Book Report - Snow Flower & the Secret Fan

A couple of months ago, a series of pictures were floating around the email world which captured the essence of the ancient practice of Chinese footbinding. These images have remained with me because of the initial horror I felt at first sight.

Ah, the magic of perspective. I was inspired to read this book after viewing these images. I've learned so much from introspection and reflection the book forced evaluate of in respect to the ancient gender-based literal and subjective concepts the still hold ground today-nearly 200 years later. This book really forced me to re-evalute the MOTIVE and reason behind the strong "roles" women play as emotional keepers of the "domestic" (ie the "inner")world, versus the men's phsycially strong roles as providers/protectors and controllers of the "outter world."

I am not easily convinced or persuaded to condone stereotyping or the notion of gender-based roles, however this book really magnified the POWER women have and the IMPORTANCE every woman's unique "femaleness."

One of the strangest concepts was this practice of footbinding - in which women's mothers were responsible for soaking their daughters feet in roots, herbs, and urine then wrapping them as tightly as they can in a series of shrinking wraps until the bones softened and eventually broke, in which case the bones could literally be "folded" under the largest toe. The goal was to create a foot no larger than a thumb (look at the size of the shoe in this picture.) The smaller the foot, the more desirable the women (in fact, her foot was more "secret" and sexual than her actual private areas.) The more desirable the women, the higher the price was paid to her family for the right to marry. A woman's future was completely determined by the size and shape of her feet, insomuch her entire financial destiny and prodigy would be determined by it. The brutal beauty was each woman gladly accepted the fate of the broken and tiny feet, the years of pain and agony (which is grimly detailed in the book), because from it they had the power to completely (literally) haped their entire future. In a world of so much uncertainty and fatalistic control-based thinking, they harnessed the 1 thing they could control and used it improve their personal circumstance: their bodies.

Also, this book also examines the importance of the female's NEED to communicate as an outlet, and the significance of female friends.

All in all, the book is written well with many solid historical references and fantastic flow. This is an easy read - only 260(ish) pages, and well worth the time.

Take a weekend and read it!