As a Chinese girl, I can't help but feel a deep sadness and frustration at the devaluation and suppression of women in East Asian patriarchal societies. Traditional Confucianism, with its emphasis on lineage and ancestor worship, has created a deeply ingrained social and economic disadvantage for women. The "male leads outside, female leads inside" family model has resulted in women being responsible for taking care of the family's young and old, often resulting in them quitting their jobs to become housewives. This devaluation of women is so deeply rooted in daily life that it is often seen as natural and expected. The concept of motherhood as the most important duty of women is a blatant suppression of female consciousness. This notion of "natural motherhood" has allowed men to shift the burden of child-rearing onto women's labor. The glorification of women as great mothers is a way of controlling women, as society expects them to play the role of sacrificial victims and take care of others. It is a suffocating feeling to see the pervasive and subtle denial and suppression of women in East Asian societies, and it fills me with despair.

There is a story in Chinese mythology about a housewife. According to legend, a poor but hard-working man picked up a large snail while working in the fields, took it home, and raised it in a tank. Strange things began to occur when he returned home from work; the house was always clean, and there was a good meal waiting for him. One day, he pretended to go out and secretly observed his home, where he saw a beautiful woman come out of the snail and clean his home. The snail girl immediately fell in love with the man and, in the end, they married and gave birth to a child. In this story, the illusory character of the snail girl satisfies both the material and sexual needs of men in the lower class. But because the snail girl is talented and beautiful, they have to dwarf her from the identity, so she is not a human being, but rather a sort of demon living in the snail. Countless married women and housewives in East Asia have suffered the same fate as the snail girl. Society has been invariably aggravated by the shackles of women, where girls are taught from childhood not to pursue success. The glorification of women as great mothers are in fact a means of controlling women — only by playing the role of sacrificer and caregiver, by being the mother of suffering, can women be revered.

In this set of illustrations inspired by housewives and snail girl, I created Chinese and Japanese versions of snail girls. They are monsters that grow out of the snail and are made of red hair, with six puppet hands, holding embroidery tools, tea sets, and baby toys that represent different household chores. At the same time wearing delicate makeup and hair accessories, holding fans for dancing prostitutes to twist their twisted bodies to please men. Since keeping the husband's sexual appetite in the midst of busy household chores is one of the standards of a "good wife”. When I designed the dynamics of the snail girl, I had a reference to the posture of the Oriental dragon. Because the dragon has always served as the representative of the supreme male in the East, ruling the world. On the other hand, as human beings like them, women are trapped in their homes and do not even have human dignity. The contrast between the two reveals the oppression of women in a patriarchal society.