Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (Paperback)

List of Illustrations and Table
List of Chinese Dynasties
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Framework of Everyday Life:
Technology, Women and Cultural History

PART ONE / BUILDING A TRADITION:
THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHINESE SOCIAL SPACE

1 House Form and Meaning
Spaces and Sources
The House in Late Imperial China: Material Design
Some Aesthetics of House Design
Rusin Domo
The Convergence of Architecture

2 Encoding Patriarchy
A Walled Domain
A Moral Building Block
The Heart of the House: Altar and Stove
Continuing the Family Line: The Coffin and the Bed
Inner Divisions: Marking the Moral Order

3 The Text of the Chinese House
Writing the Text
Textual Experts

PART TWO / WOMEN'S WORK:
WEAVING NEW PATTERNS IN THE SOCIAL FABRIC

4 Fabrics of Power: The Canonical Meanings of Women's Work
The Concept of "Womanly Work": Women as Subjects
Cloth and Society
Medieval Divisions of Labor and the Value of Female Work

5 Economic Expansion and Changing Divisions of Labor
Wealth, Fashion and a New Elite: Changes in the Song Silk Industry
The Cotton Boom
Silk Production in the Ming and Qing

6 Women's Work and Women's Place
Skills, Knowledge and Status
Womanly Virtue and the Preservation of the Social Order
Women's Work and Family Status
Connection and Seclusion: Cloth and the Separation of Spheres
Women's Work and Patriarchy

PART THREE / MEANINGS OF MOTHERHOOD:
REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND THEIR USES

7 Medical History and Gender History
Through a Glass Darkly: The Question of Efficacy
What is a Body?
Physicians, Orthodoxy and Power
Case Histories: Whose Voices?

8 Reproductive Medicine and the Dual Nature of Fertility
Generation in Medical Theory
Orthodox Uses of Abortion
Menstrual Regulation, Fertility and Health: A Dual Image
of Womanhood

9 Reproductive Hierarchies
Children: A Qualified Blessing
Nature, Nurture and the Bond between Mother and Child
Maternal Doubles: Wives, Concubines and Maids
The Wifely Role

Conclusion: Gynotechnics and Civilization
Glossary of Technical Terms
References Cited
Index
List of Illustrations