二十世紀以來，由於歷史和政治原因，儒家思想受到前所未有的抨擊，而舊中國婦女所遭受的種種待遇，往往被視為性別歧視所致，而其根源則不少學者都歸咎於儒家思想。孔子於是成為眾矢之的，而《論語》〈陽貨•唯女子與小人為難養章〉則變成儒家性別歧視的罪證所在。西方性別研究流行以來，影響所及，漢學家對儒家的性別歧視的認定更可謂不言而喻。然而，儒家傳統並未以〈唯女子與小人為難養章〉為性別歧視的根據，其中朱熹的說法既正確而又具代表性，女子與小人指的乃是家中的「臣妾」，不關性別。朱說精當簡要，但並未提出論證，學者多不信從。本文將從概念範疇、語用分析、文脈內證、文際互證乃至義理通貫各方面，嘗試為朱子說法補充理據，並以此章為例，略述朱子詮釋學的一二。

Since the early twentieth century, the situation for women in traditional China, owing to various historical reasons and political motivations, was criticized as the consequences and evidence of sexism, which many scholars have attributed to Confucianism. Confucius has thus been harshly condemned for his discrimination of women on the unanimous basis of Analects 17.25, where he allegedly said that "only women and petty people are difficult to deal with." Yet, prior to the twentieth century, this passage was rarely read in a gender perspective. The gender reading clearly is a product of modern scholarship and is empowered and reinforced by gender studies in the West. The time gap evidently contributes to the hermeneutical discrepancy between Confucius's intended meaning and modern scholars' interpretations. In interpreting classical texts, Zhu Xi朱熹 (1130-1200) strove to recover their "original meanings." With regard to Analects 17.25, he did not read it from a gender perspective and took "women" and "petty people" to mean "male servants" and "maids" instead. Zhu's gloss on the passage, however, is brief and concise and he did not provide any argument for his reading. This paper, citing Zhu Xi's relevant discussions, provides the argumentation he himself might have offered and examines his reading from a variety of perspectives including conceptual categories, pragmatic analysis, contextual unity, and intertextual cross-referencing. It will also test Zhu's reading against the philosophical coherence of Confucius's teaching on interpersonal relationships. In conclusion, Zhu's own hermeneutic principles will be briefly analyzed with regard to Analects 17.25.