Customer Reviews

Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (Philip A. Lilienthal Asian Studies Imprint)

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Like a typical Westerner, when I first encountered the story of bound feet Chinese women, I was horrified. How could someone actually do something like that? But my initial disgust grew into interest, and I found I wanted to learn more than simply see the results of the practice of binding feet. The world is full of misinformation of this custom.

After reading Beverly Jackson's Splendid Slippers (a beautiful and informative book), I decided to find a more academic text on footbinding, and selected Dorothy Ko's Cinderella's Sisters. This book has provided me with a thorough overview of the historical context of footbinding. It explores the difference in gender perceptions of bound feet, the different definitions of bound feet, and more. Ko's style is very readable, and I appreciated her using Chinese terms (tiangzu, chanzu, fangzu) and their rich interpretations to illustrate her points and describe the historical context.

Dorothy Ko locates the core of interpretation for footbinding lost in so much that has been written on the topic for the last 150 years. Ko has written extensively on the topic, feeling that such a complex phenomenon cannot be adequately explained by a book or two. Not content with prevailing feminist writings which privilege "oppressive patriarchy" as the only worthwhile conclusion, Ko frequently attracts critics who often suggest she glorifies footbinding and undoes strides towards gender equality. It's even been implied she undermines advancements made since the May Fourth events which empowered Chinese women almost 90 years ago.
Though some readers feel she euphemizes the "crippled feet" by resorting to cultural poetics which justify oppression, she actually advances a much more sophisticated strategy employed by the Han women of late imperial China. Rather than rage conspicuously against patriarchy the path lies in re-appropriating the meaning of footbinding to a custom that subverts the gender inequity; in short, diminishment of the oppression from within its complicity.
With Cinderella's Sisters Ko addresses the rhetorics called chanzu, tianzu, and fengzu (bound feet, natural feet, and letting out feet, repectively). A conflation of male desires, and a redefined view women had about their own bodies are both at odds with each other yet bound together in a custom whose meaning differs not just across gender and class, but across time and place. Ko produces very original and badly needed insights through new readings of Gu Hongming (1857-1928) and Wang Jingqi (1672-1726) contrasted with (some say) biased western scholars such as R. H. van Gulik (1910-1967) and Howard S. Levy (1920- ).
By translating women-authored works from anthologies of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Ko delights readers of this latest work who benefit by having the feminine perspective so often missing. When this recovered discourse converges with the new deeper readings of male texts, both anecdotal and scholarly, the subjectivity of a whole society comes together, resulting in unprecedented integrity. Indeed, Dorothy Ko's greatest "fault" is appending the subtitle A Revisionist History of Footbinding to Cinderella's Sisters. This book is not revisionist - this book is vision, belonging on every bookshelf of every library.

This study is by a Barnard College professor that I heard lecture at the China Institute in New York City. The traditional Chinese cultural custom of deforming women's feet to make them smaller, resulting in pain, deformity, and disability, is no longer practiced. But it is a complex and controversial subject involving, among other things, sex, social status, and feminism. For me the value of this book is the author's focus on the perspectives of women who experienced, continued, and even promoted the practice, highlighting their views on it's costs and benefits. It's a useful counterpoint and a rich resource.

Dorothy Ko brings us back to ancient China, reaching several hundred years back into the Earth. In this stunning, well-researched novel, she showcases attempts to explain the origins, opinions, appeal, feelings, and end of footbinding. Ko managed to incorporate actual writings from both Western and Chinese writers as sources. Also included are a few photos of tiny shoes, women with bound feet, and the bare bound foot itself.

Because the author is a university professor, I expected her to write in a boring, droning style. It's not so.

The writing style is as readable as possible to retain her meanings for the readers. Some words may be complex for those who are not native speakers of English, but the context is easy enough to comprehend so that it wouldn't be particularly important.

I finished this book having learned so much about footbinding. Previously, I had many questions about the subject, but she answered all of them in her book. It is definitely a good publication and resource about the topic. Each chapter has been thoroughly researched and compiled. Ko provides so much detail and insight, I feel the book is definitely worth every penny!

Highly recommended for university students or those with a huge interest in Asian cultures or Asian Studies majors.

i enjoyed reading the book, but wish the kindle version [which is what i have] had the following: clickable footnotes, pagination and the illustrations listed - i've looked on EVERY page, & there are NO illustrations, even though there's a list of them in the table of contents... which states they follow page 138. however, you can't go to a page of this version [you can in most kindle books], & when i finally determined what the page numbers were, the last page listed [found via my kindle for mac app] was page 76 - which would make it difficult to go to page 138, wouldn't it?
topic is interesting, writing engaging, few typos [often an issue w/kindle books], so worth the read, but i feel like i was cheated of the full experience of this book.

It's a wonderful book for chinese women's history, let you learn about the history of footbinding in feminism perspective.