000. Pearl S. Buck’s Chinese Women Characters. London: Susquehanna University Pres.
Gao, Xiongya. 2003. “Women Existing for Men: Confucianism and Social Injustice against Women in China.” Race, Gender & Class Journal 10, no. 3: 114-125.
Hagstrom, Linus. and Astrid H M Nordin. 2020. “China’s ‘Politics of Harmony’ and the Quest for Soft Power in International Politics.” International Studies Review 22, no. 3: 507-525.
Hawkesworth, Mary. 2019. Gender and Political Theory: Feminist Reckonings. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hevia, James L. 1995. Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. North Carolina: Duke University Press Books.
Hsu, Immanuel C. Y. 1999. The Rise of Modern China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Iriye, Akira. 2002. “East Asia and the Emergence of Japan, 1900-1945.” In The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century, edited by M. Howard, & W. Roger Louis, 139-150. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jaggar, Alison M. 1988. Feminist Politics and Human Nature. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Jia, Xiaoye. 2020. “Kang Youwei’s Propaganda Adjustments after the Hundred Day Reform, 1898-1900.” Journal of Modern China History 14, no. 1: 48-65.
Jiang, Xinyan. 2009. “Confucianism, Women, And Social Contexts.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 36, no. 2: 228-242.
Ko, Dorothy. 1994. Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Lorber, J. 2011. Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mann, Susan. 1987. “Widows in the Kinship, Class and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China.” The Journal of Asian Studies 46, no. 1: 37-56.
Mingyang, Li. 2020. “Building Warships and Nurturing Technical Talent at the Foochow Navy Yard during the Self Strengthening Movement.” Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology 4, no. 2: 1-34.
Nagoshi, Julie L., Craig T. Nagoshi, and Stephan/ie Brzuzy. 2014. Gender and Sexual Identity: Transcending Feminist and Queer Theory. New York: Springer.
Nasuha Anuar, Nur Ain., and Moussa Pourya Asl. 2022. “Gender, Resistance, and Identity: Women’s Rewriting of the Self in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess.” Pertanika Journals Social Sciences & Humanities 30, no. 3: 1201-1221.
Nye Jr., Joseph. 2011. The Future of Power. New York: Public Affair.
Ong, Siew Chey. 2005. China Condensed: 5000 Years of History and Culture. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish.
Orbach, Danny. 2021. “Foreign Military Adventurers in the Taiping Rebellion, 1860-1864.” Journal of Chinese Military History 10, no, 1: 1-32.
Reilly, Thomas H. 2011. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Rhoads, Edward J. M. 2000. Manchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in the Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861-1928. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Rosenlee, Li-Hsiang Lisa. 2012. Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation. New York: State University of New York Press.
Ruskola, Teemu. 1994. “Law, Sexual Morality, and Gender Equality in Qing and Communist China.” Yale Law Journal 103, no. 8: 2531-2565.
Schwegler, Kirsten. 2017. “Western Visions of the Empress Dowager Cixi: Her Many Roles in a Story of Fictional Fantasy and Political Sexism.” Footnotes: University of Guelph’s Undergraduate Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Social Change 10: 30-42.
Smith, Richard J. and John K. Fairbank. 1978. Mercenaries and Mandarins: The Ever-Victorius Army in Nineteenth-century China. New York: KTO Press.
Rhim, Soon Maa. 1982. “The status of women in China: Yesterday and today.” Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspective on Asia 20, December: 1-44.
Suwanthanin, Waroonporn. 2022. “Closed-Door Policy of the Qing Dynasty and China’s Defeat in the First Opium War.” Journal of ASEAN PLUS Studies 3, no. 2: 1-12.
Wang, Yi. 2020. “‘The Backward Will Be Beaten’: Historical Lesson, Security, and Nationalism in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 29, no. 126: 887-900.
Wodak, Ruth. and Michael Meyer. 2015. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (3rd edition). London: SAGE.
Wong, Tsu-Young. 1992. “Revisionism Reconsidered: Kang Youwei and the Reform Movement of 1898.” The Journal of Asian Studies 51, no. 3: 513-544.
Woo, X. L. 2002. Empress Dowager Cixi: China’s Last Dynasty and the Long Reign of a Formidable Concubine. New York: Algora Publishing.
Wu, Chang-Chuan. 1974. Cheng Kuan-Ying: A Case Study of Merchant Participation in The Chinese Self-Strengthening Movement (1878-1884). PhD Dissertation, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University, US.
Yu, Derling. 2015. Two Years in the Forbidden City. California: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Yuan, Xingpei., Wenming Yan, Chuanxi Zhang, and Yulie Lou. (Eds.) 2012. The History of Chinese Civilization: Late Ming and Qing Dynasties (1525-1911). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yuhang, Li. And Harriet T. Zurndorfer. 2012. “Rethinking Empress Dowager Cixi through the Production of Art.” NAN NU: Men, Women and Gender in China 14, no. 1: 1-20.
Zhang, Zhan. 2010. “Cixi and Modernization of China.” Asian Social Science 6, no. 4: 154-159.