Footbinding is widely condemned as perverse & as symbolic of male domination over women. This study offers a more complex explanation of a thousand year practice, contending that the binding of women's feet in China was sustained by the interests of both women and men.

Migrant women are the primary source of paid domestic labor around the world. Since the 1980s, the newly prosperous countries of East Asia have recruited foreign household workers at a rapidly increasing rate. Many come from the Philippines and Indonesia. Pei-Chia Lan interviewed and spent time with dozens of Filipina and Indonesian domestics working in and around Taipei as well as many of their Taiwanese employers. On the basis of the vivid ethnographic detail she collected, Lan provides a nuanced look at how boundaries between worker and employer are maintained and negotiated in private households. She also sheds light on the fate of the workers, “global Cinderellas” who seek an escape from poverty at home only to find themselves treated as disposable labor abroad. Lan demonstrates how economic disparities, immigration policies, race, ethnicity, and gender intersect in the relationship between the migrant workers and their Taiwanese employers. The employers are eager to flex their recently acquired financial muscle; many are first-generation career women as well as first-generation employers. The domestics are recruited from abroad as contract and “guest” workers; restrictive immigration policies prohibit them from seeking permanent residence or transferring from one employer to another. They care for Taiwanese families’ children, often having left their own behind. Throughout Global Cinderellas, Lan pays particular attention to how the women she studied identify themselves in relation to “others”—whether they be of different classes, nationalities, ethnicities, or education levels. In so doing, she offers a framework for thinking about how migrant workers and their employers understand themselves in the midst of dynamic transnational labor flows.

A rhyming retelling of the story of a young woman who finds her prince at a Halloween ball despite the efforts of her wicked stepmother. The main characters are skeletons.

‘You shall go to the ball!’ ...with these three Christmas Cinderella stories!

The depths of Ella's most intimate thoughts are revealed to show how she managed to harness her inner wisdom and move beyond being enslaved by her past, into a new life filled with love and abundance.The classic story of Cinderella urges a child to be kind with no exceptions. Yet being constantly kind to those who feel the need to take advantage can cause us to become vulnerable to being exploited, bullied and left disillusioned with low self-esteem.To also suggest that life miraculously works in our favour by just being kind, regardless of our personal need for respect and dignity can leave us powerless as we wait to be saved. Ella's world hit rock bottom as the stepmother and stepsisters had gone to the Royal Ball without her. Ella was left depressed, staring into the fireplace. Falling into a deep trance by the fire, Ella's realisations began to flood her mind with how some of her assumptions about how to treat herself and others contributed to her struggle.This was the beginning of a profound metamorphosis that would see a meek and timid girl move into her wisdom and power as a young woman. Ella made it to the Ball. Not because of a fairy godmother waving a wand but because Ella discovered the magic that comes from within. This is a remarkable journey of a girl who learned the art of reinventing herself to reclaim her self-worth and become empowered to make her precious dreams come true. It is a journey we all have the opportunity of taking as we grow in life and discover the assumptions we have made in our past that hold us back. It is a celebration, wrapped around a beautiful fairytale of old, of how we learn to rediscover ourselves and move into who we truly are and to be where we truly belong.