| |
| | Aching for Beauty |
 | | Even though footbinding was not practiced by every woman in late Imperial China, the aesthetic, financial, and erotic advantages of footbinding permeated all aspects of language, ranging from erotic poetry, novels, and performances to food writing, myths, folk songs and ditties, and secret women's writing, some of it hidden in embroidery. |
 | | She also shows that footbinding should not be viewed merely as a function of men's oppression of women, but rather as a phenomenon of male and female desire deeply rooted in traditional Chinese culture. |
 | | "Aching for Beauty demonstrates the complexity and the manifestations of a civilization's obsession with the body-its beauty, its fulfillment, its destruction, and its transformation. |
| www.upress.umn.edu /Books/P/ping_aching.html (743 words) |
|