The death of Kingston's aunt, No Name Woman, supposedly occurred in the same decade in which Shen wrote "Xiaoxiao." Because the practice of killing or selling adulteresses was still common, Kingston's portrayal of No Name Woman's suicide is a believable account of what might have happened to her aunt. As in Shen's story of Xiaoxiao, Kingston emphasizes the gender-based prejudice that her aunt faced: "Mothers who love their children take them along [in death]. It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys." However, what Kingston does not consider, perhaps because to do so is too emotionally charged, is that her aunt's suicide may not have been suicide at all, but may have been murder, an option that Xiaoxiao's uncle seriously weighs for his niece. No Name Woman gives birth first before committing suicide to see whether the baby is a boy or girl, for a male child could perhaps save her life. Following Kingston's deduction that the baby is likely a girl, perhaps No Name Woman, by drowning herself instead of letting a lynch mob execute her, simply fulfills the inevitable. As Kingston explains, boys are valued over girls in Chinese culture; even today in rural China, the practice of killing girls at birth is not unknown.
Another Chinese author whose literary works deal with many of the issues featured in The Woman Warrior is Ding Ling. In many of her short stories, for example, "Miss Sophie's Diary" and "When I was in Xia Village," she details the conflicts experienced by young women who try to secure personal, individual voices and freedoms in a twentieth-century China still shackled by patriarchal traditions. Ding Ling patterned these stories after the experiences of people she knew, particularly her mother, who had an unusual, non-traditional career analogous to that of Kingston's mother's. When Ding Ling's father died, her mother, who was then thirty years old, enrolled in the Provincial First Girls' Normal School to prepare for a career as a teacher. In the moving story "Mother," Ding Ling writes about her mother's courage and determination to succeed as a woman in a male-dominated society. As it was indeed rare for adult women in early-twentieth-century China to pursue professional studies, both Kingston's and Ding Ling's mothers made extraordinary career decisions. When Ding Ling's mother completed her education, she started two schools in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, and young Ding Ling began her education there.
