Empress Cixi's Will to Power

Paper Summary:

This paper studies that Dowager Empress Cixi came of modest origins and entered the court as a low concubine. The writer examines that she learned how to manipulate the court, produced a male heir and exploited her position as Dowager Empress for more than 50 years, most of it remembered for misrule. Further, the writer discusses her as a treacherous woman who was much written about.

From the Paper:

"Chinese women tend to be stereotyped as quiet, demure creatures, shaped by their culture to not give offence, or as people using their feminine ways, in a society controlled by men. In the example of Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) is found someone rather different. Like her contemporary, Queen Victoria of England, she was comfortable wielding power. Unlike Queen Victoria, she rose from an official concubine of the lowest rank to have tremendous power and a ruthlessness that remains legendary. Indeed, Empress Cixi has a full chapter in a popular volume, The Most Evil Women in History."

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