The Study Of Mosuo’s House In Gender Perspective

As buildings bearing regional culture,folk houses accommodate all the activities of Mosuo people’s life and production to the greatest extent.For Mosuo people,this is not only a physical living space,but also a holy spirit space where people live together with god.The traditional gender consciousness and power structure condensed in the residential space not only conveys Mosuo people’s outlook on life and values,but also epitomizes the active matriarchal clan culture in the contemporary era.The traditional Mosuo residence pattern continues from generation to generation,so the power hierarchy can be passed on from generation to generation.Influenced by the organizational principles of matrilineal social system,hereditary power is inherited by female members,and the right to speak to the family is innate.From the process of function ownership,space allocation,occupancy and use,women always play a role as power organizers and leaders,while men,at the beginning of the construction of folk houses,exclude their rights to space from the matrilineal cultural system and play the role of power executors.Mosuo residential buildings,whether large to the entire courtyard or specific to a certain space,have a clear gender attribution.The male space and the female space are distinct and independent,and the male and female members abide by the restrictions of space norms in their respective spatial domain,act in their own ways,and enjoy the security and comfort brought about by them.With the development of market economy and tourism,traditional Mosuo folk houses have changed,the pattern of unified dwellings gradually replaced by new and various forms of dwellings.Many factors such as technological improvement,policy management and so on have added fuel to the flame,but what’s more important is the influence of the motive force such as family main body and living concept of social members.Traditional spatial structure has been broken,infrastructure has been reset,and gender behavior and gender consciousness attached to residential buildings have changed subsequently.At the same time,the control and use of space by both sexes have changed.The relationship between male and female members and residential space has become more and more equal.In modern folk houses,men can also have independent and stationery living space.On this basis,it further triggered the subversion of the traditional gender structure system,and even the impact on the entire Mosuo social order.Based on the change of residential pattern,new standards have been derived from spatial norms.Under the infiltration of modern residential mode and behavior mode,the power structure relationship between heterosexual members and homosexual members in Mosuo matrilineal family is approaching to the mainstream gender behavior mode in modern society.This paper is aimed to explore the conjunction of modern lifestyle and traditional national concepts,explore the transition process of Mosuo’s folk houses and even the whole cultural level,and thus provide reference for the prediction of the state and change of Mosuo’s gender consciousness and the future trend of Mosuo’s folk houses.