Footbinding and Women's Labor in Sichuan

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Through extensive fieldwork and interviews with nearly 5,000 women, the book explores the practice of footbinding in Sichuan during the late imperial era and the tumultuous period leading up to the 1949 revolution. It investigates parental motivations for continuing this tradition and the role of girls' labor in pre-industrial China. Hill Gates argues that footbinding served as a means of labor discipline, reflecting broader changes in the political economy during the early twentieth century.