When Chinese women bound their daughters’ feet, many consequences ensued, some beyond the imagination of the binders and the bound. The most obvious of these consequences was to impress upon a small child’s body and mind that girls differed from boys, thus reproducing gender hierarchy. What is not obvious is why Chinese society should have evolved such a radical method of gender-marking. Gendering is not simply preparation for reproduction, rather its primary significance lies in preparing children for their places in the division of labor of a particular political economy.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with almost 5,000 women, this book examines footbinding as Sichuan women remember it from the final years of the empire and the troubled times before the 1949 revolution. It focuses on two key questions: what motivated parents to maintain this custom, and how significant was girls’ work in China’s final pre-industrial century? In answering these questions, Hill Gates shows how footbinding was a form of labor discipline in the first half of the twentieth century in China, when it was a key institution in a now much-altered political economy. Countering the widely held views surrounding the sexual attractiveness of bound feet to Chinese men, footbinding as an ethnic boundary marker, its role in female hypergamy, and its connection to state imperatives, this book instead presents a compelling argument that footbinding was in fact a crucial means of disciplining of little girls to lives of early and unremitting labor.
This vivid and fascinating study will be of huge interest to students and scholars working across a wide range of fields including Chinese history, oral history, anthropology and gender studies.
Hill Gates is Professor Emerita in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Social Work at Central Michigan University, USA.
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这本书在方法论上的创新性是极其突出的,它超越了传统社会史对单一时间线索的依赖,展现出一种多维度的交叉分析视角。我惊喜地发现,作者将经济人类学的分析框架,非常自然地植入了社会性别史的考察之中,这种跨学科的融合,极大地拓宽了我们理解历史现象的维度。尤其是对劳动分工和资源分配的细致描摹,揭示了那些被主流叙事长期忽略的底层逻辑。这种精密的分析,要求读者必须调动起逻辑推理的能力,去审视那些看似根深蒂固的社会规范,是如何在物质基础的变动中悄然松动的。它不是提供一个简单的“是”或“否”的答案,而是构建了一个复杂的因果网络,迫使读者去思考不同社会因素间相互作用的微妙力量,其学术深度令人叹服。
评分作者的叙事节奏把握得极为精妙,他没有急于抛出宏大的论断,而是像一位经验丰富的考古学家,一步步地剥开历史的尘土,展示出那些零碎却至关重要的田野材料和口述证据。那种娓娓道来的叙事方式,仿佛是作者在亲身走访那些古老的村落,与那些沉默的记忆碎片进行对话。这种“在场感”是很多纯粹的文献研究难以企及的。在论述某个特定习俗的演变时,作者巧妙地穿插了生活化的场景描绘,使得那些抽象的社会结构分析立刻变得鲜活起来,充满了人性的温度和挣扎。我注意到,作者在引用地方志和地方文献时,极具匠心,他没有简单地堆砌史料,而是将其熔铸于论证的血肉之中,为论点提供了坚实且富有地方色彩的支撑,让人在阅读过程中,既能领略到宏观历史的脉络,又不失对微观个体命运的关怀。
评分这本书的装帧设计本身就散发着一种引人入胜的古典气息,那种厚重的纸张和略带泛黄的字体,让人仿佛穿越回了那个特定的历史年代。装帧的沉稳与内容探讨的沉重形成了奇妙的张力。我尤其欣赏封面采用的那种低饱和度的色彩,它没有过多地渲染戏剧性,反而以一种近乎学术的克制态度,引导读者去深思那些被时间掩埋的复杂议题。翻开内页,排版干净利落,注释详尽而不突兀,显示出作者在史料梳理上的极高专业度。这种对细节的关注,让我在阅读过程中感到一种被尊重和引导的体验。它不是那种浮夸的畅销书,而是一本需要静下心来,慢慢品味的学术力作,每一个章节的过渡都如同精心雕琢的乐章,层次分明,引人入胜。它成功地营造了一种严肃的阅读氛围,让读者在尚未深入文本之前,就已经对其中蕴含的重量有所感知。
评分如果要用一句话来概括这本书带给我的整体感受,我会说,它是一次对历史“常识”的彻底颠覆与重建。它没有采用那种激昂的控诉式口吻,而是通过扎实、无懈可击的证据链,不动声色地完成了对既有历史框架的解构。这种“润物细无声”的学术力量,远比直白的批判更具穿透力。每一次阅读的深入,都像是在揭开一层迷雾,让我看到了那个特定社会中,结构性限制如何塑造了个体生活的每一个面向,以及个体如何在这些限制中,寻求微小的、有时甚至是悖论性的生存策略。这本书无疑为我们理解特定地域的历史变迁提供了一个极其精妙的分析范例,其思想的延展性和启发性,值得所有关注社会变迁的学者和普通读者细细品味。
评分读完此书,心中涌起一股复杂的情感,它既有对历史真相被揭示的震撼,也有对往昔生活细节的深沉喟叹。作者的文字有一种独特的共情能力,他似乎深知,面对那些沉重的历史遗产,冰冷的学术批判是不够的,还需要一种温和的同理心去触碰那些受苦受难的灵魂。全书的情感基调是克制的,但恰恰是这种克制,使得偶尔流露出的悲悯和对个体能动性的肯定,显得尤为有力。它成功地让读者从一个旁观者的身份,逐步转化成一个理解者,甚至可以说是一个历史的见证者。这种情感上的投入和智识上的提升是同步发生的,读完之后,会感觉自己对人类经验的复杂性有了更深一层的洞察。
评分not interested at all but I need to finish my report qaq
评分not interested at all but I need to finish my report qaq
评分not interested at all but I need to finish my report qaq
评分not interested at all but I need to finish my report qaq
评分not interested at all but I need to finish my report qaq
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