Daughters of the Sun and Moon challenges historical patriarchal and misogynistic practices that denied Chinese women their humanity by critiquing these attitudes and behaviors and showing how sexism and racism acts as an apologia for exploitation. The novel quickly establishes the social context in which Chinese women were considered property to be bought and sold by men. Just before Petal is auctioned off in Chapter 4, her Chinese trafficker says, “It will be best if you remember the saying that is older than time. Noodles are not real food, and women are not real human beings […] You belong to us, and you will do as I say” (43). By quoting a Chinese proverb that dehumanizes women, and linking this to male ownership, See emphasizes the cultural misogyny that enabled such practices, which is replicated—or exacerbated—through its relocation to the US. The narrative explicitly details the intersectional discrimination experienced by Chinese women in the US, as Moon recollects, “We didn’t have the right to own land, marry a white person, vote, or testify in court against a white American. And, as women, we could be bought, sold, and owned” (25). This exposition makes clear that their rights as women are denied by Chinese social codes and that their wider human rights are denied by racist American ant-immigration law, making them doubly disadvantaged. Moon’s 82-year-old hindsight of this position and first-person perspective—“we”— emphasizes her personhood while also detailing its historical denial, setting up the narrative’s tension between the women’s human experiences and society’s insistent dehumanization of them.

The details of Petal’s experience of being trafficked across the Pacific, with a “[r]ope around [her] neck” and herded into close, unsanitary conditions in the ship’s hold (17), invites implicit comparison to the transport of Black enslaved people across the Atlantic. Through this comparison, the novel highlights the lesser-known plight of enslaved Chinese women and the shock of this being done in plain sight in the 1870s. Moon clarifies the comparison here: “The buying, selling, and owning of human beings is now against the law in this country. But […] No one seems to care that this is happening to girls like you here in California” (75). The novel also shows how the ostensible “contract” between Headman Sam and the women he controls is a fiction: The women haven’t understood or consented to the contract that they can’t read, and the initial payment is given to their fathers, making them the victims of trafficking.

The novel draws parallels between the overt sexual exploitation of Petal and the selling of women as wives, which hides dehumanization behind a respectable facade. The Chinese matchmaker articulates this openly to Dove’s father: “You have been raising Dove for her husband and […] she will belong to them. This is a daughter’s destiny” (7). Her words highlight the idea that a wife is “owned” by her husband and that this gendered perception is intrinsic and inescapable for women. Although Dove’s father initially resists sending Dove overseas, he’s soon “pondering how quickly he can receive the bride price” (7), showing that Dove’s inherent value as a person has quickly been overridden by her sale price. These words foreshadow Dove’s experience of married life; as Old Man Sing becomes more controlling, the novel again uses a Chinese proverb as his self-justification: “[W]hen her husband passes through the room, he recites as if to the sky […] ‘Do not regard wives as real human beings’” (193). He masks his personal motivations as culturally appropriate behavior, using this to highlight Dove’s powerlessness. 

The novel uses the women’s perspectives to push back against this misogyny, offering a counternarrative. As Petal says, “We know what we are but that doesn’t mean we like hearing it spoken so freely. Property. Not a girl. Not a woman. Not even a human” (220). In describing how the world sees her, Petal’s words also reveal the cognitive dissonance caused by being viewed as “unhuman”—a proposition that the individual psyche cannot accept. The women’s increasing assertion of humanity happens in various ways and at different paces for each character. Petal, as the most assertive, immediately declares, “I will not be owned” (75), upon hearing the terms of her “contract,” words that cite her sense of inviolable humanity. Dove’s journey to self-realization takes longer. When, in Chapter 15, Petal thinks, “I look for one thing—a person. Dove” (116), her inner voice assert’s Dove’s personhood before Dove herself is able to. Similarly, Moon is shown internalizing cultural messaging: “I fell in behind Gene, following in his wake as was proper. He stopped after a few paces and took my elbow. ‘You are not in China, and you are not my chattel,’ he said” (30). By reversing the pattern—making the man the champion of female humanity—the novel emphasizes both the unusual equality of Moon’s marriage and her assimilated self-deprecation. As the novel progresses, all three women’s self-identity improves, until Moon is able to declare that they have “discovered [their] voices, found freedom and changed [their] destinies” (348).

The personal perspectives of the three women emphasize their humanity by showing the reality of their full inner lives, highlighting the gap between their lived experiences and the social codes that deny them personhood. The novel also explores the ways in which female characters assert their intrinsic humanity—whether outwardly or internally—and navigate a world that denies them basic human rights.