February 23, 2026

Circles of Women: A Discussion of Chinese Women's Lives
Dorothy Bonnett

Since a large amount of Westerners first came into contact with China in the nineteenth century, there has been a special interest in the lives of Chinese women. Stereotypes ranging from "dragon lady" to "tiger mom" abound, as well as images of concubines, discarded daughters and, of course, bound feet. 

In recent years, the lens of feminism has focused on this alien and ancient culture and popular novels like Lisa See’s Lady Tan’s Circle of Women explore the lives of those who ‘transcended’ what is seen as millennia of oppression. 

But how accurate is this view? In her talk, Dorothy Trench Bonnett will discuss what recent research tells about women in China pre-1911, often from their own writings, searching for a more nuanced view of complex human beings with differing experiences at different time periods in a society that was never static or uniform.

Presenter

Dorothy Trench Bonett has given many talks for Torch over the years. She is a prize-winning poet and translator, with a long-standing interest in women’s writing. She is fluent in French and Chinese. Dorothy studied both at Yale University where she received her B.A. and M.A., at Université de Paris, and at Taipei Language Institute. 

Dorothy taught at Mount Saint Mary’s University for many years, as well as at Hood College. She has presented numerous papers at academic conferences such as the Villanova Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Conference and International Conference on Medieval Studies, published translations as well as original poetry, and served as a judge for PenAmerica. 

Her translation of Xu Zhimo’s poetry, Broad Sea and Empty Sky, was short-listed for the Lucien Srtryk Asian Translation Prize. Her books are available on Amazon.