Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 4 Questions/Comments"
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(→Judy Yung, "The Social Awakening of Chinese American Women as Reported in ''Chung Sai Yat Po'', 1900-1911") |
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The comparison between bound feet and corsets was very important. Westerners are quick to judge bound feet for the horrible physical impact they had on women, but really, corsets were not any better. They bent ribcages, moved organs around, etc. My great grandmother still had to wear a corset long after they were out of fashion because her body was incapable of supporting itself anymore. And in both the case of foot binding and corsets, while it's true that men perpetuated the situation because of their ideas of what a beautiful woman should look like, women themselves were the ones to support the practices and get their daughters to do so as a sign of their femininity. I think the author took too much of a black-and-white stance on the subject of foot binding, which as painful as it was, it was not simply a sign of the oppression of Chinese women by Chinese men. That being said, it was important for Chinese women, both in China and America, to reject that tradition in order to begin to step out of their traditional roles. - Alice W. | The comparison between bound feet and corsets was very important. Westerners are quick to judge bound feet for the horrible physical impact they had on women, but really, corsets were not any better. They bent ribcages, moved organs around, etc. My great grandmother still had to wear a corset long after they were out of fashion because her body was incapable of supporting itself anymore. And in both the case of foot binding and corsets, while it's true that men perpetuated the situation because of their ideas of what a beautiful woman should look like, women themselves were the ones to support the practices and get their daughters to do so as a sign of their femininity. I think the author took too much of a black-and-white stance on the subject of foot binding, which as painful as it was, it was not simply a sign of the oppression of Chinese women by Chinese men. That being said, it was important for Chinese women, both in China and America, to reject that tradition in order to begin to step out of their traditional roles. - Alice W. | ||
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| + | I agree with Alice that foot binding was as much perpetuated by Chinese women as it was by Chinese men--in the accounts that I've read, it was the mothers and grandmothers, of their own accord and not under orders from a man, who imposed the foot binding on their daughters and granddaughters. The necessity of abolishing this practice to further the emancipation of Chinese (and Chinese American) women was interesting to read--it appeared to be a strong cultural symbol (much like the corset, which was mentioned) that opened doors for larger freedoms. The other interesting idea I got from this article was how nationalistic the Chinese American women were. Although they lived in a different country, they identified less with their rights as women in the new country than they did with the rights of women in their ancestral home. --Sarah Smethurst | ||
== Chapter 1 – Visions of the New Woman == | == Chapter 1 – Visions of the New Woman == | ||
