湖南妹子钱小红少女时代便离开家乡，先到当地县城打工，后和另一女孩一起到广东S城，成为"北妹"（广东等地对外来打工妹的称呼）中的一员。她们作为城市的边缘人，经济上真正的无产者，除了劳力和身体一无所有，性别上是"被悔辱和被损害"的第二性，所以无论在发廊、工厂，还是在酒店、宾馆，处处受到各色男人骚扰和城市女人的猜忌。此外，背景出生又给予她们地域文化上的天然劣势，因而她们的生活混乱而艰辛。钱小红由于过早发育，生了一对丰乳，天然地被很多人从良家妇女的行列中排斥了出去，她的丰乳成为她身为女性、忍受屈辱的缘由和标记。（Qian Xiaohong from Hunan left her hometown when she was a girl. She went to the county for work first and then she went to S city in Guangdong with another girl to be one of "northern girls" (those girls working in Guangdong from other cities). They were marginal people of the city and the true proletarians economically. They had nothing but labor and body. They were the secondary sex being insulted and damaged; therefore they were harassed by different men and envied by urban women no matter in hair salons, factories or in hotels. Besides, their family backgrounds gave them natural disadvantages in regional culture so their lives were disordered and hard. For early development, Qian Xiaohong had a pair of abundant breasts, which resulted in that she was naturally rejected by many people from gentlewomen. The breasts were reason and marks for her to be female and bear the humiliation.）