Cixi

I have never thought of myself as a woman. When I was first presented to the emperor as a concubine, I knew I was being given an opportunity to rewrite my fate; the chance to ascend to my proper place as the only power under heaven. I had everyone address me as if I was a man, and even required my adopted son Guanxu to call me "father" for that was what I was to him (Liu 151). I could not care for and tenderly nurture Guanxu as a mother should,I had to guide him with the hard hand of a father so he would understand that his place was beneath me.Would I had been born a man. You can have no idea how many times I have had this thought. I thought it the first night I was presented to the emperor Xianfeng, the day I was forced to rid China of my worthless son, and one day before my death when I ordered my adoptive son poisoned so that he wouldn't further corrupt and erode my beautiful empire in my absence. If I had not been born a wretched woman, I would not have had to bloody my hands so. If I had been born to my rightful role as emperor, I would not have had to watch as one impeccable fool after another wrought disaster upon China. If I had only been born a man, China would have joined together to successfully vanquished the Western threats and the emperors of China would now be ruling on high over the whole world as is our right, as would have been our destiny.

Sources Cited

Liu, Lydia. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pg. #.

Paludan, Ann. Chronicle of the Chinese Emerors. New York: Thames &Hudson Inc., 1998. Pg # .