Savvy Women and Boundary Negotiations in Qing Fiction

This paper examines a particular character type in Qing vernacular short stories: clever women who test the definition of feminine virtue by acting admirably outside normal gender boundaries. These female protagonists argue, meddle in men\u27s business, divert property from the patriline, and even lose their chastity - yet each of them is presented as unquestionably virtuous. The rhetorical approaches by which their male authors present them in a positive light illuminate the strategies available to men and women for thinking creatively about gender in Qing China