Confucian feminist dialectics: filial performativity and liminal female power in the she Taijun narratives of Chinese theatre

This article examines the figure of She Taijun, the elderly matriarch of the Yang Family Generals (Yangjia Jiang) narratives, as a key site for understanding gendered authority in Chinese theatre. Bringing Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity into dialogue with intersectional feminist analysis, the article develops a Confucian feminist dialectic to theorise the paradoxical form of female authority She Taijun embodies: one that operates through the patriarchal order. Three interconnected arguments are advanced: first, that her power is sustained by ritualised performances of filial piety, she commands precisely because she embodies Confucian virtue; second, that her overlapping identities as aged widow, elite matriarch, and military commander produce a form of liminal female power that the system selectively accommodates without being fundamentally challenged; third, that the theatrical framing of her command as temporary exception illuminates the inherently compromised nature of female authority under filial-patriarchy. To capture this dynamic, the article introduces the concept of filial performativity, challenging both Orientalist readings that reduce Chinese tradition to straightforward gender oppression and feminist frameworks that locate agency primarily in acts of subversion.