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Why did traditional Chinese literati so often identify themselves withwomen in their writing? What can this tell us about how they viewedthemselves as men and how they understood masculinity? How didtheir attitudes in turn shape the martial heroes and other masculinemodels they constructed? Martin Huang attempts to answer thesequestions in this valuable work on manhood in late imperial China. Hefocuses on the ambivalent and often paradoxical role played by womenand the feminine in the intricate negotiating process of male genderidentity in late imperial cultural discourses.