Footbinding-Looks Painful!!! =(

[jcoop24]

Footbinding: From Status Symbol to Subjugation

by Louisa Lim


Legend has it that the origins of footbinding go back as far as the Shang dynasty (1700-1027 B.C.). The Shang Empress had a clubfoot, so she demanded that footbinding be made compulsory in the court.

But historical records from the Song dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) date footbinding as beginning during the reign of Li Yu, who ruled over one region of China between 961-975. It is said his heart was captured by a concubine, Yao Niang, a talented dancer who bound her feet to suggest the shape of a new moon and performed a "lotus dance."

During subsequent dynasties, footbinding became more popular and spread from court circles to the wealthy. Eventually, it moved from the cities to the countryside, where young girls realized that binding their feet could be their passport to social mobility and increased wealth.

When the Manchu nobility came to power in 1644, they tried to ban the practice, but with little success. The first anti-footbinding committee was formed in Shanghai by a British priest in 1874.

But the practice wasn't outlawed until 1912, when the Qing dynasty had already been toppled by a revolution. Beginning in 1915, government inspectors could levy fines on those who continued to bind their feet. But despite these measures, footbinding still continued in various parts of the country.

A year after the Communists came to power in 1949, they too issued their own ban on footbinding. According to the American author William Rossi, who wrote The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, 40 percent to 50 percent of Chinese women had bound feet in the 19th century. For the upper classes, the figure was almost 100 percent.

Some estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women broke and bound their feet to attain this agonizing ideal of physical perfection. Author Yang Yang says that women with tiny feet were a status symbol who would bring honor upon the entire clan by their appearance.

"Some married women with bound feet would even get up in the middle of the night to start their toilette, just to ensure they would look good in daytime," he says.

In Liuyicun, the practice persisted so long because of the village's economic prosperity — and its inhabitants' desire for obvious wealth signifiers, like daughters with bound feet.

Some scholars say footbinding deepened female subjugation by making women more dependent on their men folk, restricting their movements and enforcing their chastity, since women with bound feet were physically incapable of venturing far from their homes.

Certainly the "three-inch golden lotuses" were seen as the ultimate erogenous zone, with Qing dynasty pornographic books listing 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet.

For those unfortunate women who paid the ultimate price for beauty, there was little choice involved.

Liuyicun resident Wang Lifen, 79, describes her own attitude as a child, saying, "I didn't want to bind my feet, but the whole village told me that I had to. So I did."

And 86-year-old Zhou Guizhen says, "At that time everybody had bound feet. If you didn't, you'd only be able to marry a tribesman from an ethnic minority."

These women disfigured their feet to guarantee their own future, but according to Yang Yang, this act ultimately consigned them to tragic lives. Most of Liuyicun's bound-feet women were forced to perform hard physical labor in the late 1950s, digging reservoirs, for example — work which was punishing enough for ordinary women, but agonizing for those with tiny, misshapen feet.

Their families also suffered food shortages as they were often unable to fulfill their production quotas at work, or walk into the mountains to pick vegetables and fruit like other mothers.

"Their tiny feet sealed their tragic fates," Yang says.

[Barbarian]

i wonder why the chinese have such fucked up traditions?

[juliemd]

The origin of footbinding in China is a mystery. No one really knows who started this tradition for sure.
Serious investigation into footbinding was not really conducted until it became criticized in public and outlawed in the early 20th Century.

Chinese footbinding has been linked as far back as the 21st Century B.C. during the Xia dynasty. It was a legend during this time that a fox was sent down from heaven to rid the earth of corruption. The fox was changed into a woman, but her feet could not be changed. So, she covered them with fabric, and they made small prints in the ground when she walked. The other women wanted her beauty, so they began wrapping their feet to acheive a small size like hers.

[SAMMY82]

At about the age of three to ten years old, before the bones of a young girl's feet were fully developed, the foot-binding began. The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to develop fully. Binding usually started during the winter months so that the feet were numb, meaning the pain would not be as extreme.

First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood; this was intended to soften the foot and aid the binding. Then, the toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent ingrowth and subsequent infections, since the toes were to be pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. To prepare her for what was to come next the girl's feet were delicately massaged. Cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the blood and herb mixture. The toes on each foot were pressed with great force downwards and into the sole of the foot until the toes broke. The broken toes were then held tightly against the sole of the foot. The foot was then drawn down straight and the arch forcibly broken. The bandages were repeatedly wound in a figure eight movement, starting at the inside of the foot at the instep, then carried over the toes, under the foot, and round the heel, the freshly broken toes being pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. At each pass the binding was tightened, pulling the ball of the foot and the heel ever close together, causing the broken foot to fold at the arch. When the binding was completed, the end of the binding cloth was sewn tightly to prevent the girl from loosening it. As the wet bandages dried they constricted, making the binding even tighter.

The girl's broken feet required a great deal of care and attention, and they would be unbound regularly. Each time the feet were unbound they were washed, the toes carefully checked for injury, and the nails carefully and meticulously trimmed. When unbound the broken feet were also kneaded to soften them and make the joints more flexible, and were were soaked in a concoction that caused any necrotised flesh to fall off. Immediately after this pedicure, the girl's broken toes were folded back under and the feet were rebound. The bindings were pulled ever tighter each time, so that the process became more and more painful. The bindings would be sewn tightly to prevent the girl from loosening the bindings on her feet. This unbinding and rebinding ritual was repeated as often as possible (for the rich at least once daily, for poor peasants two or three times a week), with fresh bindings. It was generally an elder female member of the girl's family or a professional footbinder who carried out the initial breaking and ongoing binding of the feet. This was considered preferable to having the mother do it, as she might have been sympathetic to her daughter's pain and less willing to keep the bindings tight. A professional foot binder would ignore the girl's cries and would continue to bind her feet incredibly tightly. This would cause the girl to suffer from devastating foot pain, but her feet were more likely to achieve the three inch ideal. The girl was not allowed to rest after her feet had been bound; however much pain she was suffering, she was required to walk on her broken and bound feet, so that her own body weight would help crush them into the desired shape.

The most common problem with bound feet was infection. Toenails would often ingrow, which could lead to infected toes and rotting flesh. If the infection entered the bones, it could cause them to soften, which could result in toes dropping off -- though this was seen as a positive, as the feet could then be bound even more tightly. Disease inevitably followed infection, meaning that death could result from foot binding, but a surviving girl was more at risk for medical problems as she grew older. Even after the foot bones healed they were prone to re-breaking. Older women were more likely to break hips and other bones in falls, since they could not balance securely on their feet, and were less able to rise to their feet from a sitting position.

Made me feel physically sick reading this

[Hotstuff]

wow i never knew this, fuckin amazing!

great post

[Hotstuff]

i wonder is there any docu's on this, im gonna have a look, ill post it if i find any

[jcoop24]

Thanks for the comments-And thanks juliemd & SAMMY82 for the extra info-It was interesting to read & I can't believe the steps they had to take in order to achieve that!! Ouch!!

[emeraldlizards]

Absolutely sickening....

[Hotstuff]

can ye believe she is still smiling!?

[Hotstuff]