This is an exposé of an "invisible" people: the 400 million women among China's vast rural population. The sexual politics of village life-the lack of interaction between men and women, the economic codes that determine marriage and married life-emerge from candid stories told by the village women themselves, and in the images recorded by Gordon and Hinton. The film's title refers to an old, enduring, and self-fulfilling belief that a girl baby is but a small happiness in comparison with the big happiness of a boy, who will remain an economic asset to his parents in their old age.