Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet

Available as e-book

The book aims to bring together a fascinating compendium of witticisms on women—more than 15,000 sayings from around the globe and translated from more than 240 languages. In cultures all over the globe, sex and gender issues have been expressed in proverbs, the world’s smallest literary genre. This irresistible book provides revealing insights into the female condition across centuries and continents.

Mineke Schipper discovered surprisingly more similarities than differences in thousands of proverbs about women, originating from hundreds of languages and more than 150 countries. Those vivid and earthy proverbs reflect women’s phases of life: from girl to bride, to wife or cowife; from mother to mother-in-law, widow and randmother; the joys and sorrows of love, sex, and childbearing; women’s work, their talents, and their power.

This is an intriguing cross-cultural history of humanity, a history that has to do with all of us, in its bewildering views of men and women. Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet is a stunning and entertaining rough guide showing us how far both sexes have progressed on the road towards world citizenship where, in the words of a Tibetan proverb,‘A hundred male and a hundred female qualities make a perfect human being.’

Mineke Schipper is professor of intercultural literary studies at the University of Leiden.

On May 19, Mineke Schipper told about her research at Radio 538 during the Evers Staat Op radio show. The interview can be found here.
(In Dutch)