Wu Zetian
(625–705), Chinese emperor. Wu Zetian was the only woman to rule in China as an emperor in name. She entered the Chinese imperial court at the age of thirteen as a lowly ranked concubine to Emperor Taizong (reigned 626–649) of the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), but when he died she became concubine and later empress to her stepson, Emperor Gaozong (reigned 650–683). When Gaozong died, she declared herself emperor after deposing her sons and attempting to found her own dynasty. She turned to the Buddhist establishment and invented about a dozen characters with a new script to legitimize her position as emperor.
Her overall rule did not result in a radical break from Tang domestic prosperity and foreign prestige. But she changed the composition of the ruling class by removing the entrenched aristocrats from the court and gradually expanding the civil service examination to recruit men of merit to serve in the government. Although she gave political clout to some women such as her capable secretary, she did not go as far as to challenge the Confucian tradition of excluding women from participating in the civil service examinations. Already in 674, she had drafted twelve policy directives ranging from encouraging agriculture to formulating social rules of conduct. She maintained a stable economy and a moderate taxation for the peasantry. Her reign witnessed a healthy growth in the population; when she died in 705 her centralized bureaucracy regulated the social life and economic well-being of the 60 million people in the empire.
Overall, Wu Zetian was a decisive, capable ruler in the roles of empress, empress dowager, and emperor. She was allegedly cruel in her personal life, murdering two sons, a daughter, and other relatives who opposed her. As a woman ruler, she challenged the traditional patriarchal dominance of power, state, sovereignty, monarchy, and political ideology. Her experience reflected a reversal of the gender roles and restrictions that her society and government had constructed for her as appropriate to women. While surviving in the male-ruled and power-focused domain, she showed strengths usually attributed to men, including political ambition, long-range vision, talented organization, and hard work. Later historians have been hostile to her, describing her as a despotic usurper of the throne. According to these historians, the reign of Wu Zetian ended in corruption, drinking, and the elderly ruler delighting in sexual relations with young men who enjoyed all imaginable favors and honors. In 705, she was forced to abdicate, her son Zhongzong was again enthroned, and the Tang was restored.
Further Reading
Jay, Jennifer, W. (1990) "Vignettes of Chinese Women in Tang Xi'an (618–906): Individualism in Wu Zetian, Yang Guifei, Yu Xuanji, and Li Wa." Chinese Culture 31, 1: 78–89.
Wills, John E., Jr. (1994) "Empress Wu." In Mountains of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 127–148.
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