Identify and explain the contradictions concerning women and education in the culture of the Heian court

Question

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Answer 1

1) In the Heian court men lived public lives, women much more private ones. In fact, women were rarely visible. An aristocratic woman might make a public excursion to a Buddhist temple, but she would remain out of public view. She might receive a male visitor, but the two would converse through a portable set of curtain panels. Women were expected to contribute to the aesthetic of the Heian court, and they were judged on their looks—although it is striking to note that there are almost no detailed descriptions of a woman’s face or body in Heian writing—on the arrangement of their many layers of silk robes, on their perfumes, and on the beauty of their calligraphy
2) At the same time, women in the court were highly educated, and they were also judged on their ability to compose poetry at a moment’s notice. A woman’s identity was defined particularly by her speech, her correspondence, and her poetry and other writings. Many court gatherings took place for the purpose of poetry competitions, in which both men and women participated
3) Beginning in the early ninth century, a new, Japanese system of writing called hiragana gradually replaced the use of Chinese characters and enabled writers to spell out the Japanese language phonetically. The university curriculum, however, remained based on Chinese classics and history, and the formal workings of state and government still required the use of Chinese. Chinese was the language of the world of men. Since the Heian court strongly discouraged displays of education in Chinese by women, they were taught the hiragana script (even though many court women actually knew Chinese quite well). The popularity of hiragana, even among men, who recognized its convenience, encouraged the development of new Japanese forms of poetry, especially the waka (literally the “poetry of Wa,” or Japan)—a form in which women were adept and for which they were celebrated