View Item 
        •   Utrecht University Student Theses Repository Home
        • UU Theses Repository
        • Theses
        • View Item
        •   Utrecht University Student Theses Repository Home
        • UU Theses Repository
        • Theses
        • View Item
        JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

        Browse

        All of UU Student Theses RepositoryBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

        Footbinding, Sexuality and Transnational Feminism

        View/Open
        footbinding, sexuality and transnational feminism--final version.pdf (815.8Kb)
        Publication date
        2009
        Author
        Zhang, Yuan
        Metadata
        Show full item record
        Summary
        Footbinding was a Chinese custom where women bound their feet with cloth to make them smaller. As a special culture, it has spread its influence deeply into various fields in Chinese social life (both female and male) during the past centuries, such as music, dance, painting, literature, costume, and so on. In this thesis, I trace back the origin and evolution of footbinding, as well as the history of research and representation of footbinding. By comparing the Western and Eastern scholarship, I find that although the methodology and keystone in their studies are quite different, they both noticed the close relationship between footbinding and sexuality. Therefore I discuss to what sense that footbinding plays the crucial role in sexuality in ancient China. By raising an ignored example, an oral document of a bound-feet woman talking about her experiences of footbinding and sexual life, I rethink the process of footbinding studies from the feminist perspective.
        URI
        https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/3600
        Collections
        • Theses
        Utrecht university logo