Sunday, September 03, 2006
Snow Flower Question #4
Although the story takes place in the nineteenth century and seems very far removed from our lives --- we don't have our feet bound, we're free and mobile --- do you think we're still bound up in other ways; for instance, by career, family obligations, conventions of feminine beauty, or events beyond our control such as war, the economy, and natural disasters?
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I think that the world has changed so much for the better for women in our country the last hundred years or so. However, I also believe that women are still very much "bound" in many ways. Stephanie pointed out the physical standards of beauty we hold women to. I think that is a huge one in our own culture. Also, I think the standard we hold women to, to be the absolute best, smiling mommy and wife ALL of the time is another example. As an LCSW I work with survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Many of my clients have felt bound by societal expectations to remain in their abusive relationships.
I don't think we are bound, but sometimes we bind ourselves. I have been lucky that most of my friends come from different cultures and we kind of knocked down the boundaries by using humor at first and then we got passed that and now the bounds are broken. For instance I have a friend that has a lot of money. I always tease her because when she comes here I give her frozen pizza for lunch, when I go out with her she treats me to lunch at a nice restaraunt. I have a friend who is Arab and can you believe we can talk religion? Not only that but I find she is just like me. Maybe her country is in turmoil right now, and maybe her religion has been hijacked by jerks, but me and her are just the same, we both have the same needs, wants, and fears. That's why Lily and Snow Flower could have such a deep relationship even though they were worlds apart according to their society. The love they had for one another broke those bounds.
I don't think I can really say anything better than jerseygirl or christina, but I have a bit of a different take on it, too. I think high-heeled shoes are an example of modern foot-binding. (Believe me, I realize it doesn't compare to what happened in China.)However, it seems torturous and a bit counter intuitive. For a job interview, I was always told to wear a skirt and heels to be professional. I'm not sure why women should have to subject themselves to the pain of small, pointy uncomfortable shoes to prove they're serious or sexy.
From Tammy @ Spilling Your Coffee Beans - OK, I've been a slacker book club member. Nursing school started three weeks ago & I'm up to my eyelids in medical books. None of which are as interesting as this books seems. However, things are starting to slow down a bit & I will be picking this up at the library soon. So, I won't be reading any of the Written Word comments, since I don't want to spoil anything. But your questions posted on the site are awesome & I'll be hopping over fashionably late when I'm done. Ha, ha!
We are always "bound" by the life we are born into and our subsequent childhood. Much of what happens to us later in adulthood, especially the seemingly freewilled choices that we make, are mostly due to the circumstances that shaped our early lives. Depending on where you are born, or what your upbringing was like determines your later attitudes and expectations of life. Some people are bound in many aspects of their lives because of this, and some not so much.
This question haunted me the whole time I read the book. Each time I said to myself "this footbinding is just awful", I found myself wondering how we ourselves are 'bound'. Maybe this is where anorexia/bulemia comes in. We are definitely bound by our financial status...we 'have' to live in a certain type of house and 'have' to drive a certain type of car and 'have' to wear certain brands of clothes. Our lives are so bound up in earning money to buy things to impress people, that we are not very free to help people. Our feet are tied in a different way.
And we're bound by the media, and images in print ads, TV, movies, etc. My husband and I discussed that, because he was really horrified after I read him the description of the footbinding. But really, isn't plastic surgery, and botox injections, and (in my case) braces, and as you guys have already said, annorexia and conforming to painful fashions and submitting to abuse, all modern examples of the same quest for perfection and acceptance? Watching my teenage stepkids as they begin to form their young adult identities is sometimes painful, because there isn't a lot of healthy, positive images out there for them. No, they don't have to have their feet broken, but the message to be pretty and thin and dressed "right" and drive the "right" car and listen to the "right" music is just as powerful as it ever was.
This question reminds me of a point raised by Eve Ensler in her book The Good Body and also in Wendy Shanker's The Fat Girl's Guide to Life, that women today are still, to a great extent, compelled by society's norms to be consumed by their appearance, rather than channelling that effort and energy into say, eradicating poverty. While much of the modern constraints appear to be self-imposed, on a deeper level I think we are just like the women of the novel, following along with what's expected of us and doing what we 'should' and 'must' do.
I often wonder if 100 years from now, will our feminine ancestors look back on us with our push-up underwire bras, our beauty magazines and our botox and think we as are archaic and confined as we now think Victorian women (or the Chinese footbinders) to be.
I think we are still bound by expectations and roles. We likely bind ourselves more than others do but I know when someone makes a decision that seems "out of place" people have pretty strong reactions to that.
I think we are blessed to live in a time and place where if we have the courage to go against the norm or the expectations we have the freedom to do that.
Cari
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