PRIMARY SOURCE - Western View of Chinese Women
The above image is a photo taken of a Chinese woman. Note her small feet pointing out from under her outfit. Small feet (bound feet) were considered very attractive to Chinese men. Women that had small feet were seen as more desirable because they could barely walk; it was a mark of wealth if a family could afford to cripple their daughter they must have not needed her labor, so they must be wealth. This, of course, was just an assumption, may peasant families cripple their daughters in hope of marrying them off to wealthy families, or selling them as concubines.
Right now you must be thinking, "sure Ms. Grohol, but why is there a picture of Kim Kardashian?" The same way that we are fascinated by unrealistic body shapes today, Chinese men were in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. I am certainly not condoning footbinding at all, but is it really so weird to fetishize body parts? Even if one needs plastic surgery to achieve that specific look? Unfortunately not, we have that exact same sentiment in America today.
But I digress. Our final learning activity for the week has us reading an 1890 primary document in which Chinese women are the focus. This document is great because it is a continuation of the chapter that we just read which discusses popular sentiment towards Chinese women at the turn of the century. We already learned that most Americans were suspicious of the Chinese, especially Chinese women.
As you work your way through the following short piece, how does the author describe Chinese women? Also, please pay attention to the actual content of the piece, such as what he says about selling Chinese women into prostitution. But you want to remember, take these observations with a grain of salt because of the inherent bias.
PRIMARY SOURCE - Western View of Chinese Women Links to an external site.
I encourage you to play around a bit on this webpage, it is full of very interesting primary sources.
Finally, lots and lots of Chinese women were trafficked into the United States (it is still happening to this very day). If you would like to read about one specific Chinese woman that was sold into sexual slavery, I highly recommend you read the following monograph:
Finally, finally, if you would like to know more about the practice of foot binding, please read the following Smithsonian article explaining why this crippling practice was so common in China for such a long time.