I am a trained philosopher and have taught philosophy full-time in college classrooms for nearly 24 years. Like many tenured full professors in our profession, I have numerous publications, including two monographs that propose a positive theoretical convergence between Confucianism and feminism—a new form of feminist theory framed in Confucian terms, concepts, and concerns. Despite my years of teaching, writing, and publication, the default response to my scholarship is one of bewilderment: What on earth is Confucian feminism? How can there be a feminist theory based on Confucianism? And what is Confucianism, anyway? Indeed, what I do as a philosopher, a feminist, and a Confucian puzzles a whole lot of people, and that sense of puzzlement is not just limited to those outside of the philosophical community.
For instance, a number of years ago, when I attended the APA Pacific Division annual conference, one fellow attendee, during our casual conversation, inquired about what my areas of specialty were. I responded, “Comparative philosophy.” To which the fellow philosopher asked, “Compare what with what?” This might seem like a reasonable response to those outside the field of comparative philosophy. But the fact that this seems like a reasonable response is itself a problem. After all, no trained philosopher is going to ask what the field of epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, or phenomenology is. The field of comparative philosophy is still largely a mystery to many trained philosophers. Not only is the term “comparative philosophy” unfamiliar to many, but the philosophical nature of the work of “comparative philosophy” is also constantly questioned. So, imagine the difficulty for someone like me trying to publish a feminist theory emerging from training in comparative philosophy with a focus on Confucianism.
Non-Western philosophy, like Confucianism, is rarely taught in the vast majority of philosophy programs in North America and Europe, and even fewer graduate programs have compulsory requirements in non-Western philosophy. Philosophy, as Heidegger proclaims, is Western in nature, in essence, and in practice. Hence, to speak of non-Western philosophy makes as much sense as saying a square circle. On top of this, Confucianism is institutionally and pervasively classified as religion in academic teaching, in publication, and in the general perception. For instance, according to Google, my own two monographs on Confucianism—Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation (2006) and Confucian Feminism: A Practical Ethic for Life (2024)—are classified under the subject matter of religion, despite explicitly subtitling them as philosophy and ethics.
For sure, some trained philosophers specialize in the field of philosophy of religion, and religious texts such as Augustine’s Confessions are routinely taught in philosophy programs across the nation. The trouble is that the religious classification of Confucianism is concomitant with the disciplinary exclusion of Confucianism from philosophy. As late as 2024, a Belgian scholar—a fellow attendee of a philosophy conference in Taiwan—expressed to me that the Analects is not a philosophical text and that philosophy is an exclusively Western practice. Again, it would be hard to have other trained philosophers take you seriously if your area of specialty was, disciplinarily speaking, outside the field of philosophy.
As a feminist and as a Confucian, I deal with double jeopardy, so to speak. For the topic of “gender,” much like the topic of “race,” is by default excluded from a rigorous philosophical examination in “regular” philosophical courses. Those topics, instead, belong to specifically designated courses such as “Feminist Theories” or “Philosophy and Race.” My own philosophical training is a case in point: I was never made aware of Kant’s three essays on race throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies on Kant. I was however introduced to Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764), but was told that this writing belonged to Kant’s “pre-critical” period, so in a sense it didn’t really count anyway. A serious philosopher should focus her studies on Kant’s three canonical Critiques instead of on Kant’s misogynistic and racist writings, which, after all, are irrelevant to the development of Kant’s critical philosophical system. As philosophers, we are trained to bracket those “undesirable” elements out of our studies of canonical texts so that the true meaning of their systems can shine through, and to do otherwise is to miss the mark of philosophy. By virtue of my areas of specialty in feminism and Confucianism, I am, by any measure, a person on the margins in philosophy.
The journey from the margins, obviously, is quite challenging, from the routine misclassification of Confucianism as religion to the blissful ignorance of what my field of specialty is, to the casual dismissal of the philosophical significance of gender, to the utter disbelief that there could be something called “Confucian feminism.” Skepticism, rejection, and indifference abound. For certain, there are ample publications on the subject of “Confucianism” or “Feminism.” According to Worldcat.org, there were about 2,500 printed book publications in English between 2014 and 2024 with “Confucianism” as a keyword, and even more for “Feminism” with over 23,000 printed book publications. However, only four publications during the same period used “Confucian feminism” as a keyword—two of which were monographs, and my latest monograph was one of the two. This is not a brag sheet. It is just a fact that what I do as a scholar is still very much a mystery to my fellow philosophers and to the general public. Nevertheless, I journey on—not for fame or accolades, which are hard to come by if nearly no one understands or is even aware of what I do as a philosopher, as a feminist, and as a Confucian intersectionally.
Take my monograph on Confucian feminism as an example. The proposed positive juxtaposition of Confucianism and feminist theory is not an exercise in fanatical wizardry where contradictions and impossibilities melt away in a land of magical reasoning. Confucianism, as trained professionals and lay persons on the street have commonly proclaimed, is conservative and misogynistic in nature. How, then, is it possible to be a feminist and a Confucian without marginalization or contradiction? Either I am complicit in justifying gender oppression within the Confucian textual tradition, thus betraying my feminist sisters, or I am an unhinged (Western) feminist aiming to destroy the quintessential values of Confucianism dear to my fellow Confucians. This is an impossible endeavor of either/or; no wonder few have ever attempted this sort of work.
And yet, my entire professional life is a walk on a balance beam, from my first self-directed reading course on Confucianism and gender to my dissertation on Confucianism and women to my latest monograph on Confucian feminism. As a feminist, I do believe that confining feminist theorizing to the Western canon unnecessarily impoverishes our capability to envision a liberating future for women anywhere and everywhere. Despite its textual misogyny, Confucianism can function as a great well of conceptual resources for feminist theorizing. After all, there is no shortage of feminist scholarship using quintessential Kantian terms, concepts, and concerns, despite Kant’s notoriously misogynistic writings and deeply rooted racism permeating his over 40-year career.
Using Confucian terms, concepts, and concerns to envision a liberating future for women is not an attempt to whitewash its textual misogyny. Rather, it is an attempt to appropriate quintessential Confucian teaching, such as ren 仁 (humaneness), xiao 孝 (filiality), you 友 (friendship), li 禮 (ritual), and datong 大同 (great harmonious community)/pingtianxia 平天下 (pacification of the world), in a feminist fashion. A feminist theory that seeks to liberate women from gender-based oppression can also be Confucian in value and practice, much like liberal feminism fashions itself after liberal values and practices. For sure, no one feminist theory can solve all the problems that women face. But with Confucian feminism joining the pantheon of feminist theories, a liberating future for women can be Confucian and feminist simultaneously without selling anybody out.
Confucian feminism envisions a world where compassionate care for vulnerable others, starting with one’s family, is the foundation of one’s relational personhood; a world where moral friendship is the internal good of marriage instead of a gender-based division of labor or having any particular gender expression as the defining feature of marriage; a world where ritual civility is the binding thread of our shared citizenry leading us toward the realization of the common good; and a world where progressive harmonization and pacification of the world is the transcending, spiritual goal of one’s complete personhood.
To make the realization of the Confucian highest spiritual goal of datong 大同 (great harmonious community)/pingtianxia 平天下 (pacification of the world) accessible to women, the first order of business is the undoing of the nei/wai 内外 (inside/outside) boundaries in Confucian teaching. In Confucianism, gender is not determined by biology alone; instead, gender is made through ritualizing role differentiations marked along the line of nei/wai 内外 (inside/outside). As primarily a spatial concept, nei-wai 内外 is ever-shifting and overlapping, depending on one’s proximity to the focused center. But whatever counts as nei 内 is necessarily, essentially, and invariably encircled by the expansive sphere of wai 外. Hence, when nei-wai 内外 is coupled with gender role differentiations, it draws a much more restrictive sphere—both ritually and physically—for women compared to a more expansive sphere for men.
A married woman, in the Chinese-speaking world, is aptly referred to as neiren 内人, and as a person of nei 内, she is essentially an incomplete person, dependent on the men of her kin (i.e., father, husband, and son), making the outward, progressive expansion of Confucian moral cultivation impossible for her to realize. To address the problem of the confinement of nei 內, we will have to address gender role differentiations, and among all gender roles, the spousal relationship is foundational. The spousal relationship as articulated in the Confucian five core social relations (i.e., spousal, parent-child, ruler-subject, siblings/older-younger, and friends) will then also need modification as well. In Confucianism, the spousal relationship is governed by a gender-role-based division of labor (bie 别). To remedy this, I propose replacing the gender-role-based division of labor in a spousal relationship with the moral friendship of you 友. In other words, Confucian moral friendship should define the essence of a modern marriage.
For friendship does not need to be gender-based, nor does it hinge on a gender-role-based division of labor. Rather, the excellence of Confucian friendship is marked by friends’ mutual commitment to moral perfectibility. Replacing the gender-role-based division of labor in spousal relationships with friendship will enable us to address the many problematics associated with the confinement of women to the domestic realm of nei 內. Instead, spouses should be true friends to one another, mutually supportive in their journey to moral perfection. And true friendship, in turn, is best realized in the supposedly lifelong commitment of a marital union, in good times and bad, in sickness and health, for better or worse, till death do we part. Without the nei/wai 内外 gender restrictions, a woman, just like her male counterpart, would be able to fully partake in the Confucian progressive moral cultivation project of self-realization by caring, serving, and leading the world into an ever more inclusive and compassionate future for humanity.
Comparative philosophy that brings non-Western philosophical traditions into a productive dialogue with Western canonical tradition not only enriches our philosophical toolkit, but also challenges the unexamined assumptions entrenched in each canonical tradition—be it East or West. As a philosopher, a feminist, and a Confucian, I implore you all to dare to go beyond the familiarity and safety of the Western canon by setting sail toward the seemingly unknown horizon of Confucian feminism, a theoretical convergence of Confucian moral cultivation and feminist quest for gender liberation. As Nietzsche urges us to overcome ourselves, to be an overman for an open future, I call on you to try the following: to engage with comparative philosophy in your conference attendance, to give philosophical attention to the topics of race and gender in your classroom teaching, and to seek out a new horizon for our shared, progressive humanity in your theoretical imagination—like a philosopher.
The Women in Philosophy series publishes posts on those excluded in the history of philosophy on the basis of gender injustice, issues of gender injustice in the field of philosophy, and issues of gender injustice in the wider world that philosophy can be useful in addressing. If you are interested in writing for the series, please contact the Series Editor Alida Liberman or the Associate Editor Elisabeth Paquette.
The post Is it Possible to be a Feminist and a Confucian Without Marginalization or Contradiction? first appeared on Blog of the APA.
Read the full article which is published on APA Online (external link)
