Certianly if the Confucians came out to oppose it explicitly, it would have been great, but they didn’t. However, neither were they really responsible for this practice. I might note that Cheng Yi, a staunch and famous Confucian of the Song era, forbade his female family members and descendents to bind their feet. There were other Confucians who opposed foot bounding as well.

As for the Confucian position on women, again a complicated topic. Let’s just say while women did not have an equal position to men within Confucian teachings, they were also not as low as some people make them out to be. Also, status of women in Chinese society does change overtime in her long history. One can read works by Dorothy Ko and Patricia Ebrey on this topic for more.

Also, Confucianism has not had much influence in modern China anyway. Anti-traditionalism has had the upper-hand. These days, the CCP are not really promoting Confucianism either. Schools are not really teaching it. The CCP certainly don’t encourage political remonstrations, which is central to Confuciansim. The CCP members know very little about Confucianism, and many of them are still against it, due to Marxist teachings. Therefore, the CCP is not a Confucian government, it is basically devoid of Confucian content. In addition, most Chinese don’t really practice Confucianism, nor do they know much about it. Many of them are also against it. All of these have been the case since the May 4th.

As for Jiang Qing, really, not that many Chinese are truly paying attention to him either. So I think he has very little influence. Danile Bell’s ideas also won’t work in China today, given there are really no Confucians scholars left. It would be very very difficult to train them again, since most Chinese don’t have good classical langauge skills anymore. In modern China, there is a loss of faith of tradition, which still exist today among perhaps the great majority of Chinese population. So overall, I don’t think Jiang and Bell can do much with their ideas.

Full disclosure; although I do not subscribe to the above misconception, I in now way claim any knowledge or understanding of Confucian thought.

No one seems to have any sympathy for men in “traditionally” dangerous jobs that are crippled and killed when they aren’t being underpaid.

However, in the grand scheme of male-chauvinism and under-respect for women, that seems to be a world-wide phenomenon. Ultimately, if it is happening, I don’t think it makes much difference whether it occurs in the name of religion, culture, or whatever else.

Drop your tiresome white knight act. If Confucianism stood in the way of Christianity and Islam in China, it only benefited them on balance.

Other than that, Confucianism barred women from intellectual posts they often deserved, but also lessened punishment dealt to them. It often made mothers powerful as well.

There’s a reason why murder, assault and rape against women in Confucian societies is so much lower than your much-vaunted wonderful chivalrous West.