妇女史研究，在本世纪初逐渐由冷变热。在前人的研究基础上，作者从宋代的女德教育入手展示笔记内外所见的妇女生活。靖康之难中女性所遭受的性暴力，对南宋以後女德教育的苛刻化有重大影响。以社会性别理论作为分析的主要工具，是本书的一大特色。笔记为主要的资料来源，作者又尝试利用地下發掘的墓葬壁畫等图像史料，作为文献资料的参照。尝试将图像史料与文献资料相对照为本書的特色之二。依据宋代的文献资料,其中妇女史研究方面，学界有重于精英妇女的倾向, 对于庶民妇女群体的研究最为薄弱。本书选取妾与乳母这两个群体作为观察的重点，由於她们具有由下層向上層流動的特點，此为本书的特色之三。

In this feminist history of eight centuries of private life in China, Francesca Bray inserts women into the history of technology and adds technology to the history of women. Bray takes issue with the Orientalist image that traditional Chinese women were imprisoned in the inner quarters, deprived of freedom and dignity, and so physically and morally deformed by footbinding and the tyrannies of patriarchy that they were incapable of productive work. She proposes a concept of gynotechnics, a set of everyday technologies that define women's roles, as a creative new way to explore how societies translate moral and social principles into a web of material forms and bodily practices. Bray examines three different aspects of domestic life in China, tracing their developments from 1000 to 1800 A.D. She begins with the shell of domesticity, the house, focusing on how domestic space embodied hierarchies of gender. She follows the shift in the textile industry from domestic production to commercial production. Despite increasing emphasis on women's reproductive roles, she argues, this cannot be reduced to childbearing. Female hierarchies within the family reinforced the power of wives, whose responsibilities included ritual activities and financial management as well as the education of children.

近些年来，随着新史料的出土，以及妇女史观的多元化，中国妇女史的研究视角也越来越广泛，重新解读或诠释妇女问题成为热门研究。本书所推荐的19篇论文，分别从妇女地位、性别与身体、书写妇女、妇女形象建构、媒体与性别、恋爱与婚姻六个方面，对中国历史上各个时期的妇女史进行了独特而深入的研究，试图为中国妇女史提供新的研究方向。