Foot binding

X-ray of bound feet.

X-ray comparison between unbound and bound foot (schema)

Footbinding (Simplified Chinese: {{{s}}}; Traditional Chinese: s=缠足; pinyin: chánzú, literally "bound feet") was a custom practised on young females for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century. In Chinese foot binding, young girls' feet, usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally; they would, instead, break and become highly deformed, not growing past 4-6 inches (10-15 cm). As the girl reached adulthood, her feet would remain small and dysfunctional, prone to infection, paralysis, and muscular atrophy. This was initially a common practice only in the wealthiest parts of China, particularly in areas around northern China. However, by the late Qing Dynasty, foot binding had become popular among people of all social classes except the poorest, who needed able-bodied women to work the fields. Today, it is a prominent cause of disability among some elderly Chinese women.

If a girl's feet were bound in this manner, sometimes beginning as early as age five, four toes on each foot would break within a year; the first ("big toe") remained intact. The arch had to be well-developed for the perfect "lotus foot" to be formed, so some women would bind their girls' feet at a later age; the ideal was a 3-in. foot (gold lotuses), and no longer than 10 cm (4 in), called silver lotuses. Bound feet would bend, becoming so concave they were sometimes described as "lotus hooks." The binding process resulted in intense pain and caused phalanges to fracture easily, and additionally resulted in an unsteady fashion of walking, referred to as the "lotus gait."

The earliest recorded opponent to footbinding was a writer from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) called Ch'e Jo-shui. The Manchus who conquered China in the 17th century tried without success to abolish the practice. Manchu women were forbidden from binding their feet or the feet of their daughters. Instead they wore 'flower bowl' shoes which gave the illusion of tiny feet. Bound feet became an important differentiating marker between Manchu and Han. [1]

One of the objectives of the Taiping Rebellion was to establish gender equality by ending footbinding.

The practice continued into the 20th century, when a combination of Chinese and Western missionaries called for reform and a true anti-footbinding movement emerged. Educated Chinese began to understand that it made them appear barbaric to foreigners, social Darwinists argued that it weakened the nation (for enfeebled women inevitably produced weak sons), and feminists attacked it because it caused women to suffer.. In 1911, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the new Republic of China government banned foot binding; women were told to unwrap their feet lest they be killed. Some women's feet grew 1/2 - 1 inch after the unwrapping, though some found the new growth process extremely painful and emotionally and culturally devastating. Societies developed to support the abolition of footbinding, with contractual agreements between families promising their infant son in marriage to an infant daughter that would not have her feet bound. When the Communists took power in 1949, they maintained the strict prohibition on footbinding, which is still in effect today.

According to a study conducted by the University of California at San Francisco,"As the practice waned, some girls' feet were released after initial binding, leaving less severe deformities." Some effects of foot binding are permanent, and today, some elderly Chinese women still suffer from disabilities related to bound feet.

Foot binding is rarely practiced today. Many people would treat the behavior as child abuse and punish it accordingly. It is commonly cited by sociologists and anthropologists as an example where an extreme deformity (by the standards of both contemporary societies and from a medical viewpoint) can be viewed as beauty, and also where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard.

See also

• Attraction to disability
• Body modification
• Corset
• Sexual fetishism
• Female genital cutting
• Violence against women

External links

• Information about Lotus shoes and foot binding from a footwear history site
• "Chinese Girl with Bound Feet" Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
• Page about Chinese foot binding
• Page from thinkquest
• Another page on foot binding

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Dorothy Ko, Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005.
• Dorothy Ko, Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Catalogue of a museum exhibit, with extensive comments.
• Beverley Jackson Splendid Slippers - A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition: Ten Speed Press
• Howard S. Levy, The Lotus Lovers: Prometheus Books, New York, 1992
• Eugene E.Berg, , M.D. Chinese Footbinding. Radiology Review - Orthopaedic Nursing 24, no. 5 (September/October) 66-67
• Ping, Wang. Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China. New York: Anchor Books, 2002.

Fictional accounts

• Li Ju-chen [Li Ruzhen], Flowers in the Mirror translated, edited by Lin Tai-yi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965).
• Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A novel (New York: Random House, 2005)
• Jicai Feng (translated from the Chinese by David Wakefield), The Three-Inch Golden Lotus (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994).
• Kathryn Harrison, The Binding Chair, or, a Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society: A Novel (New York: Random House, 2000).

Notes

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