People nowadays went into extremes diets to lose weight so that that could look slim and pretty. Because of their over obsession, they developed diseases such as bulimia and anorexia. But after reading the article online, I realized that even many decades ago, woman already went into extreme measures so that they can find a good husband. Woman in olden days bind their feet because at that time, bound feet were consider a status symbol, the only way for a woman to marry into money. Thus because of this, many woman bind their feet despite the pain. Binding feet was painful as they break their toes and bind them underneath the sole of the foot with bandages, breaking the arch of their own foot to force their toes and heel ever closer. As they bind their feet at young age, the bones were broken as young bones are sot, they break more easily. Although I could understand why woman bind their feet, I felt that it was unnecessary; men should not look at the size of a woman feet to conclude whether they are a good wife or not. This shows the change of thinking of people over many decades. I felt that this was unfair to the woman as they have to suffer such pain for their whole life just so that they could marry a good husband. After they had bind their feet for a long time, they cannot dance, they cannot move properly, sometimes even which they cannot even put their feet on the ground as they hurt too much. This pain is what many of us could not understand as we had not gone through the pain. Nevertheless, I am glad that the revolution had cause many woman to stop binding their feet, that the thinking of men had change and people could marry into good family with good husband not based on the size of their feet but on their character.
Upon reading the article about foot binding, I think that females nowadays should be grateful that they do not live in the foot binding period.
Foot binding is not easy. The process normally began when a girl was between the age of three to eleven years old, the justification being that the pre-bone cartilage of the arch, which was mostly water, would be more easily molded than matured bone. The mothers or more experienced female relatives who performed the foot binding were at least thoughtful enough to carry it out in late fall or winter when the foot was generally numb so that the girl will not experience so much pain.
So why would woman bind their feet if they had to endure so much pain? Reason is, for beauty.
From records of the Song dynasty, Emperor Li Yu was captivated by concubine, Yao Niang, a talented dancer who bound her feet to suggest the shape of a new moon and performed a “lotus dance” which suggests that food binding dates back all the way to the Song dynasty. Since then, foot binding 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 bring them to greater social status and increased wealth. A foot measuring a perfect three inches was called a 'lotus of gold'; a four-inch foot was considered 'silver'; and one measuring more than four inches was an 'iron lotus' and so small feet were considered beautiful and elegant. Big, naked flat feet were seemed only to fit animals. This is very much like the society today. People go for plastic surgeries, inject botox into their skins, had tattoos and piercing just to look good. They may even go for the extreme like turning themselves white when their natural body colour is black, or they would insert beads into their body in order to stand out among the crowds, which they think is beautiful. You don’t look good, you lose. But I think that we cannot defy the nature of how our bodies grow in the first place. It is also very dangerous that we modify our bodies extremely in the risk of having infection. It is good that people accept their body as how it is. After all, everyone is unique in our own ways and should not resort to extreme body modifications for the sake of beauty.
I think that if i were at that time, why would binding feet make me want to marry those woman? Its gross just looking at the feet being so small. This practice is similar to anorexia and bulimia, the main purpose of binding their feet is just to make others feel that they are sexy with their tiny legs.
quote: 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."
Dancing is a skill, you don't have to have such tiny legs to dance! Such tiny legs (in my opinion) are tiny to dance! And i think binding their legs for the sake of finding a good husband is hypocrisy, fake and pretentious.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls in china. Not being able to get married because of not binding her feet is not fair. Girls should have the freedom to choose whom she wants to marry. However, when feet-binding was banned, i find it hard to believe that women would still practice the tradition in secret. Maybe to them, it was special as not many women are able to fit into their small shoes. It was somewhat unique in their eyes. However, i am glad that feet-binding is banned as i do not like the idea of having to suffer so much for beauty.
People in the past had a misunderstanding in defining beauty. They blindly follow the crowd and change their mindset that footbinding was a popular and common fashion. They did not think of the consequences like health problem and accessibility. They did not have a freedom to choose whether to bind or not some just follow the crowd. In the past, people lack of education especially for women. They did not consider others before making any decisions and the emperor set inhumane rules to make all women bind their foot. Women at that time was stereotyped that they will be left on the shelves if they did not bind their foot. I think that this situation is just similar to what modern days women face. Being slim is more attractive, is another stereotyped of women and even some men. Just like the olden days women who bind their foot, modern days women starve their body. Singapore is getting more and more influence by the western thus, the idea of having a slim body also influence us. For the sake of becoming slim, they tend to starve themselves or vomit the food they just ate to maintain their body weight and skinny body. The most scary part is that they did not know when to stop. They got the mindset that they are very obese although in actual fact they are too skinny. The people in the past lack of education, thus we cannot blame them for enforcing foot binding but nowadays, people receiving high education still unable to see what harm and damage anorexia can do. I feel that we should treasure what we have, do not be greedy and unsatisfy with the things around us. As compared to the past, we are very fortunate.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls in china. Not being able to get married because of not binding her feet is not fair. Girls should have the freedom to choose whom she wants to marry. However, when feet-binding was banned, i find it hard to believe that women would still practice the tradition in secret. Maybe to them, it was special as not many women are able to fit into their small shoes. It was somewhat unique in their eyes. However, i am glad that feet-binding is banned as i do not like the idea of having to suffer so much for beauty.
Foot binging is very common in the old days. In the past, small feet are believed to be a trait of beauty. Thus many women had their feet bind by their mothers when they are young. This is because mothers believe that the feet of a young child are more flexible and easy to be ‘moulded’ into a smaller size. Seriously, if I were the child, I would run away from home.
These poor kids had their feet bind into a disfigured shape; enduring all that pain. I wonder why men in the past would even think that it is beautiful. The most shocking part is that no men would marry a woman without small feet! That is absurb.
After researching on foot binding, I consider it as a way of being beautiful in the past. So, it is a past trend, just like modern trends for instance, facial cream, slimming gadgets and nutritional food. People are crazy when it comes to beauty. We will do anything we can to be appear beautiful. Foot binding may seem silly, but that is human nature. Having small foot is like torturing oneself to become disabled, this sounds ridiculous. Even when this trend comes to an end, it does not mean human desperate pursue to beauty also ends. It becomes worse to me. This time, from two feet tortured, it is the whole body, mind and emotion tortured, in the form of bulimia and anorexia nervosa. So come to think of it, humans are getting stupider by torturing more and more of their body to be appearing beautiful. This is foolish, because what is important is not the outer beauty but the inner beauty.
People in the past had a misunderstanding in defining beauty. They blindly follow the crowd and change their mindset that footbinding was a popular and common fashion. They did not think of the consequences like health problem and accessibility. They did not have a freedom to choose whether to bind or not some just follow the crowd. In the past, people lack of education especially for women. They did not consider others before making any decisions and the emperor set inhumane rules to make all women bind their foot. Women at that time was stereotyped that they will be left on the shelves if they did not bind their foot. I think that this situation is just similar to what modern days women face. Being slim is more attractive, is another stereotyped of women and even some men. Just like the olden days women who bind their foot, modern days women starve their body. Singapore is getting more and more influence by the western thus, the idea of having a slim body also influence us. For the sake of becoming slim, they tend to starve themselves or vomit the food they just ate to maintain their body weight and skinny body. The most scary part is that they did not know when to stop. They got the mindset that they are very obese although in actual fact they are too skinny. The people in the past lack of education, thus we cannot blame them for enforcing foot binding but nowadays, people receiving high education still unable to see what harm and damage anorexia can do. I feel that we should treasure what we have, do not be greedy and unsatisfy with the things around us. As compared to the past, we are very fortunate.
bw5n16alb people have alot of missconcept with regards of eating healthy .i suggest they should consult someone to guide them in order to lead a healthy life ....
I think foot binding not only crippled the women who went through the process but as well as crippled women in China for centuries. Being crippled by foot binding, they had such a little role in the government. It was a custom that started out to define beauty but ended up defining the way the society was. It also caused most women to have health problems due to foot binding was in their later years.
The ancient Chinese custom of foot binding has caused severe life-long disability for many millions of elderly women, even in today’s China, according to a UC San Francisco study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health published this week.
women with bound feet had 5.1 percent lower hip bone density and 4.7 percent lower spine bone density than women with normal feet, putting them at greater risk of suffering hip or spine fractures.
The practice of foot binding began in the Sung dynasty (960-976 BC), reportedly to imitate an imperial concubine who was required to dance with her feet bound. By the 12th century, the practice was widespread and more severe — girls’ feet were bound so tightly and early in life that they were unable to dance and had difficulty walking.
Overall, i think that food binding is not good because it will cause them to suffer.
We should follow on our ways cause all of us has diffferent thinking on the thing we say and do
The ancient Chinese custom of foot binding has caused severe life-long disability for many millions of elderly women, even in today’s China, according to a UC San Francisco study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health published this week
women in the 80 years or older group with bound feet were more likely to have fallen during the previous year than women with normal feet (38 percent vs. 19 percent) and were less able to rise from a chair without assistance (43 percent vs. 26 percent).
In addition, the study found that women with bound feet had 5.1 percent lower hip bone density and 4.7 percent lower spine bone density than women with normal feet, putting them at greater risk of suffering hip or spine fractures.
I feel that there is not a need for them to bind their feed as it is a ridiculous.
footbinding is however not needed nowadays. i feel that girls being natural is nice enough,there's no need for further slimming plans to make oneself to look even 'slimmer'. thus,eating disorders may lead to many sickness which causes pain.
Regarding to the foot binding, i think that it is quite curel to do that as it painful.Such a painful and crippling tradition could not be completely due the popularity and fashion it had at the time. There were many reasons mothers made the decision to bind their daughters' feet. Men in China in that era would not marry a woman who did not have bound feet I thinking that the process was very painful, every time the feet were rebound the bandages were pulled tighter. But besides just the pain of the process, there were many after affects that were detrimental to the young girls' health. The pain of the bound feet never stopped.
I think the foot binding in the olden days is very useless. As in the olden days men look at the size of the woomen to conclude wheather they are good wife? i think it is ridiculous, as women thinks that if they bind their feets , they will into marriage. however,they has been suffering from broken bones , due to the binding of foot.
I think that women should not bind their feet just because they want to be given into marriage.Women should start to look into their inner beauty such as their character and attitude.They should reflect their character than foot binding as they would then be unique from others. They should not do these kind of things as it would damage their appearance and then lead other consequences which may not be expected.They should respect their body than giving up for someone else and should not go for foot binding
Footbinding 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.
i think that girls nowadays are quite fortunate. they do not have to bind their foot. in the past they believe that girls who bind their foot are demure. Great pain has been suffered for centuries for women to achieve perceived beauty. for instance, it will cause the growth of the foot bone. in the past, girls often start binding foot at an early age of 3. The process was very painful, every time the feet were rebound the bandages were pulled tighter. But besides just the pain of the process, there were many after affects that were detrimental to the young girls' health. The pain of the bound feet never stopped. The most common consequence was infection .There were many ways a girl could get an infection. One was the ball of the foot would folding directly into the heel. A second was that the toenails continued to grow, eventually curling into the skin. This led to flesh rotting off, and sometimes even a toe. The worst part of the process was that the feet would practically die after three years. nonetheless, im still glad that in this century, we do not have this kind of practices anymore. and i believe that what matters the most of a wife is its innner beauty rather than the outward beauty.
Historians have tried to explain foot-binding in terms of a culture's standard of beauty or as a way of holding a woman to a household, but these explanations seemed to lack the kind of power that would sustain a custom for several centuries. Just think of how many times the beauty ideal has changed in this country within the last 100 years, from voluptuousness to fitness to heroin chic. And man's vanity rarely allows him to believe his woman would run away.
footbinding is disgusting.Footbinding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; 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.
Footbinding 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.
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 4 in (10 cm), 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."
I think that people in the 21st century are really fortunate because they do nt have to go throught such a painful practice...
Foot binding is a symbol of the inferior status traditional Chinese women. It was a custom that lasted for several dynasties in ancient China. People are not sure of the origin of this tradition, but there are many legends of that and foot binding did have its meanings for women and men at that time. The process was full of pain and many health problems came up when the women got older. Many years later, anti-footbinding campaigns occurred and foot binding was finally outlawed a thousand years later from the beginning.
Foot Binding 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.[1]. 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.
bw5nalbFootbinding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; 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 4 in (10 cm), 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 stop foot binding practice.
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.[1]. 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[2]. 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.
Footbinding 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.
I think that footbinding is a ridiculous act by the people in the olden days.
It seems that those people do not have the basic common sense at all. How can foot binding be viewed as beauty? I mean, Foot binding can cause death due to the deformity in their foot. If the woman is in old age, she may break her hips and other bones if she's not careful when walking.
I personally think that foot binding is a process where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard.
Woman in the olden days bind their feet just because that they wanted to marry a rich guy in the future.
I think that it was a foolish act as they were hurting themselves not knowing whether thay could marry a rich husband in the future.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls.It will be very painful and will have difficulty while walking.The man should not marry a wife by looking on there feet,having the feet binded does not mean that the woman is a good wife.
footbindingis not needed now a days. being natural is the best,however general conclusion may say that men only wants women which looks good.but it doesnt goes to the extend in footbinding.
Women in the olden days went to the extreme whereby they were forced to bind their foot from tender age. the process of the footbinding usually start from age four to six.
The process was very painful; every time the feet were rebound the bandages were pulled tighter. But besides just the pain of the process, there were many after affects that were detrimental to the young girls' health. The pain of the bound feet never stopped. The most common consequence was infection. There were many ways a girl could get an infection. One was the ball of the foot would folding directly into the heel. A second was that the toenails continued to grow, eventually curling into the skin. This led to flesh rotting off, and sometimes even a toe. The worst part of the process was that the feet would practically die after three years. The feet being dead caused a terrible smell the girl carried with her everywhere Diseases followed infections, and death could even result from foot binding.
From my point of view, i feel that footbinding was inpractical and its disgusting. it really turns people off seeing such small foot. The whole shape of the foot is distorted.. They are mad.
I find foot-binding is quite ridiculous in some ways. Women in the olden days bind their feet for some reasons which are, for beauty purpose such as they want a tiny feet to make themselves look good. On the other hand, is men look at the size of a woman feet to conclude whether they are a good wife or not.
I think the above statement is unfair to all women.
Men doesn't know how painful was foot-binding. Women have to endure the pain, as this is a traditional practice.
Women in their young age, start to bind their feet. As a result, their bones were broken as the young bone are sot.
footbinding is just trying to be unfair to others by making them feel bad on how they look. have they ever put themself into other people's shoe??? and think how will others feel?
After reading an article on foot binding, I realized how fortunate are we girls now.
Foot binding are practiced in the chinese culture, it is a common ultimate goal to archive beauty. Foot binding, is to stop the growth of the feet. Foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, yet it is hard to understand exactly what foot binding was like during those time.
Young girls, at the age of hour to six start to bind their feet. It was done so early in their life so that the arch did not have much time to develop. Mothers are the one who will bind their daughters' feet, and they usually start the process late in the fall winder, so that the foot would be numb and the pain would not be as severe. The daughters' feet would first be soaked in warm water or animal blood and herbs. There are many process that the girls have to go through, and they have to bear the pain too.
I am glad that this traditional practice is no longer in use, and we need not suffer so much for beauty.
I feel that the female now-a-day are been much lucky then those female who live in the foot-binding period.They have to suffer of a great pain as to have a beautiful legs.As compare to now, the woman just have some medicine and will get a nice beautiful leg. This shows the change of thinking of people over many decades. Nevertheless, I am glad that now-a-day people have change their way of thinking and the woman have suffer less pain from their leg. For me i don't think leg means alot to a man in the way of look at the woman.
FootBinding went into extremes diets to lose weight so that that could look slim and pretty so that they can find a good husband. 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).First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood. This concoction caused any necrotised flesh to fall off. Then her toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent ingrowth and subsequent infections. Silk or cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the same blood and herb mix as before. Each of the toes were then broken and wrapped in the wet bandages, which would constrict when drying, and pulled tightly downwards toward the heel. There may have been deep cuts made in the sole to facilitate this. Foot binding is rarely practiced today. Many people would treat the behavior as child abuse and punish it accordingly.
The bound foot was also a symbol of identity and virtue. A bound foot signified that a woman had achieved womanhood, and served as a mark of her gendered identity. The Confucian tradition put a great deal of stress in properly covered bodies, correct attire - bound feet included - was the quintessential expression of civility, culture and humanity. Attire not only differentiated the Han Chinese from their inferior neighbours, thus giving them a sense of identity, but also set apart social classes and gender within the Han society. Big, flat naked feet were only fit for animals; women who had class had bound feet. In today's world, money talks, and bound feet are no longer needed to lure good matches. Female emancipation and human rights have rendered foot binding all but obsolete. Today foot binding is but a lingering memory of ancient tradition, a story to be found in a dusty book or museum display, and a romantic half-myth that both fascinates and horrifies modern society.
I think that footbinding is an act with stupidity slapped on it. Firstly foot-binding doesnt make anyone beautiful, you parent's genes does. Secondly it is probably health threatening to apply weight on a binded foot. Lastly it hurts. A LOT.
So in conclusion, i quote from bw5n2dor "People who foot-bind their daughters should die."
"If you love your daughter, bind her feet; if you love your son, let him study,"
According to wiki, I read that young girls have to bind their feet at the age of 6. if the girls chose not to bind their feet, their parents will punish them accordingly. now how absurd is that! it may be regarded as beauty to the locals there, it grossed me out.
This, to me, feels like a combination of child abuse and gender discrimination to me. why are only boys allowed to study? its as if boys are expected to appear smart so that they can wed, extending the family line. girls meanwhile, are expected to take care of house chores when they grow up and wed, so there is not a need to waste education on them. this shows that boys are more favored than girls.
Foot binding should have been prohibited long ago. Sometimes you have to endure pain to gain beauty, but I do not believe this should be a necessity to follow. An example is plastic surgery- you do not see every woman undergoing that in their teens do you?
Foot binding is sure an interesting topic. The Women in the past would think that a small foot would mostprobably be nice and would attract moremen to take a liking to them. This is more of a gender discrimination as the men would not need to do such things. The women, on the other hand,had to bind their foot,experiencing the pain on the way.Most of them had binded their foot since young which would mean that they would experience the pain until they die. Such discrimination should be stopped and women would not experience such torture.The men should not use such a factor to consider their mate .Thus such discrimination would not appear again like how the 'slim' figure of the women in the modern days.
I think foot binding is a cruel act. I do not understand why it could have been passed down in china for so long. It was popular in china among the social classes except for the poorest ones.
The rich get to bind their feet and yet they feel they’re special and privileged. However, I think that the lowest class is the luckiest one as they do not need to bind their feet. The pain they managed to escape from was very painful. In fact I feel that it’s so painful that the hours of working in the fields were more worth it than binding their feet so attract male partners.
Nowadays, it is no longer the ladies who need to attract their partners but the males who need to try hard to win the hearts of the their ladies.
There are two reasons to why women had their foot binded.
- Women that have big feet means that they are 'rough' and therefore, will not be a good wife. They will not be able to find a husband when they grow up.
- In the past, bound feet were considered intensely erotic. The effect was a function of the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Men often look out for women with bound feet to make them their wives because of that.
From what I have read about, it seems to me that both reasons are related to men. That makes me wonder why do women have to please men in the past. This is not that they existed for the sake of the men.
The quote "If you love your daughter, bind her feet. If you love your son, let him study." seems to worsen the women's society position at that time. Just because they are not allowed to receive education, they have to act like some toy of the men. They may have pleased the men, but they suffered the most as well! This is totally unfair for the women!
The practice of foot binding is really ridiculous and absurd! From my point of view, if mothers do love their daughters, they should not have let them suffer by having their legs binded, restricting their daily movements and making them unable to enjoy their childhood. Both the boys and the girls are their children as well, therefore the more they should treat them equally!
P.S: sorry for the triple post. something went wrong i guess. .___."
Nowadays, people especially girls like to look nice and beautiful. Mainly because they wan to marry in to a rich families. Foot binding is also a form of keeping "pretty".In the past, most women oftenly bind their foot to keep their foot as small as pssible.Most small feet women could marry into rich families as men in the past felt that small foot women looks wonderfully pretty thus since young their parents would bind their foot the keep the shape permanently. They have to bear with the pain of binding their foot when the foot began to grow as their puberty came. Why only women need to bind their foot when men do not need to suffer this inbearable pain. This type of pain only they themselves can understand.The men do not need to bind their foot in order to obtain something like marry into a better background families as in the past they mostly discriminated women, they dote the boys more thus they mainly leave their assets to them.As compared to the past we are considered much more fortunate.
i feel that foot binding is stupid... i feel that it should not be encouraged. however, foot binding is not very common nowadays as it was in the older days in China. i think that fot binding is very sexist as it's only practised on ladies to make their feet look beautiful so that their parents can marry them off to rich husbands. the ladies then cannot rn away from their husbands due to the pain.
it's very painful to bind one's feet. it crushes the toes under the feet making it difficult to walk... the ffet practically die after 3 years ):
The reason for women binding their feet went deeper than fashion and reflected the role of women in Chinese society. It was necessary then in China for a woman to have bound feet in order to achieve a good life.
Men in China in that era would not marry a woman who did not have bound feet.
It was a very painful process. The pain of the foot binding is forever! The women who had their feet bound were more likely to fall, less able to squat and less able to rise from a sitting position in their older years. The feet will practically die after 3 years!!! Foot binding not only crippled the women who went through the process but as well as crippled women in China for centuries.
IT IS VERY CRUEL and TORTUROUS! it is not very common as seen in the past. I hope that the custom of foot-bineding will never come back. it is very unfair for women! Ban foot binding!
According to what i had read up about foot binding, i felt that foot binding was a very painful process for women. This was done so that women will be weak, out of power and can be dominated by their husband.
Foot binding was a chinese culture in the past for women to achieve beauty and status. This as a painful process for women to achieve beauty. Women's foot was deformed as a result and this leads to many side effect in the future even if their foor was fine then.
Foot binding as not only a fashion at that time but also a way of life for women and men in the past. Foot binding was seen as to improve women's status and gain beauty.
After reading this quotation, i felt that the women in the past was too discriminated against and had to suffer all these pain. They should have to think about it and not just follow blindly the painful culture. Women who studied was not recognized. The only way for women to achieve higher status was not by studying but by foot binding. Men was afraid that women had higher power then them and these caused women to suffer in the past.
I was relieved that after all these years, the culture was finally ended.In 21st century, women had achieved better status and was recognised in the society today.
Footbinding was a custom practised on young chinese females for approximately one thousand years in china, from the 10th century to the early 20th century. Girls get foodbinded usually at the age of six, but often earlier. This caused their feet to be deformed and easily prone to infection and paralysis.
The people believed that the smaller the ladies' feets are, the more beautiful they will be, hence, the trend in most ladies practising footbinding.
The practice stopped in the early 20th century.
I feel that this is a very cruel practice as it makes the footbinded person feel lots of pain. Parents that wants their daughter to look pretty forced them to bind their foot and then their daughter feels the pain. It's great that the custom has stopped.
Footbinding was a custom practised on young chinese females for approximately one thousand years in china, from the 10th century to the early 20th century. Girls get foodbinded usually at the age of six, but often earlier. This caused their feet to be deformed and easily prone to infection and paralysis.
The people believed that the smaller the ladies' feets are, the more beautiful they will be, hence, the trend in most ladies practising footbinding.
The practice stopped in the early 20th century.
I feel that this is a very cruel practice as it makes the footbinded person feel lots of pain. Parents that wants their daughter to look pretty forced them to bind their foot and then their daughter feels the pain. It's great that the custom has stopped.
Foot binding is a tradition that was passed down several generations in ancient china. It was said to be originated from AD 960-1280, in the sung dynasty. It's ultimate goal is to achieve beauty. But in my opinion, it is a cruel act. Foot binding began at about age 4 to 7 on young Chinese girls. The foot was soaked in hot water and massaged then it was wrapped in a way in which the child's toes were turned under and pressed against the bottom of her foot. Her largest toe was left unturned in order to give the girl a sense of balance. The child's arches of her foot were broken as the foot was pulled straight with the leg. This caused the foot to actually shrink. This process took anywhere from three years or longer to complete. The result of this process was a deformed "tiny" foot (about three inches long).
Footbinding was a custom practised on young females,usually at age 6. Their feet were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally.
Today, it is a prominent cause of disability among some elderly Chinese women.
People in the past had a misunderstanding in defining beauty. It is very humiliating and cruel for the women to have their feet bound. This is a good example of gender discrimination, women are treated differently from men. In the past, women were only expected to get married, do household chores, whereas men were given the opportunity to study. The people in the past believe that women are not as intelligent as men, which is not a fact.
This act, foot binding, was an attempt to stop the growth of the feet. Foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, probably the most detrimental act, one that approximately one billion women in China have preformed for nearly one thousand years.It was necessary then in China for a woman to have bound feet in order to achieve a good life. women with bound feet could hardly walk, let alone dance. I could not believe that this act of painful torment was considered beautiful, just basing their beliefs on legends.The process of foot binding started for the young girls anywhere from the age of four to six. It was done so early in her life so that the arch did not have much time to develop. The mother who was the one to bind the feet, and usually started the process late in the fall or winter, so the foot would be numb and the pain would not be as severe. The daughters' feet would first be soaked in warm water or animal blood and herbs. The special potion that was used for this caused any dead flesh to fall off. She would have her toe nails cut as short as possible therefore not allowing them to grow into the foot. After she received a foot massage, the four smallest toes on each foot were broken. This was not even the worst of the pain. The mother soaked silk or cotton bandages in the same liquid the girl's feet were soaked in. The bandages, which were ten feet long and two inches wide, were wrapped around the smallest toes and pulled tightly to the heel. Every two days, the binding was removed and rebound. This part of the process went on for two years. By this time her feet were three to four inches long. To assure the feet staying small, the ritual continued for at least ten more years. imagine the turmour that these women would have gone through, just for the name of beauty. In my opinion, htis is simply a way to torture women to make them inferior to men, unable to work well. the pain never stopped, and each time, it would be pulled tighter. what's more the most common effect is an infection! -One was the ball of the foot would folding directly into the heel. A second was that the toenails continued to grow, eventually curling into the skin. This led to flesh rotting off, and sometimes even a toe. The worst part of the process was that the feet would practically die after three years. The feet being dead caused a terrible smell the girl carried with her everywhere. Diseases followed infections, and death could even result from foot binding.men in china would not marry a woman with feet bound. this was practically forcing the act of feet bounding at the expense of the women's health ang natural growth. i feel that this form is a discrimination towards women, and a terrible and unreasonable act.
Footbinding is an old tradition in the early days.In chinese footbinding, young girls usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally.This causes the girl to have a small and cute feet.However, this is a very painful process and will cause the bones to be broken and highly deformed.They will also be prone to infections, paralyse and muscular atrophy.I do not agree to footbinding as this will cause the girl to have a weak feet even if it is nice.It is cruelty to girls!They are only few years old yet they have to be subjected to the torture their parents enforced.Thus, i will go against this idea and am glad that there are lesser cases of footbinding.
Foot Binding may be a symbol of beauty in the past. But now, we would definitely think that it is purely disgusting. I have seen the pictures on the woman's foot and the sample shoes. The shoes are like for the toddler nowadays? Their bones are totally deformed. I think that this would seriosly affect their movement.
Does man really conclude a woman's beauty on these bounded foot? In the past, binding foot may be a symbol of status and beauty. But, is it worth it? I am glad to say that woman nowadays do not bound their feets anymore as it is seriously considered as a tortured. Just because your feet is small doesn't imply that you could find a good husband. Even so, if the man is willing to marry you, he is marrying you for the sake of your beautiful legs not your personality. Would this marriage be considered as blissful? It's a definite No.
At last, I would like to say that inner beauty is the most important. Foot size is not a scale to measure the beauty of girls.
Foot binding in the past is a obvious representation of gender discrimination. Women have to endure through the painful process of binding their foot, often causing their bones to become deformed, and causing them to be unable to walk properly in the later years.
Foot binding kept the women weak, dominated by their husbands. When women bind their feets, the men could dominate more easily as they do not have to worry the women challenging their power. Men had greater autonomy than women, and were allowed to study, allowing them to step into the society to work and have a status in the society. On the other hand, women were only allowed to stay at home and wait on their husbands.
Foot binding not only crippled the women who underwent this process, but it also crippled women in China for centuries. It was tantamount to saying that the women who underwent the process of foot binding, was equivalent to having little say in the govenment and society. In today's society, the tradition of women going through the process of foot binding is very rare. However, gender discrimination continues to be one of the problems that has to be dealed with seriously. People should change their perceptions and learn to accept the different genders in the work society today.
Footbinding Footbinding was a custom traditionally practised by the Chinese for approximately a thousand years. Footbinding often begins when the girl is around 6 years old and usually takes place only in the wealthier parts of China. Footbinding was not popular among the poorer people of China was able-bodied women were also needed to work in the fields. Up will today, it is a common cause for disability among the elderly women.
Nowadays, most women do not bind their feet. I feel that most are very cruel to let their child go through foot binding. It is supposed to make the girls look more beautiful and find a good husband but sometimes they do not realise that it actually hurts a lot. Is it worth it to go through so much pain just for the sake of finding a good husband for themselves. I feel that men should not look at the size of women's feet to determine their beauty. & i feel that beauty is only skin deep.
In my own opinion, i think that nowadays women/girls are lucky that they are not living in the ancient times which they need to bind their foot. Binding their foots are practiced during Sung dynasty (960-976 BC),reportedly to imitate an imperial concubine who was required to dance with her feet bound.By the 12th century, the practice was widespread and more severe--girls' feet were bound so tightly and early in life that they were unable to dance and had difficulty walking. Small girls at the tender age of 6 also need to bind their foot.
What will happen to their foot? .Foot bones are fractured . the foot bound tightly for several years, foreshortening the foot and exaggerating the arch. .Severe long life disability
However the foot binding ceased during the 20th century with the end of imperial dynasty and the influencing of western fashion . As the practice waned, some girls' feet were released after initial binding, leaving less severe deformities,but not the old women who are suffering deformities of foot binding.
Hence no matter how small u want your foot be , please DONT bind oyour foot unless u do not care about the consequences
I researched on foot binding and i felt disgusted at what i saw and what i have found.
Foot binding was a custom pratised on young females for approxiamtely one thousand years in CHINA, beginning in the 10th century and ending in early 20th century. What the.. hell.
The process isn't pain free. On the other hand, it is damn painful. Girls at age of 6 or younger go through foot binding, so that when they grow up, their foot would not grow past 10 - 15 cm and in their adulthood, their feet would remain small and prone to diseases.
I wonder, do the small children even have a choice? If they did, im sure they would not choose to go through foot binding. Who would want to go through a process which breaks four of your toes on both foot in one year?!
At first, only the wealthy could afford foot binding, but gradually, it became popular in all the social classes in China. T
his is a terrible thrend that goes around. Like seriously, is there no thrend to follow other than foot binding? It's stupid.
Footbinding is an old tradition in the early days.In chinese footbinding, young girls usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally.This causes the girl to have a small and cute feet.However, this is a very painful process and will cause the bones to be broken and highly deformed.They will also be prone to infections, paralyse and muscular atrophy.I do not agree to footbinding as this will cause the girl to have a weak feet even if it is nice.It is cruelty to girls!They are only few years old yet they have to be subjected to the torture their parents enforced.Thus, i will go against this idea and am glad that there are lesser cases of footbinding
Foot binding is a common practice for women in China in the past. Once they decided to go ahead and do that, the pain will be felt for a long time and they can not escape from this painful experience. Furthermore, feet binding must be done at a very young age and it is beyond bearable for young girls who are weak and frail. Most importantly, it will wreck havoc on their physical self as there may be infection because the foot is wrapped tightly for a long time without oxygen. Worst still, their feets may rot due to a long period deprive of oxygen. Although I do not see how it can enhance one's beauty, they done it in the past to attract men. However I feel whether it is nice or not, they should accept how they look like and not try to change their natural features. Isn't it just like doing plastic surgery nowadays?
Footbinding 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. 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).
Some people viewed it as a beauty and also where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard.
I think this is too much of a high price to pay in pursuit of beauty. Not only does one have to go through immense physical pain, they also have to go through it mentally. This is a very wrong concept of beauty.
The extent to which these women went to in order to have the ideal image may seem unbelievable to us today, but what will people one thousand years from now think about our cultures, lipo suction.
The effect that foot binding had on women is plain to see. Women became more dependant on others. They were not able to journey far on their own and thus were more controllable. This is a good example of gender discrimination. Men are treated so differently from woman and they need not have to go through all this pain.
I strongly disagree with this statement as i think that this clearly shows gender discrimination towards the women. In chinese footbinding, young girls's feet, usually at age 6 or often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally. Therefore the bones in their feet will be broken and become severly deformed. The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to properly develop so that the feet were numb, meaning the pain would not be as extreme. Binding usually started during the winter months. It is a very painful process and i cannot believe that the parents of the young girlswould bear to see them suffer. Their daughters will suffer from nasty infections and wounds and girls might even have their feet practically dead after 3 years. Some might even die from such infections. This is discrimination to girls because to allow them to get married, girls have to bind their feet so in order for them to have beautiful dainty feet, however they did not realise the pain behind all these processes and the second discrimination is that girls have to bind their feet so in order to get married. Women generally do not have much power in that society thus the elders believed that women will only look pretty when they bind their feet and men do not need to do so. As for men they did not have to suffer anything and their parents will easily send them to schools for higher education. They do not have to sacrifise anything in order to get married.
In the olden days, for women to survive in the society, they have to marry a wealthy man because they had little opportunities everywhere. They could not leave their home unless they get married and their hope was to marry well. Therefore, women resorted to all sorts of unbelievably inexplicable practises, all in the search of a beauty ideal, to the extend of foot binding. They believed that only women who had their foot binded will have dainty feet and able to get married. It was so because the mother-in-law only allowed their son to marry women that has binded-feet. She would stop them from seeing any women that has "clown" feet. This was the reason why if their mothers love their daughters, they would care for their future. The only solution is to make sure that they marry off to a wealthy man. However before that women have to make sure that their feet were bind. As for the men, people believed that they should receive better education. They did not need to sacrifice or resort to any unbelievable practices in order to get married. With a better education, man could easily get a woman and find a job as there were many opportunities available for them. From the statement above, gender discrimination was displayed. It shows that women are weaker and lack of power, their life was a torture. As for the men, they were seen to be much powerful as women have to sacrifice themselves and even have to resort to all sort of unbelievable action and endure terrible processes in order to please the men.
After reading several articles on foot binding, it seemed that this traditional pratice was an obvious gender discrimination. Girl's feet were bound since they were six years old, whereas boys do not need to suffer this intense pain. For 'beauty', women in the past had their feet bound. However, i do not think that most girls would want to go through such pain for the sake of a deformed feet. In other words, they were forced.
From this, we can see that foot binding is a form of gender discrimination in the past as only females need to have their foot bound but males do not. It is a very unfair treatment towards the females.
In the past, many people, especially those those who were rich. They send their child for foot binding, because women who had small feet were considered as beauties. Not many people can afford to bind their foot, like for example, girls who were working in the farm or manual chores. Those who do foot binding were usually girls of rich families because their life purpose was to marry a good and rich man so that their families can also enjoy a good life. Foot binding is a painful process because the bones in the feet are crushed and bind together underneath the sole of the foot. The purpose of foot binding was to keet the feet from growing too large.
I feel that the binding of feet are unneccesary because beuty cannot be defined by the size of the sole alone. In the olden days, parents who loved their girl who bind their feet so that they could marry into a good family and enjoy life. Going through the pain, females of that time were unable to walk around comfortably, let alone dance, run, skip. The females are 'barred' from the activities that most girls are involved in now, like running and swimming etc. I'm glad that foot binding is gone with the passing of the times where small feet were fashionable. This is very discriminative because boys were made to study instead.
With the passing of times, this kind of so-called 'beauty' has gone, and I am sure many of the women today are relieved.
Foot binding is a common traditional practice performed on young females to make their feet look small and thus beautiful, giving the chinese women assurance that they will be married off to a rich family.
In such cases, young girls' feet are wrapped tightly in bandages, disallowing normal growth and development, causing their feet to become highly deformed.
Apparently,those sacrifices these women made are results of a wrong concept of thinking.
This is an example of gender discrimination, where women have to go through such torture and the men did not do anything about it. It is ufair to the chinese women. The suffering they go through is eternal, it is not any temporary torture, but something that leaves a permanent impact on the women.
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.
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.
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.
Some estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women broke and bound their feet to attain this agonizing ideal of physical perfection.
These women disfigured their feet to guarantee their own future,this act ultimately consigned them to tragic lives.
The definition of pretty is different in many people's eye. Nowadays, girls go into extreme diets to lose weight as they think that slim is pretty. This resulted in the development of diseases such as the popular anorexia. And in the past, women also see the definition of pretty, from another angle.
Footbinding 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. Women were obsessed over footbinding as at that time, bound feet were considered as a status symbol. 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. 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.
Despite the pain, women still continued this practice as to them, it is the onoly way for a woman to marry into money. This reveals the gender discrimination at that time in China. Women were treated unfairly as they had to bind their feet so as to get a good husband. Men was given the choice to choose their wife by the size of a women feet.
From this passage, we know that gender discrimination had started long ago in China and although the definition of beauty had changed throughout the decades, gender discrimination still exist.
Gender discrimination in foot binding was only practised in the Song dynasty. The emperor demanded that all women had to bind their feet, stay at home and do the house chores. Women were expected to listen to their male counterparts in the household. Men were treated as more superior than women. Therefore, only men could receive an education. At that era, 'stupidity' was consedered a virtue. Women had no chance to rise in society or gain an education. Therefore we must stop foot binding in our society in order for there to be a balance between men and women and to prevent further gender discrimination issues.
Foot-binding for Chinese Women were considered as a beauty statement in the olden days. Women who had bound feet were seen as a status symbol. Women who had their feet binded were able to hold higher positions and marry into richer families.
In those days, mothers of sons were very strict about having their sons to marry women with bound feet. Women whom did not have bound feet were seen as a humiliation and failure, and were not allowed by the sons' mothers to marry into their sons' family.
When women bound their feet, men could dominate more easily and not worry about women taking their power. As the process took place so early, the young girl had no choice but to follow her family's order and have her feet bound. She was uneducated and followed tradition to see foot-binding as a neccessity.
Women were gender-discriminated and seen as an object to the men, to look pretty in the status of men's wives, therefore appealing to men's image mattered more than their health. The girl's life went on without having much control over it.
Foot binding not only crippled the women who went through the process but as well as crippled women in China for centuries. Being crippled by foot binding, they had such a little role in the government. It was a custom that started out to define beauty but ended up defining the way the society was.
gender discrimination was a common and apparent sight in the olden days. boys were generally treated better than girls, and were given more privileges. boys were given education, while girls had to stay at home to work.
the saying is felt to be the thing that families should do in those days. foot binding was something only a certain gender, the female gender, should do. they treated the binding of their daughters' feet as a matter of fact, adn that the sufferings that resulted were inconsequential.
the boys were also taught that girls with large feet are ugly, and thus men will not marry women with large feet. girls were also taught from young that small feet were attractive, and they accepted it as something they had to do and had no choice over. they bore the consequences of foot binding silently, unable to protest, as their families were strongly for it. the bad smell and the pain and eventual death of the feet were not considereed in the bid to make their daughters attractive tp prospective husbands.
education was also something only a certain gender should do, but in this case it was the male gender. education was a privilegegiven only to boys, whilst girls were considered unnecessary for education. the girls had to stay at home and do work. boys had more choices than girls, and were considered more important. girls could not request for an education, as an education for girls was unheard of in those days.
the boys and girls had no chance to reason over the right wrong of foot binding and education. they were brought up to believe that that was the way of life, and they were supposed to do that, or suffer the consequences. although it was finally stopped, girls suffered a lot in those times, and that suffering was for life.
The idea of foot-binding today, seems to be ridiculous. Ironically, during the 10th century and to early 20th century it had been a custom being practiced so commonly. Despite the pain and the disadvatages caused, women at that time still looked to the practice as a sacred one. As the bounding of feet is a symbolism of wealth and power, as women with bound feet could not work. The idea of foot-binding is a thought everyone should banish from their minds. It does no benefits for us, instead causes such misery. It is a very much redundant practice. And the comparison of bound foots as lotuses is totally riculous. The lotus is so pure and gives people a peace of mind, whereas bound feets are suffocated and rotten. Where did these people get the image of bound feets as lotuses from? On the otherhand, however ridiculous the idea of foot-binding is, it had certainly made history. Also, there must also have been a more reasonable explanation to the meaning of foot-binding that our ancestors have to the miserable foot-binding practice. We should also thank our ancestors for making chinese history even more meaningful to the idea of beauty.
I understand in the past that women would have their foot binded. It is a common practice, especially by the chinese. They have the belief that women should carry out their duties well as a housewives. Women in the past generally, did not went out and work.
About associating it with gender discrimination, nowadays, people fight and argue about gender discrimination. Their common topic is about promotion. It is often said that women would face the glass-ceiling in work. The male, being chauvist and through the old=boy’s network, women generally have little or no chance to get senior posts.
Back to the olden days of footbinding. I feel that this footbinding is also related to gender discrimination. By simply binding the women’s feet, it would certainly make it impossible for women to find jobs when they can hardly walk with their small feet. Some women with hidden talents would therefore, be unable to show off or display their hidden talents. This will not be unfair to the women themselves only, it will also be unfair to the society as these woemn with hidden talents would certainly have contributed to the society.
Who knows, if women did not have their feet binded in the past, the society might have been more advanced now.
It alll started with the chinese emperor who prohibited women from even studying at that time. Surprisingly, at that point of time, even stupidity was considered as a virtue. Does it mean that it was even good to be stupid at that time?
In my opinion, i think that the emperor himself was the one being stupid. Anyway, one cannot say that the emperor is wrong at that time. We have to accept it.
In my eyes, by binding the feet of the women and by not letting them study in the past has truely been an pity. The society could have and will do better with out two words: GENDER DISCRIMINATION.
Why did women even bind their feet even thought they know it was a painful process? The answer is simple. They did it for beauty.
Once foot binding started, it spread quickly. Foot binding was a symbol of wealth. As women in poorer need to work and need to have normal feet so as to work. But rich women do not have to do it.
The person who thought of the idea of foot binding is completely insane. The person did not think before hand that the pain the women have to go throught to get the 'lotus foot'.
The foot of the women would be deformed and during the process of it, it would have a horrible smell. The women would have a hard time walking.
In my opinion, i think that foot binding is a cruel thing. Little girls of ages 4 to 6 have to endure. Nowadays, parents will be heartbroken if they see their child get injured, not to say let they bind their foot.
It affects women not a short period but for life. They are not able to walk or even work.
I feel that foot-binding is unnecesary and cruel to women. Why should they have to torture themselves just for status? In those days, women were discriminated because they could not carry on their family name. So i feel that it is unfair to females in that time as they had to give in to society's demands for them.
After reading the articles about foot binding, I could understand more about why the people of early times would want to bind their foot. It is because if they did not bind their foot, no man would marry them. Because of this fact, many women from the olden days would go to the extent of binding their feet to turn them into the prized “three-inch golden lotuses.” Many of the women would bind their feet when they were young. Some bind their feet due to the tradition of their family while some bind their feet because they saw the beautiful small and tiny feet of their relative and they wish to have feet like those of their relatives. On the whole, I could truly understand why women from olden days would want to bind their feet, but it is too much of a physical torture to the women, to have to bind their feet just because they want to marry a good husband. I felt that it is very repulsive for the women of olden days to bind their feet. I totally disagree of their traditions. I felt that the man of olden days should not decide who to marry to depending on the women’s size of feet. I felt painful for the women of olden days when I read about how they would bind their feet every day, binding it tighter and tighter day by day, hearing the breaking of their bones and the pain of not being able to walk properly. I am very glad that government has banned the binding of feet as I could not bear to see people binding their feet in today’s world.
I think that the problem of foot binding started with the empress or concubine during the Shang dynasty. If they did not start the phenomenon, people in the future would not have to suffer the fate of foot binding. Despite wanting to have a status symbol, but I think the females should not go into extreme for it. Even after the ban, people should not go into their extremes and try to break their leg bones to get into a better family or to look good. The females are bringing the pain upon themselves. This type of fashion trend in the olden days is the same as the fashion trends people are experiencing now. For example, people nowadays wanted to go for branded goods. Despite knowing that the goods are expensive, people are still buying it. Females in the olden days wanted to get married into a better family, to live a better life, by doing so, they bind their foot to show that they are beautiful. However, they did not realize the fact that the foot binding can limit their working force and affect their output. In pursuit of beauty, the females in the olden days went to their extremes and bind their feet, but if they thought of their future and not just on beauty alone, they could have lived a better and less painful life.
Foot binding is just one of the extrememes people go to to become "beautiful" People go to all lengths just to feel good. Though foot binding seems disgusting to us, it was a culture at that pain, just like being thin is beautiful today. Women in china at that time had no choice but to go through all the pain of breaking and binding just to be married and have a good life. Although foot binding is banned today, there will always be strange and painful things people will do just to be beautiful from their perspective. Even if they bind their feet they may not be able to get a good husband. I feel sorry for the women who lived in china during that era.
Why are people so obsessed with being pretty and follow the crowd?Everyone is pretty in their own ways but it just amazed me how people can go to the extremes of having nose job, plastic surgery and serious dieting just so they can look 'beautiful'.Similarly, Chinese women in China in the olden days would bind their feet to the ultimate pain so that they will have a secured future as a guy will for sure marry them.Can anybody tell me how insane is that?Breaking toes on purpose are just plain insane but that's what the China men think they would find beautiful in a woman.What is so pretty about torturing your feet into a pair of 3-inch lotuses?Pain was not a factor anymore to them once they decided their feet should be bound.Whatever it is,we should have been thankful for what we've got and not alter god's creation.Walking with 3-inch feet,to me, is just so abnormal.Why does people in the olden days find such abnormal habit beneficial?Thankfully,this habit which people described as beautiful has been banned.Such crazy habits deserved to be curb or people's mindset won't change.Men in those days should not be unreasonable as to judge a woman by their feet.that is totally ridiculous as a thinking.
Research on the history of the Chinese custom of Foot Binding The original wrapping of a woman's feet in China was not done with the intention of permanently deforming them. According to historical accounts it was around 970 A.D., during the rule of Li Yu, when the custom began. The ruler's favorite consort, Yao-niang, performed a dance atop a golden lotus pedestal that had been specially built. She had wrapped her feet in long strips of silk cloth, much like a ballerina in toe shoes today. Li Yu was overwhelmed with the beauty of her movement as she danced that other court maidens followed suit, and "Golden Lotus" became a euphemism for their delicately bound feet. What began as a tool to facilitate dancing was gradually adopted as fashion among the upper class, and a custom that was to last a millennium was born. Women began to bind on a regular basis, concentrating ever more intently upon the desired shape and size of the foot. As was perhaps inevitable, foot binding’s popularity spread from the upper classes to all levels of society. No longer just a fad, it became a way of life for millions of females throughout China. During the Song Dynasty (960 to 1276) the position of women in society dropped to a new low. Until this time women had been schooled in the arts and versed in the classics; they held independent rights to property and wealth, and could marry or remarry at will. New ideology, however, redefined their status, laying the groundwork to keep nearly half of China's population obedient and limited in skill and ability. Women's roles were defined only in the context of complete dependence upon men: a female was to remain in the home, where she was required to obey her father and older brother in childhood, her husband in marriage, and her son if widowed. It was considered unwise to educate women, supporting the belief that "in a woman stupidity is a virtue". Her attention, instead, was to be focused on cultivating fidelity, physical charm, propriety in speech, and efficient needlework. No longer were women given property rights, but were themselves treated as property, bought and sold or even killed by husbands and fathers with impunity. The following centuries saw foot binding openly viewed as a method of controlling women and cultivating their moral conduct. During the 1100s the governor Chu Hsi criticized the wornen of Fujian Province for being unchaste and enjoying too much freedom, and ordered them to bind their feet to the extreme. The tiny footed women would then no longer be free to leave the household as they pleased, or engage in the sexual freedoms enjoyed by men. Foot binding continued to gain official and popular sanction as an expression of cultural refinement. As women's bound feet and shoes became the essence of feminine beauty, a fanatical aesthetic and sexual mystique developed around them. The bound foot was understood to be the most intimate and erotic part of the female anatomy, and wives, consorts and prostitutes were chosen solely on the size and shape of their feet. An unflattering figure or facial flaws were overlooked if a woman's feet appealed to the man's libido. Poets went to great lengths to expound upon the beauty of the bound foot; vividly describing the delights of "tender blossoms" tucked into tiny embroidered shoes and peeking out from below a billowing garment. Ancient love manuals outlined the sensual pleasures of the bound foot and illustrated countless positions in which they could be fondled and caressed. While the naked feet deformed and camouflaged by binding cloth were rarely, if ever, revealed - even in the most intimate company - women took great care and attention in making shoes to cover them. Considered part of a woman's intimate apparel, the color of shoe and style of embroidery often held great significance, and they were often perfumed or clad with jingling bells and ankle bracelets to attract attention. Foot binding remained a part of Chinese society well into the 20th century. The Manchu leaders of the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911) never adopted the custom, and tried with little success to stop its popularity. During the late 1800s reform-oriented scholars and western missionaries began speaking out against the brutal custom, yet it wasn’t until the 1920s that change finally began to take hold. Intellectuals plucked the issue of footbinding from the realm of morals and aesthetics and remolded it into a question of patriotism. Women were told the practice was not only harmful to their own physical and emotional health, but also a costly disability to the nation, retarding its political and economic development. In 1928 the Nationalist government announced its plan to eradicate footbinding, requiring girls under the age of fifteen to let their feet grow naturally. Some local officials took a tougher stand, requiring that all women unbind their feet or be subject to fines and sometimes physical punishment. The order to stop binding met with mixed success, especially in rural areas where large feet were still considered highly unattractive and unacceptable. Many women struggled not only with the possibility of becoming social outcasts, but also feared undergoing another period of great inconvenience and agonizing pain. To avoid physical and emotional trauma, releasing bound feet had to be done slowly, by loosening the bindings on a regular basis and allowing the feet to gradually resume a more normal shape. Women who had not bound tightly were able to release their feet without great discomfort. Others who had achieved the highly desired three-inch feet found it impossible, for in so doing they would have been left completely crippled. In urban areas where jobs and education were more available, the practice faded rapidly as women began to demand more rights and to play a role in the financial welfare of the family. In most of China, however, social and sexual customs were resistant to rapid change, and for millions of women it wasn't until the years following the Communist revolution in 1949 that the perpetuation of foot binding finally ended. Source: http://www.josephrupp.com/history.html
Comments I find it really unbelievable that women in the past of China actually went to bind their feet in order to make them look more attractive and feminine, so that someone from the respectable family would marry them just for them having such small feet, looking like the lotus. Even though they are aware that binding of the feet is extremely painful and unhealthy, they just carried on with it, just because of the influence of their parents and friends who are doing it, thinking that they would lead a better life after that. It is just like the people now who are suffering from Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa. They are trying to be slimmer even though sometimes they are not fat at all. These are very extreme measures for being able to be more attractive, which is totally not true! True beauty lies within. It means having a good character and be optimistic and positive. It does not mean that once you have feet that are as small as two and a half inches, or when you are so thin that you are just a pack of bones, you are beautiful. It is how you present yourself in front of others that matters. (Attitude) Also, I am glad that foot binding is banned, which means women are free, literally, for their feet.
Foot binding was a custom practiced 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.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, 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.
As we can see from here,footbinding shows us how even people in the olden days would suffer just for beauty,like teenagers now who likes to enlarge their ear holes.i think it is not a right way. and it is very cruel for the women in that times as they needed to bind their foot to marry into a wealthy family,it is ridiculous!
i think everybody should accept their body as how it is. After all, everyone is unique in our their ways and should not modify their bodies for the sake of beauty.
I think that women who bind their foot in the olden days were a bit stupid and uneducated because they are causieng themselves to be in so much pain just because the want to marry into a family that has a lot of money to let them live their lifes comfortably. Also binding of the foot in the olden days were also considered as a form of beauty. That could be why so many of the women bound their feet.
In a way, women in the olden days are very similar to women nowadays. Women nowadays starve themselves or force themselves to vomit after meals just because they want to look beautiful. They force themselves to endure so much pain just so that they can look beautiful and marry into a family that can let them live their lifes comfortably. Although the pain of starving and the pain of bones breaking and changing are different, the mindset is still the same. All of them who endure this pain have only one thing in mind: "It's all for the sake of beauty".
Foot binding 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.
I treat this behavior as child abuse and it should be punished accordingly. It is commonly cited an example where an extreme deformity can be viewed as beauty, and also where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard.
Chinese girls should feel pleased that foot binding is not practiced anymore. It is not right to love a girl by torturing her since young, but they should receive the same treatment as the boys, being allowed to study and not foot binding.
Footbinding was a custom that was practice on young females in China for a thousand years, starting in the 10th century and ended in the early 20th century. Young girls who are 6 or younger had their feet wrapped tightly in bandages so that they could not grow properly. This causes great pain to the girl. Their bones will break. In order to minimize the pain suffered, footbinding is usually done in winter. Footbinding is now a prominent cause of disability among some elderly Chinese women.
I feel that footbinding is not a beauty to the women but a suffering. The pain is unbearable but the girls could not even tolerate. I guess that the Chinese girls now should feel very lucky that the practice is now considered as child abuse and that no girl will be treated this way again. This is not love to the young girl but a torture to the young girl. If the girls are loved, they should be treated the same as the boys, that is, being allowed to study, not by footbinding.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls in china. Not being able to get married because of not binding her feet is not fair. Girls should have the freedom to choose whom she wants to marry. However, when feet-binding was banned, i find it hard to believe that women would still practice the tradition in secret. Maybe to them, it was special as not many women are able to fit into their small shoes. It was somewhat unique in their eyes. However, i am glad that feet-binding is banned as i do not like the idea of having to suffer so much for beauty.
The definition of beauty differs in places, era and different people's thinking. In the past, women feel that having the smallest feet means beauty; while in the present, women do not fancy binding their feet.
People often do to the extent just to look better physically. When times have changed, people have different thinking. For instance, in the present women yearns to be slim to look nice, while in the past in China, only obese women are considered pretty instead of the slim ones.
Overall, i feel that natural is beauty. The Lady who binded her feet is an example, she did it in the past because during that time having the smallest feet is a beauty. But now, she regretted. So, beauty can never have a standard definition.
Foot binding 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 4 in (10 cm), 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. One of the objectives of the Taiping Rebellion was to stop foot binding practice. 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.
from the Article in the library concering the foot binding, i believe that the method use to show off and get a oppurnity to lead a good life through having small feet is should not be done. This matter should be address as i beauty does not come outwardly but should been seen invertly. Binding may have seens as a way to indentified how someone life will be. Foot binding is a method which is cultivated since young among girls during the past times. Believing that With binded feet, this would give the girl a promising husband as smaller the feet would meant more richer families would actually pick the females to become part of the rich familes. Those feet who were not binded would be discriminated for and be condemed to work as a servant. Acheiving binded feet was also not easy as the binding requires the breaking of the females bone feets by breaking the arch of the feet so that the toes and heel are even closer. Pain and sores was never ending as the process would also lead to bandanges being filled with blood and puss that needs to be washed. During a period of time, the Chinese woman were encouraged not to have their feet binded. Having done binding for many years, some of the females could not adapt to the changes implemented and this resulted them not able to be well supported. This caused the older females unable to walk instead crawl. From the facts and the life testimonies from females that have undergo foot binding, though i am quite disguisted by just imagining the process needed to bind the feets. I am just glad that such practices were not continue now as such method are totally uncalled for and are just supertious pracitices.
This is the information that i have got from the internet.
Footbinding(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. Although nowadays girls tend to go on diet just to look good in their clothes, they will also not do such a thing like foot binding to hurt themselves. Even to get married the women have to have a bounded feet if not the mother of the guy will not accepted her even thought how much they love each other.If in order to just to get married I have to do such a thing to hurt myself I must well don't get married.I also do not agreed to such a practice as it will hurt themselves just to look good and although it is not very pain it will hurt their bone.This is also a discrimination over the girls, the guys thinks that just because the girls have bounded feet they have a no power whereas the guys have more control.So I totally do not agreed to foot binding.
I feel that foot binding is a kind of discrimination as it is used to prevent women in the olden days from going out of the house. in the olden days, men are to go to school to study and women ar to stay at home and do housework. foot binding is done so that women will not run away from the house as it is hard to balance due to the size of their foot. men hence can catch the women who ran away from home easily.
After seeing this topic online, I could not help but realise that people would go extreme measures just to be classified as pretty in the terms of their times.
In the ancient times, the practice of wrapping one's feet had lasted from the 10th century to the 20th century. They also believed that wrapping one's feet would keep one's body weight under control.
I feel that husbands should love their wife no matter how they look. Although I could understand the reason behind woman tying their foot, and obviously knowing the consequences doesn't only last temporarily but permanently, I could not understand why this tradition lasted for so many centuries, it's like an unfading fashion. It was also surprising that it lasted from mother to children, from grandmother to grandchildren.
Even till now, people also sacrifice themselves to be beautiful in their standards. They suffer from eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa, and even go through drastic measures like plastic surgery.
I can’t help but think how people ever would be satisfied of themselves and accept the way they are. I hope that in the future people would find content with themselves and finally accept the way they are and how they look.
When i heard of foot-binding, i thought it makes big and ugly feet into a delicate and pretty shape and for the sake of beauty, it's worth it. Little did i know, i was actually wrong. While listening and reading through the article of foot-binding, i find that foot-binding is not as simple as i thought. Empathising on the women that survive foot-binding, i wince at every word they said such as, "Young bones are easy to break" which means their feet are being bend inwards forcefully, causing the bones to crack and being bandaged, then as they grow, the shape begin to form. I was so surprised that in the past, only women with bound feet can marry into a wealthy family. Its kind of ridiculous to go to such extent for beauty and marriage. It is a relief that foot binding no longer exist, at least i hope no one is doing it secretly now. It is scary. Moreover, i do not think beauty deserves so much sacrifices and pain because it is but a word.
Its the 21st century and many have the mind concept that being slim equates to being good looking.That is way people develop diseases like bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Turn back time and , hey! Woman in the past too go to certain extend to look good too! They BIND their feet as to the people then the smaller the feet the better. Also, the binding of feet would allow the young girls even from the country side to marry into money and rise in both social status and wealth! So, just to 'look good' and have a high status, woman bind their feet despite the pain. To me a woman should not be judged by the size of their feet. Still, moving back to now doesn't all these remind one of how the woman now starve themselves to too 'look good' so that man would be attracted to them. Woman should be judged by their character and not looks or even more so their size of the feet. Which is why to me people should just be themselves :D!
Foot binding was a custom practised on young females for around a thoudsand years, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century.
It was viewed as a form of beauty and their main aim was to develop the perfect lotus foot. Foot binding is a extremely painful process and four toes on each foot would break within a year. As the girl reached adulthood, her feet would remain small and dysfunctional, prone to infection, paralysis, and muscular atrophy.
However, many females chose to bear the pain so that they will be able to find a better husband. Only the poorest do not practice this custom as they needed able-bodied women to work the fields.
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.
Michelle Kwok: BW3E4MIC After reading the article, I find that we are living in a very fortunate century whereby we do not have to go through foot binding and farming. To me, foot binding is an extremely cruel act because foot binding involves breaking of the bones and deforming of bones. Imagine living in that conditions whereby your feet is once very nice and normal but when you reach the age of about seven, your mum tell you that it was time to bind your feet and without any psychological preparations, your mum tries very hard to squeeze your feet into a very small deform shaped shoe by breaking your feet bones and tying them together in a weird manner. How will you feel? If it’s me, I’ll call it ridiculous. No doubt that it was a kind of beauty and status symbolisation but why did they want to do such a thing that would cause so much inconvenience in your future life? Like make ups and nice clothing, foot binding make girls feel more beautiful and guys would normally like women of this kind at that point of time. However, they did not consider the factors before executing the actions. Just because of a concubine that was so well liked by an emperor. To me, it was more than for status symbolism, it was a tradition. It was stated that foot binding was banned and yet people still continue because they were afraid that man would not marry them but since it was banned, the explanation should have been clear and yet they chose not to believe when they themselves have experience it before. It was also passed down from generations to generations in a family and so it was like a tradition. I also think that the people then were being unrealistic. Was it better to have a capable wife to help out in the family or was it better to have a wife for display? What is a wife for displayed married in the first place? Wouldn’t it be better to buy a display than to have a living “display” that only eats and take up space but couldn’t do anything else? Rich people have maids at that time too but it doesn’t mean that not doing anything would mean that you are a high-class person. Rather, I think that such women are useless people. What is a person for if his/her presence makes no difference to others? However, I also pity the women then. They were made to act as if they had to do nothing but when revolution came, they were force to work in the field, farming and sowing. I’m so thankful that females nowadays do not have to bind their feet.
After reading those articles, I feel that I am very fortunate to live in this century and this country and not that time whereby girls need to bind their feet until so tiny that it caused great pain whenever they tried walking.
In my opinion, foot binding was a completely a disgusting and ridiculous thing to do. Imagine that you are a jubilant girl and leading a carefree life. Out of the blue moon, your mother wants to bind your feet to a 3 inches or even smaller shoes. Before the process was started, your feet were washed in hot water and massaged. This helped to make the feet a little easier to compress. In the first step of footbinding, the four smallest toes were painfully pressed against the sole of the foot with a cotton cloth. The cloth used was two inches wide and ten feet long. The largest toe was the only toe that was free from the binding. The next step was to bring the cloth bandage "around the heel so tightly that the front and back of the foot were drawn in toward each other, forcing the instep of the foot to arch upward" (Campbell1). After the process of footbinding, your feet were forced into the tiny shoes that were three inches long. These shoes were called "lotus shoes" and were made out of silk. Just by imagining these procedures already give me goose bumps. I cannot imagine if I really need to bind my feet. The pain and sufferings I need to bear is very scary.
I think that the guys who loved a girl whose feet were so tiny were extremely selfish. They did not think of the unbearable pain a girl need to go through to keep their feet small. I did some research on “why guys loved those girls who had such tiny feet in the past.” The results lead me to be utterly disgusted by them. (http://bosp.kcc.hawaii.edu/Horizons/horizons_1999/footbinding2.html)
It is also say that, some people believed that footbinding was developed because Chinese men were afraid that the women could easily leave them. Another possible reason was to stop Chinese women from being or becoming promiscuous. If the women were restricted from walking, it would be harder for them to leave the house and have an affair with another man. Others felt that it was a sign of beauty to have small feet. However, I think that no matter what the reasons are, they should not for the sake of own pleasure and cause the women to suffer. In that time, the smaller the feet the girls had the better marriage they would get as those wealthy people only liked those girls who had three inches or below feet. Those who exceed three inches would be considered ugly and would be despised. It was all girls’ dream to marry a guy that was wealthy so that they would not need to worry for the rest of their lives on food and clothes. I also feel sorry for those girls who bind their feet for the sake of wealth. When revolution came, all the wealth had been confiscated and they need to work in the fields.
In conclusion, I am very thanking that girls do not need to bind their feet anymore…
I think that foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, yet it is hard to understand exactly what foot binding was like with the modern outlook we have today. The reason for women binding their feet went deeper than fashion and reflected the role of women in Chinese society. It was necessary then in China for a woman to have bound feet in order to achieve a good life.I felt that you don't have to go into these extent in hurting your body parts just to look beautiful or to get a husband.Nowadays women tend to get stronger and can live without man therefore we do not really need to treat ourselves to these to get pretty.I would never agreed to it. Besides knowing these,the most cruel thing is when girls from the age of four to six have to go through these process, i think is a totally a horrible thing for a child as these process far prevent them from growing healthy and these detrimental to the young girls' health and worst of all, if they get some diseases, they could even die from it,it is so ridiculous,i'm glad that this foot binding process have been reduced.
I think that foot binding is a very stupid way of telling people that he or she is very pretty and one should not fall to peer or parental pressure to bind their foot just because everybody is doing it. It looks so ugly and the "victim" can hardly walk properly. They should have known that it was a fashion and would not last forever. They deserve their punishment for not making the right choice during their childhood. >_<
102 comments:
BW3E13EUN
People nowadays went into extremes diets to lose weight so that that could look slim and pretty. Because of their over obsession, they developed diseases such as bulimia and anorexia. But after reading the article online, I realized that even many decades ago, woman already went into extreme measures so that they can find a good husband.
Woman in olden days bind their feet because at that time, bound feet were consider a status symbol, the only way for a woman to marry into money. Thus because of this, many woman bind their feet despite the pain. Binding feet was painful as they break their toes and bind them underneath the sole of the foot with bandages, breaking the arch of their own foot to force their toes and heel ever closer. As they bind their feet at young age, the bones were broken as young bones are sot, they break more easily.
Although I could understand why woman bind their feet, I felt that it was unnecessary; men should not look at the size of a woman feet to conclude whether they are a good wife or not. This shows the change of thinking of people over many decades. I felt that this was unfair to the woman as they have to suffer such pain for their whole life just so that they could marry a good husband. After they had bind their feet for a long time, they cannot dance, they cannot move properly, sometimes even which they cannot even put their feet on the ground as they hurt too much. This pain is what many of us could not understand as we had not gone through the pain.
Nevertheless, I am glad that the revolution had cause many woman to stop binding their feet, that the thinking of men had change and people could marry into good family with good husband not based on the size of their feet but on their character.
Upon reading the article about foot binding, I think that females nowadays should be grateful that they do not live in the foot binding period.
Foot binding is not easy. The process normally began when a girl was between the age of three to eleven years old, the justification being that the pre-bone cartilage of the arch, which was mostly water, would be more easily molded than matured bone. The mothers or more experienced female relatives who performed the foot binding were at least thoughtful enough to carry it out in late fall or winter when the foot was generally numb so that the girl will not experience so much pain.
So why would woman bind their feet if they had to endure so much pain? Reason is, for beauty.
From records of the Song dynasty, Emperor Li Yu was captivated by concubine, Yao Niang, a talented dancer who bound her feet to suggest the shape of a new moon and performed a “lotus dance” which suggests that food binding dates back all the way to the Song dynasty.
Since then, foot binding 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 bring them to greater social status and increased wealth. A foot measuring a perfect three inches was called a 'lotus of gold'; a four-inch foot was considered 'silver'; and one measuring more than four inches was an 'iron lotus' and so small feet were considered beautiful and elegant. Big, naked flat feet were seemed only to fit animals.
This is very much like the society today. People go for plastic surgeries, inject botox into their skins, had tattoos and piercing just to look good. They may even go for the extreme like turning themselves white when their natural body colour is black, or they would insert beads into their body in order to stand out among the crowds, which they think is beautiful. You don’t look good, you lose.
But I think that we cannot defy the nature of how our bodies grow in the first place. It is also very dangerous that we modify our bodies extremely in the risk of having infection.
It is good that people accept their body as how it is. After all, everyone is unique in our own ways and should not resort to extreme body modifications for the sake of beauty.
I think that if i were at that time, why would binding feet make me want to marry those woman? Its gross just looking at the feet being so small. This practice is similar to anorexia and bulimia, the main purpose of binding their feet is just to make others feel that they are sexy with their tiny legs.
quote: 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."
Dancing is a skill, you don't have to have such tiny legs to dance! Such tiny legs (in my opinion) are tiny to dance! And i think binding their legs for the sake of finding a good husband is hypocrisy, fake and pretentious.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls in china.
Not being able to get married because of not binding her feet is not fair. Girls should have the freedom to
choose whom she wants to marry. However, when feet-binding was banned, i find it hard to believe that women
would still practice the tradition in secret. Maybe to them, it was special as not many women are able to
fit into their small shoes. It was somewhat unique in their eyes. However, i am glad that feet-binding is
banned as i do not like the idea of having to suffer so much for beauty.
Reflection on FootBinding
People in the past had a misunderstanding in defining beauty. They blindly follow the crowd and change their mindset that footbinding was a popular and common fashion. They did not think of the consequences like health problem and accessibility. They did not have a freedom to choose whether to bind or not some just follow the crowd. In the past, people lack of education especially for women. They did not consider others before making any decisions and the emperor set inhumane rules to make all women bind their foot. Women at that time was stereotyped that they will be left on the shelves if they did not bind their foot. I think that this situation is just similar to what modern days women face. Being slim is more attractive, is another stereotyped of women and even some men. Just like the olden days women who bind their foot, modern days women starve their body. Singapore is getting more and more influence by the western thus, the idea of having a slim body also influence us. For the sake of becoming slim, they tend to starve themselves or vomit the food they just ate to maintain their body weight and skinny body. The most scary part is that they did not know when to stop. They got the mindset that they are very obese although in actual fact they are too skinny. The people in the past lack of education, thus we cannot blame them for enforcing foot binding but nowadays, people receiving high education still unable to see what harm and damage anorexia can do. I feel that we should treasure what we have, do not be greedy and unsatisfy with the things around us. As compared to the past, we are very fortunate.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls in china.
Not being able to get married because of not binding her feet is not fair. Girls should have the freedom to
choose whom she wants to marry. However, when feet-binding was banned, i find it hard to believe that women
would still practice the tradition in secret. Maybe to them, it was special as not many women are able to
fit into their small shoes. It was somewhat unique in their eyes. However, i am glad that feet-binding is
banned as i do not like the idea of having to suffer so much for beauty.
BRANDE:
Foot binging is very common in the old days. In the past, small feet are believed to be a trait of beauty. Thus many women had their feet bind by their mothers when they are young. This is because mothers believe that the feet of a young child are more flexible and easy to be ‘moulded’ into a smaller size. Seriously, if I were the child, I would run away from home.
These poor kids had their feet bind into a disfigured shape; enduring all that pain. I wonder why men in the past would even think that it is beautiful. The most shocking part is that no men would marry a woman without small feet! That is absurb.
BW3E14HEN
After researching on foot binding, I consider it as a way of being beautiful in the past. So, it is a past trend, just like modern trends for instance, facial cream, slimming gadgets and nutritional food. People are crazy when it comes to beauty. We will do anything we can to be appear beautiful. Foot binding may seem silly, but that is human nature. Having small foot is like torturing oneself to become disabled, this sounds ridiculous. Even when this trend comes to an end, it does not mean human desperate pursue to beauty also ends. It becomes worse to me. This time, from two feet tortured, it is the whole body, mind and emotion tortured, in the form of bulimia and anorexia nervosa. So come to think of it, humans are getting stupider by torturing more and more of their body to be appearing beautiful. This is foolish, because what is important is not the outer beauty but the inner beauty.
Reflection on FootBinding
People in the past had a misunderstanding in defining beauty. They blindly follow the crowd and change their mindset that footbinding was a popular and common fashion. They did not think of the consequences like health problem and accessibility. They did not have a freedom to choose whether to bind or not some just follow the crowd. In the past, people lack of education especially for women. They did not consider others before making any decisions and the emperor set inhumane rules to make all women bind their foot. Women at that time was stereotyped that they will be left on the shelves if they did not bind their foot. I think that this situation is just similar to what modern days women face. Being slim is more attractive, is another stereotyped of women and even some men. Just like the olden days women who bind their foot, modern days women starve their body. Singapore is getting more and more influence by the western thus, the idea of having a slim body also influence us. For the sake of becoming slim, they tend to starve themselves or vomit the food they just ate to maintain their body weight and skinny body. The most scary part is that they did not know when to stop. They got the mindset that they are very obese although in actual fact they are too skinny. The people in the past lack of education, thus we cannot blame them for enforcing foot binding but nowadays, people receiving high education still unable to see what harm and damage anorexia can do. I feel that we should treasure what we have, do not be greedy and unsatisfy with the things around us. As compared to the past, we are very fortunate.
bw5n16alb
people have alot of missconcept with regards of eating healthy .i suggest they should consult someone to guide them in order to lead a healthy life ....
I think foot binding not only crippled the women who went through the process but as well as crippled women in China for centuries. Being crippled by foot binding, they had such a little role in the government. It was a custom that started out to define beauty but ended up defining the way the society was.
It also caused most women to have health problems due to foot binding was in their later years.
The ancient Chinese custom of foot binding has caused severe life-long disability for many millions of elderly women, even in today’s China, according to a UC San Francisco study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health published this week.
women with bound feet had 5.1 percent lower hip bone density and 4.7 percent lower spine bone density than women with normal feet, putting them at greater risk of suffering hip or spine fractures.
The practice of foot binding began in the Sung dynasty (960-976 BC), reportedly to imitate an imperial concubine who was required to dance with her feet bound. By the 12th century, the practice was widespread and more severe — girls’ feet were bound so tightly and early in life that they were unable to dance and had difficulty walking.
Overall, i think that food binding is not good because it will cause them to suffer.
We should follow on our ways cause all of us has diffferent thinking on the thing we say and do
The ancient Chinese custom of foot binding has caused severe life-long disability for many millions of elderly women, even in today’s China, according to a UC San Francisco study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health published this week
women in the 80 years or older group with bound feet were more likely to have fallen during the previous year than women with normal feet (38 percent vs. 19 percent) and were less able to rise from a chair without assistance (43 percent vs. 26 percent).
In addition, the study found that women with bound feet had 5.1 percent lower hip bone density and 4.7 percent lower spine bone density than women with normal feet, putting them at greater risk of suffering hip or spine fractures.
I feel that there is not a need for them to bind their feed as it is a ridiculous.
footbinding is however not needed nowadays.
i feel that girls being natural is nice enough,there's no need for further slimming plans to make oneself to look even 'slimmer'.
thus,eating disorders may lead to many sickness which causes pain.
Regarding to the foot binding, i think that it is quite curel to do that as it painful.Such a painful and crippling tradition could not be completely due the popularity and fashion it had at the time. There were many reasons mothers made the decision to bind their daughters' feet. Men in China in that era would not marry a woman who did not have bound feet
I thinking that the process was very painful, every time the feet were rebound the bandages were pulled tighter. But besides just the pain of the process, there were many after affects that were detrimental to the young girls' health. The pain of the bound feet never stopped.
I think the foot binding in the olden days is very useless. As in the olden days men look at the size of the woomen to conclude wheather they are good wife?
i think it is ridiculous, as women thinks that if they bind their feets , they will into marriage.
however,they has been suffering from broken bones , due to the binding of foot.
I think that women should not bind their feet just because they want to be given into marriage.Women should start to look into their inner beauty such as their character and attitude.They should reflect their character than foot binding as they would then be unique from others.
They should not do these kind of things as it would damage their appearance and then lead other consequences which may not be expected.They should respect their body than giving up for someone else and should not go for foot binding
Footbinding 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.
i think that girls nowadays are quite fortunate. they do not have to bind their foot.
in the past they believe that girls who bind their foot are demure. Great pain has been suffered for centuries for women to achieve perceived beauty. for instance, it will cause the growth of the foot bone.
in the past, girls often start binding foot at an early age of 3.
The process was very painful, every time the feet were rebound the bandages were pulled tighter. But besides just the pain of the process, there were many after affects that were detrimental to the young girls' health. The pain of the bound feet never stopped. The most common consequence was infection .There were many ways a girl could get an infection. One was the ball of the foot would folding directly into the heel. A second was that the toenails continued to grow, eventually curling into the skin. This led to flesh rotting off, and sometimes even a toe. The worst part of the process was that the feet would practically die after three years.
nonetheless, im still glad that in this century, we do not have this kind of practices anymore.
and i believe that what matters the most of a wife is its innner beauty rather than the outward beauty.
hi
Historians have tried to explain foot-binding in terms of a culture's standard of beauty or as a way of holding a woman to a household, but these explanations seemed to lack the kind of power that would sustain a custom for several centuries. Just think of how many times the beauty ideal has changed in this country within the last 100 years, from voluptuousness to fitness to heroin chic. And man's vanity rarely allows him to believe his woman would run away.
testing 1 2 3
BW5N22EDR
footbinding is disgusting.Footbinding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; 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.
Footbinding 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.
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 4 in (10 cm), 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."
I think that people in the 21st century are really fortunate because they do nt have to go throught such a painful practice...
Foot binding is a symbol of the inferior status traditional Chinese women. It was a custom that lasted for several dynasties in ancient China. People are not sure of the origin of this tradition, but there are many legends of that and foot binding did have its meanings for women and men at that time. The process was full of pain and many health problems came up when the women got older. Many years later, anti-footbinding campaigns occurred and foot binding was finally outlawed a thousand years later from the beginning.
Foot Binding 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.[1]. 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 rox!
bw5nalbFootbinding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; 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 4 in (10 cm), 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 stop foot binding practice.
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.[1]. 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[2]. 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.
Contents [hide]
1 Reception and appeal
2 Process
Footbinding 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.
I think that footbinding is a ridiculous act by the people in the olden days.
It seems that those people do not have the basic common sense at all. How can foot binding be viewed as beauty? I mean, Foot binding can cause death due to the deformity in their foot. If the woman is in old age, she may break her hips and other bones if she's not careful when walking.
I personally think that foot binding is a process where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard.
People who foot-bind their daughters should die.
Woman in the olden days bind their feet just because that they wanted to marry a rich guy in the future.
I think that it was a foolish act as they were hurting themselves not knowing whether thay could marry a rich husband in the future.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls.It will be very painful and will have difficulty while walking.The man should not marry a wife by looking on there feet,having the feet binded does not mean that the woman is a good wife.
footbindingis not needed now a days.
being natural is the best,however general conclusion may say that men only wants women which looks good.but it doesnt goes to the extend in footbinding.
Women in the olden days went to the extreme whereby they were forced to bind their foot from tender age. the process of the footbinding usually start from age four to six.
The process was very painful; every time the feet were rebound the bandages were pulled tighter. But besides just the pain of the process, there were many after affects that were detrimental to the young girls' health. The pain of the bound feet never stopped. The most common consequence was infection. There were many ways a girl could get an infection. One was the ball of the foot would folding directly into the heel. A second was that the toenails continued to grow, eventually curling into the skin. This led to flesh rotting off, and sometimes even a toe. The worst part of the process was that the feet would practically die after three years. The feet being dead caused a terrible smell the girl carried with her everywhere Diseases followed infections, and death could even result from foot binding.
From my point of view, i feel that footbinding was inpractical and its disgusting. it really turns people off seeing such small foot. The whole shape of the foot is distorted.. They are mad.
I find foot-binding is quite ridiculous in some ways. Women in the olden days bind their feet for some reasons which are, for beauty purpose such as they want a tiny feet to make themselves look good. On the other hand, is men look at the size of a woman feet to conclude whether they are a good wife or not.
I think the above statement is unfair to all women.
Men doesn't know how painful was foot-binding. Women have to endure the pain, as this is a traditional practice.
Women in their young age, start to bind their feet. As a result, their bones were broken as the young bone are sot.
I've read an article about binding, I think women nowadays are really fortunate. As, binding is really tough.
The process would take years.
Normally parents would start binding their daughter's leg at the age of 3 just because of a word, beauty.
Very similar to girls nowadays, just because of beauty, they skip meals and even go for plastic surgery.
I believe there is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty.
So, they are really very foolish to have listen to their parents. They should rebel! Haha.
But men at that century are really weird to look at the foot and not the face.
Really have to thanks god that its banned! Girls with big foot can get married too~
footbinding is just trying to be unfair to others by making them feel bad on how they look. have they ever put themself into other people's shoe??? and think how will others feel?
After reading an article on foot binding, I realized how fortunate are we girls now.
Foot binding are practiced in the chinese culture, it is a common ultimate goal to archive beauty.
Foot binding, is to stop the growth of the feet.
Foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, yet it is hard to understand exactly what foot binding was like during those time.
Young girls, at the age of hour to six start to bind their feet.
It was done so early in their life so that the arch did not have much time to develop.
Mothers are the one who will bind their daughters' feet, and they usually start the process late in the fall winder, so that the foot would be numb and the pain would not be as severe. The daughters' feet would first be soaked in warm water or animal blood and herbs.
There are many process that the girls have to go through, and they have to bear the pain too.
I am glad that this traditional practice is no longer in use, and we need not suffer so much for beauty.
I feel that the female now-a-day are been much lucky then those female who live in the foot-binding period.They have to suffer of a great pain as to have a beautiful legs.As compare to now, the woman just have some medicine and will get a nice beautiful leg.
This shows the change of thinking of people over many decades. Nevertheless, I am glad that now-a-day people have change their way of thinking and the woman have suffer less pain from their leg.
For me i don't think leg means alot to a man in the way of look at the woman.
FootBinding went into extremes diets to lose weight so that that could look slim and pretty so that they can find a good husband.
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).First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood. This concoction caused any necrotised flesh to fall off. Then her toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent ingrowth and subsequent infections. Silk or cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the same blood and herb mix as before. Each of the toes were then broken and wrapped in the wet bandages, which would constrict when drying, and pulled tightly downwards toward the heel. There may have been deep cuts made in the sole to facilitate this. Foot binding is rarely practiced today. Many people would treat the behavior as child abuse and punish it accordingly.
The bound foot was also a symbol of identity and virtue. A bound foot signified that a woman had achieved womanhood, and served as a mark of her gendered identity.
The Confucian tradition put a great deal of stress in properly covered bodies, correct attire - bound feet included - was the quintessential expression of civility, culture and humanity. Attire not only differentiated the Han Chinese from their inferior neighbours, thus giving them a sense of identity, but also set apart social classes and gender within the Han society. Big, flat naked feet were only fit for animals; women who had class had bound feet.
In today's world, money talks, and bound feet are no longer needed to lure good matches. Female emancipation and human rights have rendered foot binding all but obsolete. Today foot binding is but a lingering memory of ancient tradition, a story to be found in a dusty book or museum display, and a romantic half-myth that both fascinates and horrifies modern society.
I think that footbinding is an act with stupidity slapped on it. Firstly foot-binding doesnt make anyone beautiful, you parent's genes does. Secondly it is probably health threatening to apply weight on a binded foot. Lastly it hurts. A LOT.
So in conclusion, i quote from bw5n2dor "People who foot-bind their daughters should die."
"If you love your daughter, bind her feet; if you love your son, let him study,"
According to wiki, I read that young girls have to bind their feet at the age of 6. if the girls chose not to bind their feet, their parents will punish them accordingly. now how absurd is that! it may be regarded as beauty to the locals there, it grossed me out.
This, to me, feels like a combination of child abuse and gender discrimination to me. why are only boys allowed to study? its as if boys are expected to appear smart so that they can wed, extending the family line. girls meanwhile, are expected to take care of house chores when they grow up and wed, so there is not a need to waste education on them. this shows that boys are more favored than girls.
Foot binding should have been prohibited long ago. Sometimes you have to endure pain to gain beauty, but I do not believe this should be a necessity to follow. An example is plastic surgery- you do not see every woman undergoing that in their teens do you?
Foot binding is sure an interesting topic. The Women in the past would think that a small foot would mostprobably be nice and would attract moremen to take a liking to them. This is more of a gender discrimination as the men would not need to do such things. The women, on the other hand,had to bind their foot,experiencing the pain on the way.Most of them had binded their foot since young which would mean that they would experience the pain until they die. Such discrimination should be stopped and women would not experience such torture.The men should not use such a factor to consider their mate .Thus such discrimination would not appear again like how the 'slim' figure of the women in the modern days.
I think foot binding is a cruel act. I do not understand why it could have been passed down in china for so long. It was popular in china among the social classes except for the poorest ones.
The rich get to bind their feet and yet they feel they’re special and privileged. However, I think that the lowest class is the luckiest one as they do not need to bind their feet. The pain they managed to escape from was very painful. In fact I feel that it’s so painful that the hours of working in the fields were more worth it than binding their feet so attract male partners.
Nowadays, it is no longer the ladies who need to attract their partners but the males who need to try hard to win the hearts of the their ladies.
There are two reasons to why women had their foot binded.
- Women that have big feet means that they are 'rough' and therefore, will not be a good wife. They will not be able to find a husband when they grow up.
- In the past, bound feet were considered intensely erotic. The effect was a function of the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Men often look out for women with bound feet to make them their wives because of that.
From what I have read about, it seems to me that both reasons are related to men. That makes me wonder why do women have to please men in the past. This is not that they existed for the sake of the men.
The quote "If you love your daughter, bind her feet. If you love your son, let him study." seems to worsen the women's society position at that time. Just because they are not allowed to receive education, they have to act like some toy of the men. They may have pleased the men, but they suffered the most as well! This is totally unfair for the women!
The practice of foot binding is really ridiculous and absurd! From my point of view, if mothers do love their daughters, they should not have let them suffer by having their legs binded, restricting their daily movements and making them unable to enjoy their childhood. Both the boys and the girls are their children as well, therefore the more they should treat them equally!
P.S: sorry for the triple post. something went wrong i guess. .___."
Nowadays, people especially girls like to look nice and beautiful. Mainly because they wan to marry in to a rich families. Foot binding is also a form of keeping "pretty".In the past, most women oftenly bind their foot to keep their foot as small as pssible.Most small feet women could marry into rich families as men in the past felt that small foot women looks wonderfully pretty thus since young their parents would bind their foot the keep the shape permanently. They have to bear with the pain of binding their foot when the foot began to grow as their puberty came. Why only women need to bind their foot when men do not need to suffer this inbearable pain. This type of pain only they themselves can understand.The men do not need to bind their foot in order to obtain something like marry into a better background families as in the past they mostly discriminated women, they dote the boys more thus they mainly leave their assets to them.As compared to the past we are considered much more fortunate.
i feel that foot binding is stupid... i feel that it should not be encouraged. however, foot binding is not very common nowadays as it was in the older days in China. i think that fot binding is very sexist as it's only practised on ladies to make their feet look beautiful so that their parents can marry them off to rich husbands. the ladies then cannot rn away from their husbands due to the pain.
it's very painful to bind one's feet. it crushes the toes under the feet making it difficult to walk... the ffet practically die after 3 years ):
BAN FOOT BINDING!!
Foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom.
The reason for women binding their feet went deeper than fashion and reflected the role of women in Chinese society. It was necessary then in China for a woman to have bound feet in order to achieve a good life.
Men in China in that era would not marry a woman who did not have bound feet.
It was a very painful process. The pain of the foot binding is forever! The women who had their feet bound were more likely to fall, less able to squat and less able to rise from a sitting position in their older years. The feet will practically die after 3 years!!! Foot binding not only crippled the women who went through the process but as well as crippled women in China for centuries.
IT IS VERY CRUEL and TORTUROUS! it is not very common as seen in the past. I hope that the custom of foot-bineding will never come back. it is very unfair for women! Ban foot binding!
According to what i had read up about foot binding, i felt that foot binding was a very painful process for women. This was done so that women will be weak, out of power and can be dominated by their husband.
Foot binding was a chinese culture in the past for women to achieve beauty and status. This as a painful process for women to achieve beauty. Women's foot was deformed as a result and this leads to many side effect in the future even if their foor was fine then.
Foot binding as not only a fashion at that time but also a way of life for women and men in the past. Foot binding was seen as to improve women's status and gain beauty.
After reading this quotation, i felt that the women in the past was too discriminated against and had to suffer all these pain. They should have to think about it and not just follow blindly the painful culture. Women who studied was not recognized. The only way for women to achieve higher status was not by studying but by foot binding. Men was afraid that women had higher power then them and these caused women to suffer in the past.
I was relieved that after all these years, the culture was finally ended.In 21st century, women had achieved better status and was recognised in the society today.
Footbinding was a custom practised on young chinese females for approximately one thousand years in china, from the 10th century to the early 20th century. Girls get foodbinded usually at the age of six, but often earlier. This caused their feet to be deformed and easily prone to infection and paralysis.
The people believed that the smaller the ladies' feets are, the more beautiful they will be, hence, the trend in most ladies practising footbinding.
The practice stopped in the early 20th century.
I feel that this is a very cruel practice as it makes the footbinded person feel lots of pain. Parents that wants their daughter to look pretty forced them to bind their foot and then their daughter feels the pain. It's great that the custom has stopped.
Footbinding was a custom practised on young chinese females for approximately one thousand years in china, from the 10th century to the early 20th century. Girls get foodbinded usually at the age of six, but often earlier. This caused their feet to be deformed and easily prone to infection and paralysis.
The people believed that the smaller the ladies' feets are, the more beautiful they will be, hence, the trend in most ladies practising footbinding.
The practice stopped in the early 20th century.
I feel that this is a very cruel practice as it makes the footbinded person feel lots of pain. Parents that wants their daughter to look pretty forced them to bind their foot and then their daughter feels the pain. It's great that the custom has stopped.
** that post above was mine.
Foot binding is a tradition that was passed down several generations in ancient china. It was said to be originated from AD 960-1280, in the sung dynasty. It's ultimate goal is to achieve beauty. But in my opinion, it is a cruel act. Foot binding began at about age 4 to 7 on young Chinese girls. The foot
was soaked in hot water and massaged then it was wrapped in a way in which
the child's toes were turned under and pressed against the bottom of her
foot. Her largest toe was left unturned in order to give the girl a sense of
balance. The child's arches of her foot were broken as the foot was pulled
straight with the leg. This caused the foot to actually shrink. This
process took anywhere from three years or longer to complete. The result of
this process was a deformed "tiny" foot (about three inches long).
Foot Binding
Footbinding was a custom practised on young females,usually at age 6. Their feet were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally.
Today, it is a prominent cause of disability among some elderly Chinese women.
People in the past had a misunderstanding in defining beauty. It is very humiliating and cruel for the women to have their feet bound. This is a good example of gender discrimination, women are treated differently from men. In the past, women were only expected to get married, do household chores, whereas men were given the opportunity to study. The people in the past believe that women are not as intelligent as men, which is not a fact.
BW4E20KHO
This act, foot binding, was an attempt to stop the growth of the feet. Foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, probably the most detrimental act, one that approximately one billion women in China have preformed for nearly one thousand years.It was necessary then in China for a woman to have bound feet in order to achieve a good life. women with bound feet could hardly walk, let alone dance. I could not believe that this act of painful torment was considered beautiful, just basing their beliefs on legends.The process of foot binding started for the young girls anywhere from the age of four to six. It was done so early in her life so that the arch did not have much time to develop. The mother who was the one to bind the feet, and usually started the process late in the fall or winter, so the foot would be numb and the pain would not be as severe. The daughters' feet would first be soaked in warm water or animal blood and herbs. The special potion that was used for this caused any dead flesh to fall off. She would have her toe nails cut as short as possible therefore not allowing them to grow into the foot. After she received a foot massage, the four smallest toes on each foot were broken. This was not even the worst of the pain. The mother soaked silk or cotton bandages in the same liquid the girl's feet were soaked in. The bandages, which were ten feet long and two inches wide, were wrapped around the smallest toes and pulled tightly to the heel. Every two days, the binding was removed and rebound. This part of the process went on for two years. By this time her feet were three to four inches long. To assure the feet staying small, the ritual continued for at least ten more years. imagine the turmour that these women would have gone through, just for the name of beauty. In my opinion, htis is simply a way to torture women to make them inferior to men, unable to work well. the pain never stopped, and each time, it would be pulled tighter. what's more the most common effect is an infection! -One was the ball of the foot would folding directly into the heel. A second was that the toenails continued to grow, eventually curling into the skin. This led to flesh rotting off, and sometimes even a toe. The worst part of the process was that the feet would practically die after three years. The feet being dead caused a terrible smell the girl carried with her everywhere. Diseases followed infections, and death could even result from foot binding.men in china would not marry a woman with feet bound. this was practically forcing the act of feet bounding at the expense of the women's health ang natural growth. i feel that this form is a discrimination towards women, and a terrible and unreasonable act.
Footbinding is an old tradition in the early days.In chinese footbinding, young girls usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally.This causes the girl to have a small and cute feet.However, this is a very painful process and will cause the bones to be broken and highly deformed.They will also be prone to infections, paralyse and muscular atrophy.I do not agree to footbinding as this will cause the girl to have a weak feet even if it is nice.It is cruelty to girls!They are only few years old yet they have to be subjected to the torture their parents enforced.Thus, i will go against this idea and am glad that there are lesser cases of footbinding.
Foot Binding may be a symbol of beauty in the past. But now, we would definitely think that it is purely disgusting. I have seen the pictures on the woman's foot and the sample shoes. The shoes are like for the toddler nowadays? Their bones are totally deformed. I think that this would seriosly affect their movement.
Does man really conclude a woman's beauty on these bounded foot? In the past, binding foot may be a symbol of status and beauty. But, is it worth it? I am glad to say that woman nowadays do not bound their feets anymore as it is seriously considered as a tortured. Just because your feet is small doesn't imply that you could find a good husband. Even so, if the man is willing to marry you, he is marrying you for the sake of your beautiful legs not your personality. Would this marriage be considered as blissful? It's a definite No.
At last, I would like to say that inner beauty is the most important. Foot size is not a scale to measure the beauty of girls.
Foot binding in the past is a obvious representation of gender discrimination. Women have to endure through the painful process of binding their foot, often causing their bones to become deformed, and causing them to be unable to walk properly in the later years.
Foot binding kept the women weak, dominated by their husbands. When women bind their feets, the men could dominate more easily as they do not have to worry the women challenging their power. Men had greater autonomy than women, and were allowed to study, allowing them to step into the society to work and have a status in the society.
On the other hand, women were only allowed to stay at home and wait on their husbands.
Foot binding not only crippled the women who underwent this process, but it also crippled women in China for centuries. It was tantamount to saying that the women who underwent the process of foot binding, was equivalent to having little say in the govenment and society.
In today's society, the tradition of women going through the process of foot binding is very rare. However, gender discrimination continues to be one of the problems that has to be dealed with seriously. People should change their perceptions and learn to accept the different genders in the work society today.
Footbinding
Footbinding was a custom traditionally practised by the Chinese for approximately a thousand years. Footbinding often begins when the girl is around 6 years old and usually takes place only in the wealthier parts of China. Footbinding was not popular among the poorer people of China was able-bodied women were also needed to work in the fields.
Up will today, it is a common cause for disability among the elderly women.
Nowadays, most women do not bind their feet. I feel that most are very cruel to let their child go through foot binding. It is supposed to make the girls look more beautiful and find a good husband but sometimes they do not realise that it actually hurts a lot. Is it worth it to go through so much pain just for the sake of finding a good husband for themselves. I feel that men should not look at the size of women's feet to determine their beauty. & i feel that beauty is only skin deep.
In my own opinion, i think that nowadays women/girls are lucky that they are not living in the ancient times which they need to bind their foot.
Binding their foots are practiced during Sung dynasty (960-976 BC),reportedly to imitate an imperial concubine who was required to dance with her feet bound.By the 12th century, the practice was widespread and more severe--girls' feet were bound so tightly and early in life that they were unable to dance and had difficulty walking. Small girls at the tender age of 6 also need to bind their foot.
What will happen to their foot?
.Foot bones are fractured
. the foot bound tightly for several years, foreshortening the foot and exaggerating the arch.
.Severe long life disability
However the foot binding ceased during the 20th century with the end of imperial dynasty and the influencing of western fashion .
As the practice waned, some girls' feet were released after initial binding, leaving less severe deformities,but not the old women who are suffering deformities of foot binding.
Hence no matter how small u want your foot be , please DONT bind oyour foot unless u do not care about the consequences
I researched on foot binding and i felt disgusted at what i saw and what i have found.
Foot binding was a custom pratised on young females for approxiamtely one thousand years in CHINA, beginning in the 10th century and ending in early 20th century. What the.. hell.
The process isn't pain free. On the other hand, it is damn painful. Girls at age of 6 or younger go through foot binding, so that when they grow up, their foot would not grow past 10 - 15 cm and in their adulthood, their feet would remain small and prone to diseases.
I wonder, do the small children even have a choice? If they did, im sure they would not choose to go through foot binding. Who would want to go through a process which breaks four of your toes on both foot in one year?!
At first, only the wealthy could afford foot binding, but gradually, it became popular in all the social classes in China. T
his is a terrible thrend that goes around. Like seriously, is there no thrend to follow other than foot binding? It's stupid.
Luckily it's out of practice now.
Footbinding is an old tradition in the early days.In chinese footbinding, young girls usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally.This causes the girl to have a small and cute feet.However, this is a very painful process and will cause the bones to be broken and highly deformed.They will also be prone to infections, paralyse and muscular atrophy.I do not agree to footbinding as this will cause the girl to have a weak feet even if it is nice.It is cruelty to girls!They are only few years old yet they have to be subjected to the torture their parents enforced.Thus, i will go against this idea and am glad that there are lesser cases of footbinding
Foot binding is a common practice for women in China in the past. Once they decided to go ahead and do that, the pain will be felt for a long time and they can not escape from this painful experience. Furthermore, feet binding must be done at a very young age and it is beyond bearable for young girls who are weak and frail. Most importantly, it will wreck havoc on their physical self as there may be infection because the foot is wrapped tightly for a long time without oxygen. Worst still, their feets may rot due to a long period deprive of oxygen. Although I do not see how it can enhance one's beauty, they done it in the past to attract men. However I feel whether it is nice or not, they should accept how they look like and not try to change their natural features. Isn't it just like doing plastic surgery nowadays?
FOOT BINDING
Footbinding 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. 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).
Some people viewed it as a beauty and also where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard.
I think this is too much of a high price to pay in pursuit of beauty. Not only does one have to go through immense physical pain, they also have to go through it mentally. This is a very wrong concept of beauty.
The extent to which these women went to in order to have the ideal image may seem unbelievable to us today, but what will people one thousand years from now think about our cultures, lipo suction.
The effect that foot binding had on women is plain to see. Women became more dependant on others. They were not able to journey far on their own and thus were more controllable. This is a good example of gender discrimination. Men are treated so differently from woman and they need not have to go through all this pain.
I strongly disagree with this statement as i think that this clearly shows gender discrimination towards the women. In chinese footbinding, young girls's feet, usually at age 6 or often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally. Therefore the bones in their feet will be broken and become severly deformed. The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to properly develop so that the feet were numb, meaning the pain would not be as extreme. Binding usually started during the winter months. It is a very painful process and i cannot believe that the parents of the young girlswould bear to see them suffer. Their daughters will suffer from nasty infections and wounds and girls might even have their feet practically dead after 3 years. Some might even die from such infections. This is discrimination to girls because to allow them to get married, girls have to bind their feet so in order for them to have beautiful dainty feet, however they did not realise the pain behind all these processes and the second discrimination is that girls have to bind their feet so in order to get married. Women generally do not have much power in that society thus the elders believed that women will only look pretty when they bind their feet and men do not need to do so. As for men they did not have to suffer anything and their parents will easily send them to schools for higher education. They do not have to sacrifise anything in order to get married.
In the olden days, for women to survive in the society, they have to marry a wealthy man because they had little opportunities everywhere. They could not leave their home unless they get married and their hope was to marry well. Therefore, women resorted to all sorts of unbelievably inexplicable practises, all in the search of a beauty ideal, to the extend of foot binding. They believed that only women who had their foot binded will have dainty feet and able to get married. It was so because the mother-in-law only allowed their son to marry women that has binded-feet. She would stop them from seeing any women that has "clown" feet. This was the reason why if their mothers love their daughters, they would care for their future. The only solution is to make sure that they marry off to a wealthy man. However before that women have to make sure that their feet were bind. As for the men, people believed that they should receive better education. They did not need to sacrifice or resort to any unbelievable practices in order to get married. With a better education, man could easily get a woman and find a job as there were many opportunities available for them. From the statement above, gender discrimination was displayed. It shows that women are weaker and lack of power, their life was a torture. As for the men, they were seen to be much powerful as women have to sacrifice themselves and even have to resort to all sort of unbelievable action and endure terrible processes in order to please the men.
After reading several articles on foot binding, it seemed that this traditional pratice was an obvious gender discrimination. Girl's feet were bound since they were six years old, whereas boys do not need to suffer this intense pain. For 'beauty', women in the past had their feet bound. However, i do not think that most girls would want to go through such pain for the sake of a deformed feet. In other words, they were forced.
From this, we can see that foot binding is a form of gender discrimination in the past as only females need to have their foot bound but males do not. It is a very unfair treatment towards the females.
In the past, many people, especially those those who were rich. They send their child for foot binding, because women who had small feet were considered as beauties. Not many people can afford to bind their foot, like for example, girls who were working in the farm or manual chores. Those who do foot binding were usually girls of rich families because their life purpose was to marry a good and rich man so that their families can also enjoy a good life. Foot binding is a painful process because the bones in the feet are crushed and bind together underneath the sole of the foot. The purpose of foot binding was to keet the feet from growing too large.
I feel that the binding of feet are unneccesary because beuty cannot be defined by the size of the sole alone. In the olden days, parents who loved their girl who bind their feet so that they could marry into a good family and enjoy life. Going through the pain, females of that time were unable to walk around comfortably, let alone dance, run, skip. The females are 'barred' from the activities that most girls are involved in now, like running and swimming etc. I'm glad that foot binding is gone with the passing of the times where small feet were fashionable. This is very discriminative because boys were made to study instead.
With the passing of times, this kind of so-called 'beauty' has gone, and I am sure many of the women today are relieved.
Foot binding is a common traditional practice performed on young females to make their feet look small and thus beautiful, giving the chinese women assurance that they will be married off to a rich family.
In such cases, young girls' feet are wrapped tightly in bandages, disallowing normal growth and development, causing their feet to become highly deformed.
Apparently,those sacrifices these
women made are results of a wrong concept of thinking.
This is an example of gender discrimination, where women have to go through such torture and the men did not do anything about it. It is ufair to the chinese women. The suffering they go through is eternal, it is not any temporary torture, but something that leaves a permanent impact on the women.
I hope that foot binding is forever banned.
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.
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.
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.
Some estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women broke and bound their feet to attain this agonizing ideal of physical perfection.
These women disfigured their feet to guarantee their own future,this act ultimately consigned them to tragic lives.
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The definition of pretty is different in many people's eye. Nowadays, girls go into extreme diets to lose weight as they think that slim is pretty. This resulted in the development of diseases such as the popular anorexia. And in the past, women also see the definition of pretty, from another angle.
Footbinding 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. Women were obsessed over footbinding as at that time, bound feet were considered as a status symbol. 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. 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.
Despite the pain, women still continued this practice as to them, it is the onoly way for a woman to marry into money. This reveals the gender discrimination at that time in China. Women were treated unfairly as they had to bind their feet so as to get a good husband. Men was given the choice to choose their wife by the size of a women feet.
From this passage, we know that gender discrimination had started long ago in China and although the definition of beauty had changed throughout the decades, gender discrimination still exist.
Gender discrimination in foot binding was only practised in the Song dynasty. The emperor demanded that all women had to bind their feet, stay at home and do the house chores. Women were expected to listen to their male counterparts in the household. Men were treated as more superior than women. Therefore, only men could receive an education. At that era, 'stupidity' was consedered a virtue. Women had no chance to rise in society or gain an education.
Therefore we must stop foot binding in our society in order for there to be a balance between men and women and to prevent further gender discrimination issues.
BW4E6CHO
Foot-binding for Chinese Women were considered as a beauty statement in the olden days. Women who had bound feet were seen as a status symbol. Women who had their feet binded were able to hold higher positions and marry into richer families.
In those days, mothers of sons were very strict about having their sons to marry women with bound feet. Women whom did not have bound feet were seen as a humiliation and failure, and were not allowed by the sons' mothers to marry into their sons' family.
When women bound their feet, men could dominate more easily and not worry about women taking their power. As the process took place so early, the young girl had no choice but to follow her family's order and have her feet bound. She was uneducated and followed tradition to see foot-binding as a neccessity.
Women were gender-discriminated and seen as an object to the men, to look pretty in the status of men's wives, therefore appealing to men's image mattered more than their health. The girl's life went on without having much control over it.
Foot binding not only crippled the women who went through the process but as well as crippled women in China for centuries. Being crippled by foot binding, they had such a little role in the government. It was a custom that started out to define beauty but ended up defining the way the society was.
gender discrimination was a common and apparent sight in the olden days. boys were generally treated better than girls, and were given more privileges. boys were given education, while girls had to stay at home to work.
the saying is felt to be the thing that families should do in those days. foot binding was something only a certain gender, the female gender, should do. they treated the binding of their daughters' feet as a matter of fact, adn that the sufferings that resulted were inconsequential.
the boys were also taught that girls with large feet are ugly, and thus men will not marry women with large feet. girls were also taught from young that small feet were attractive, and they accepted it as something they had to do and had no choice over. they bore the consequences of foot binding silently, unable to protest, as their families were strongly for it. the bad smell and the pain and eventual death of the feet were not considereed in the bid to make their daughters attractive tp prospective husbands.
education was also something only a certain gender should do, but in this case it was the male gender. education was a privilegegiven only to boys, whilst girls were considered unnecessary for education. the girls had to stay at home and do work. boys had more choices than girls, and were considered more important. girls could not request for an education, as an education for girls was unheard of in those days.
the boys and girls had no chance to reason over the right wrong of foot binding and education. they were brought up to believe that that was the way of life, and they were supposed to do that, or suffer the consequences. although it was finally stopped, girls suffered a lot in those times, and that suffering was for life.
The idea of foot-binding today, seems to be ridiculous. Ironically, during the 10th century and to early 20th century it had been a custom being practiced so commonly. Despite the pain and the disadvatages caused, women at that time still looked to the practice as a sacred one. As the bounding of feet is a symbolism of wealth and power, as women with bound feet could not work.
The idea of foot-binding is a thought everyone should banish from their minds. It does no benefits for us, instead causes such misery. It is a very much redundant practice. And the comparison of bound foots as lotuses is totally riculous. The lotus is so pure and gives people a peace of mind, whereas bound feets are suffocated and rotten. Where did these people get the image of bound feets as lotuses from?
On the otherhand, however ridiculous the idea of foot-binding is, it had certainly made history. Also, there must also have been a more reasonable explanation to the meaning of foot-binding that our ancestors have to the miserable foot-binding practice. We should also thank our ancestors for making chinese history even more meaningful to the idea of beauty.
I understand in the past that women would have their foot binded. It is a common practice, especially by the chinese. They have the belief that women should carry out their duties well as a housewives. Women in the past generally, did not went out and work.
About associating it with gender discrimination, nowadays, people fight and argue about gender discrimination. Their common topic is about promotion. It is often said that women would face the glass-ceiling in work. The male, being chauvist and through the old=boy’s network, women generally have little or no chance to get senior posts.
Back to the olden days of footbinding. I feel that this footbinding is also related to gender discrimination. By simply binding the women’s feet, it would certainly make it impossible for women to find jobs when they can hardly walk with their small feet. Some women with hidden talents would therefore, be unable to show off or display their hidden talents. This will not be unfair to the women themselves only, it will also be unfair to the society as these woemn with hidden talents would certainly have contributed to the society.
Who knows, if women did not have their feet binded in the past, the society might have been more advanced now.
It alll started with the chinese emperor who prohibited women from even studying at that time. Surprisingly, at that point of time, even stupidity was considered as a virtue. Does it mean that it was even good to be stupid at that time?
In my opinion, i think that the emperor himself was the one being stupid. Anyway, one cannot say that the emperor is wrong at that time. We have to accept it.
In my eyes, by binding the feet of the women and by not letting them study in the past has truely been an pity. The society could have and will do better with out two words: GENDER DISCRIMINATION.
Why did women even bind their feet even thought they know it was a painful process? The answer is simple. They did it for beauty.
Once foot binding started, it spread quickly. Foot binding was a symbol of wealth. As women in poorer need to work and need to have normal feet so as to work. But rich women do not have to do it.
The person who thought of the idea of foot binding is completely insane. The person did not think before hand that the pain the women have to go throught to get the 'lotus foot'.
The foot of the women would be deformed and during the process of it, it would have a horrible smell. The women would have a hard time walking.
In my opinion, i think that foot binding is a cruel thing. Little girls of ages 4 to 6 have to endure. Nowadays, parents will be heartbroken if they see their child get injured, not to say let they bind their foot.
It affects women not a short period but for life. They are not able to walk or even work.
I think that it
BW3E6NIG
I feel that foot-binding is unnecesary and cruel to women. Why should they have to torture themselves just for status? In those days, women were discriminated because they could not carry on their family name. So i feel that it is unfair to females in that time as they had to give in to society's demands for them.
After reading the articles about foot binding, I could understand more about why the people of early times would want to bind their foot. It is because if they did not bind their foot, no man would marry them. Because of this fact, many women from the olden days would go to the extent of binding their feet to turn them into the prized “three-inch golden lotuses.” Many of the women would bind their feet when they were young. Some bind their feet due to the tradition of their family while some bind their feet because they saw the beautiful small and tiny feet of their relative and they wish to have feet like those of their relatives.
On the whole, I could truly understand why women from olden days would want to bind their feet, but it is too much of a physical torture to the women, to have to bind their feet just because they want to marry a good husband. I felt that it is very repulsive for the women of olden days to bind their feet. I totally disagree of their traditions. I felt that the man of olden days should not decide who to marry to depending on the women’s size of feet. I felt painful for the women of olden days when I read about how they would bind their feet every day, binding it tighter and tighter day by day, hearing the breaking of their bones and the pain of not being able to walk properly.
I am very glad that government has banned the binding of feet as I could not bear to see people binding their feet in today’s world.
BW3E11CHE
I think that the problem of foot binding started with the empress or concubine during the Shang dynasty. If they did not start the phenomenon, people in the future would not have to suffer the fate of foot binding.
Despite wanting to have a status symbol, but I think the females should not go into extreme for it. Even after the ban, people should not go into their extremes and try to break their leg bones to get into a better family or to look good. The females are bringing the pain upon themselves.
This type of fashion trend in the olden days is the same as the fashion trends people are experiencing now. For example, people nowadays wanted to go for branded goods. Despite knowing that the goods are expensive, people are still buying it. Females in the olden days wanted to get married into a better family, to live a better life, by doing so, they bind their foot to show that they are beautiful. However, they did not realize the fact that the foot binding can limit their working force and affect their output.
In pursuit of beauty, the females in the olden days went to their extremes and bind their feet, but if they thought of their future and not just on beauty alone, they could have lived a better and less painful life.
BWE327ASH
Foot binding is just one of the extrememes people go to to become "beautiful" People go to all lengths just to feel good. Though foot binding seems disgusting to us, it was a culture at that pain, just like being thin is beautiful today. Women in china at that time had no choice but to go through all the pain of breaking and binding just to be married and have a good life. Although foot binding is banned today, there will always be strange and painful things people will do just to be beautiful from their perspective. Even if they bind their feet they may not be able to get a good husband. I feel sorry for the women who lived in china during that era.
BW3E2MAI
Why are people so obsessed with being pretty and follow the crowd?Everyone is pretty in their own ways but it just amazed me how people can go to the extremes of having nose job, plastic surgery and serious dieting just so they can look 'beautiful'.Similarly, Chinese women in China in the olden days would bind their feet to the ultimate pain so that they will have a secured future as a guy will for sure marry them.Can anybody tell me how insane is that?Breaking toes on purpose are just plain insane but that's what the China men think they would find beautiful in a woman.What is so pretty about torturing your feet into a pair of 3-inch lotuses?Pain was not a factor anymore to them once they decided their feet should be bound.Whatever it is,we should have been thankful for what we've got and not alter god's creation.Walking with 3-inch feet,to me, is just so abnormal.Why does people in the olden days find such abnormal habit beneficial?Thankfully,this habit which people described as beautiful has been banned.Such crazy habits deserved to be curb or people's mindset won't change.Men in those days should not be unreasonable as to judge a woman by their feet.that is totally ridiculous as a thinking.
janice tan BW3E16JAN
cyberday 26 Jan 2008
Research on the history of the Chinese custom of Foot Binding
The original wrapping of a woman's feet in China was not done with the intention of permanently deforming them. According to historical accounts it was around 970 A.D., during the rule of Li Yu, when the custom began. The ruler's favorite consort, Yao-niang, performed a dance atop a golden lotus pedestal that had been specially built. She had wrapped her feet in long strips of silk cloth, much like a ballerina in toe shoes today. Li Yu was overwhelmed with the beauty of her movement as she danced that other court maidens followed suit, and "Golden Lotus" became a euphemism for their delicately bound feet.
What began as a tool to facilitate dancing was gradually adopted as fashion among the upper class, and a custom that was to last a millennium was born. Women began to bind on a regular basis, concentrating ever more intently upon the desired shape and size of the foot. As was perhaps inevitable, foot binding’s popularity spread from the upper classes to all levels of society. No longer just a fad, it became a way of life for millions of females throughout China.
During the Song Dynasty (960 to 1276) the position of women in society dropped to a new low. Until this time women had been schooled in the arts and versed in the classics; they held independent rights to property and wealth, and could marry or remarry at will. New ideology, however, redefined their status, laying the groundwork to keep nearly half of China's population obedient and limited in skill and ability. Women's roles were defined only in the context of complete dependence upon men: a female was to remain in the home, where she was required to obey her father and older brother in childhood, her husband in marriage, and her son if widowed. It was considered unwise to educate women, supporting the belief that "in a woman stupidity is a virtue". Her attention, instead, was to be focused on cultivating fidelity, physical charm, propriety in speech, and efficient needlework. No longer were women given property rights, but were themselves treated as property, bought and sold or even killed by husbands and fathers with impunity.
The following centuries saw foot binding openly viewed as a method of controlling women and cultivating their moral conduct. During the 1100s the governor Chu Hsi criticized the wornen of Fujian Province for being unchaste and enjoying too much freedom, and ordered them to bind their feet to the extreme. The tiny footed women would then no longer be free to leave the household as they pleased, or engage in the sexual freedoms enjoyed by men.
Foot binding continued to gain official and popular sanction as an expression of cultural refinement. As women's bound feet and shoes became the essence of feminine beauty, a fanatical aesthetic and sexual mystique developed around them. The bound foot was understood to be the most intimate and erotic part of the female anatomy, and wives, consorts and prostitutes were chosen solely on the size and shape of their feet. An unflattering figure or facial flaws were overlooked if a woman's feet appealed to the man's libido. Poets went to great lengths to expound upon the beauty of the bound foot; vividly describing the delights of "tender blossoms" tucked into tiny embroidered shoes and peeking out from below a billowing garment. Ancient love manuals outlined the sensual pleasures of the bound foot and illustrated countless positions in which they could be fondled and caressed. While the naked feet deformed and camouflaged by binding cloth were rarely, if ever, revealed - even in the most intimate company - women took great care and attention in making shoes to cover them. Considered part of a woman's intimate apparel, the color of shoe and style of embroidery often held great significance, and they were often perfumed or clad with jingling bells and ankle bracelets to attract attention.
Foot binding remained a part of Chinese society well into the 20th century. The Manchu leaders of the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911) never adopted the custom, and tried with little success to stop its popularity. During the late 1800s reform-oriented scholars and western missionaries began speaking out against the brutal custom, yet it wasn’t until the 1920s that change finally began to take hold. Intellectuals plucked the issue of footbinding from the realm of morals and aesthetics and remolded it into a question of patriotism. Women were told the practice was not only harmful to their own physical and emotional health, but also a costly disability to the nation, retarding its political and economic development. In 1928 the Nationalist government announced its plan to eradicate footbinding, requiring girls under the age of fifteen to let their feet grow naturally. Some local officials took a tougher stand, requiring that all women unbind their feet or be subject to fines and sometimes physical punishment.
The order to stop binding met with mixed success, especially in rural areas where large feet were still considered highly unattractive and unacceptable. Many women struggled not only with the possibility of becoming social outcasts, but also feared undergoing another period of great inconvenience and agonizing pain. To avoid physical and emotional trauma, releasing bound feet had to be done slowly, by loosening the bindings on a regular basis and allowing the feet to gradually resume a more normal shape. Women who had not bound tightly were able to release their feet without great discomfort. Others who had achieved the highly desired three-inch feet found it impossible, for in so doing they would have been left completely crippled. In urban areas where jobs and education were more available, the practice faded rapidly as women began to demand more rights and to play a role in the financial welfare of the family. In most of China, however, social and sexual customs were resistant to rapid change, and for millions of women it wasn't until the years following the Communist revolution in 1949 that the perpetuation of foot binding finally ended.
Source: http://www.josephrupp.com/history.html
Comments
I find it really unbelievable that women in the past of China actually went to bind their feet in order to make them look more attractive and feminine, so that someone from the respectable family would marry them just for them having such small feet, looking like the lotus. Even though they are aware that binding of the feet is extremely painful and unhealthy, they just carried on with it, just because of the influence of their parents and friends who are doing it, thinking that they would lead a better life after that. It is just like the people now who are suffering from Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa. They are trying to be slimmer even though sometimes they are not fat at all. These are very extreme measures for being able to be more attractive, which is totally not true! True beauty lies within. It means having a good character and be optimistic and positive. It does not mean that once you have feet that are as small as two and a half inches, or when you are so thin that you are just a pack of bones, you are beautiful. It is how you present yourself in front of others that matters. (Attitude) Also, I am glad that foot binding is banned, which means women are free, literally, for their feet.
BW3E1LOW1
Foot binding was a custom practiced 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.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, 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.
As we can see from here,footbinding shows us how even people in the olden days would suffer just for beauty,like teenagers now who likes to enlarge their ear holes.i think it is not a right way. and it is very cruel for the women in that times as they needed to bind their foot to marry into a wealthy family,it is ridiculous!
i think everybody should accept their body as how it is. After all, everyone is unique in our their ways and should not modify their bodies for the sake of beauty.
I think that women who bind their foot in the olden days were a bit stupid and uneducated because they are causieng themselves to be in so much pain just because the want to marry into a family that has a lot of money to let them live their lifes comfortably. Also binding of the foot in the olden days were also considered as a form of beauty. That could be why so many of the women bound their feet.
In a way, women in the olden days are very similar to women nowadays. Women nowadays starve themselves or force themselves to vomit after meals just because they want to look beautiful. They force themselves to endure so much pain just so that they can look beautiful and marry into a family that can let them live their lifes comfortably. Although the pain of starving and the pain of bones breaking and changing are different, the mindset is still the same. All of them who endure this pain have only one thing in mind: "It's all for the sake of beauty".
Foot binding 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.
I treat this behavior as child abuse and it should be punished accordingly. It is commonly cited an example where an extreme deformity can be viewed as beauty, and also where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard.
Chinese girls should feel pleased that foot binding is not practiced anymore. It is not right to love a girl by torturing her since young, but they should receive the same treatment as the boys, being allowed to study and not foot binding.
Footbinding was a custom that was practice on young females in China for a thousand years, starting in the 10th century and ended in the early 20th century. Young girls who are 6 or younger had their feet wrapped tightly in bandages so that they could not grow properly. This causes great pain to the girl. Their bones will break. In order to minimize the pain suffered, footbinding is usually done in winter. Footbinding is now a prominent cause of disability among some elderly Chinese women.
I feel that footbinding is not a beauty to the women but a suffering. The pain is unbearable but the girls could not even tolerate. I guess that the Chinese girls now should feel very lucky that the practice is now considered as child abuse and that no girl will be treated this way again. This is not love to the young girl but a torture to the young girl. If the girls are loved, they should be treated the same as the boys, that is, being allowed to study, not by footbinding.
I feel that the tradition of feet-binding is a very ridiculous and cruel way of treating the girls in china.
Not being able to get married because of not binding her feet is not fair. Girls should have the freedom to
choose whom she wants to marry. However, when feet-binding was banned, i find it hard to believe that women
would still practice the tradition in secret. Maybe to them, it was special as not many women are able to
fit into their small shoes. It was somewhat unique in their eyes. However, i am glad that feet-binding is
banned as i do not like the idea of having to suffer so much for beauty.
The definition of beauty differs in places, era and different people's thinking. In the past, women feel that having the smallest feet means beauty; while in the present, women do not fancy binding their feet.
People often do to the extent just to look better physically. When times have changed, people have different thinking. For instance, in the present women yearns to be slim to look nice, while in the past in China, only obese women are considered pretty instead of the slim ones.
Overall, i feel that natural is beauty. The Lady who binded her feet is an example, she did it in the past because during that time having the smallest feet is a beauty. But now, she regretted. So, beauty can never have a standard definition.
Foot binding 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 4 in (10 cm), 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. One of the objectives of the Taiping Rebellion was to stop foot binding practice.
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.
Charles Lee, BW4E28LEE
from the Article in the library concering the foot binding, i believe that the method use to show off and get a oppurnity to lead a good life through having small feet is should not be done. This matter should be address as i beauty does not come outwardly but should been seen invertly.
Binding may have seens as a way to indentified how someone life will be.
Foot binding is a method which is cultivated since young among girls during the past times. Believing that With binded feet, this would give the girl a promising husband as smaller the feet would meant more richer families would actually pick the females to become part of the rich familes. Those feet who were not binded would be discriminated for and be condemed to work as a servant. Acheiving binded feet was also not easy as the binding requires the breaking of the females bone feets by breaking the arch of the feet so that the toes and heel are even closer. Pain and sores was never ending as the process would also lead to bandanges being filled with blood and puss that needs to be washed. During a period of time, the Chinese woman were encouraged not to have their feet binded. Having done binding for many years, some of the females could not adapt to the changes implemented and this resulted them not able to be well supported. This caused the older females unable to walk instead crawl. From the facts and the life testimonies from females that have undergo foot binding, though i am quite disguisted by just imagining the process needed to bind the feets. I am just glad that such practices were not continue now as such method are totally uncalled for and are just supertious pracitices.
Shan Ni:)BW5N3CHE
This is the information that i have got from the internet.
Footbinding(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.
Although nowadays girls tend to go on diet just to look good in their clothes, they will also not do such a thing like foot binding to hurt themselves. Even to get married the women have to have a bounded feet if not the mother of the guy will not accepted her even thought how much they love each other.If in order to just to get married I have to do such a thing to hurt myself I must well don't get married.I also do not agreed to such a practice as it will hurt themselves just to look good and although it is not very pain it will hurt their bone.This is also a discrimination over the girls, the guys thinks that just because the girls have bounded feet they have a no power whereas the guys have more control.So I totally do not agreed to foot binding.
BW4E12TAN
I feel that foot binding is a kind of discrimination as it is used to prevent women in the olden days from going out of the house. in the olden days, men are to go to school to study and women ar to stay at home and do housework. foot binding is done so that women will not run away from the house as it is hard to balance due to the size of their foot. men hence can catch the women who ran away from home easily.
After seeing this topic online, I could not help but realise that people would go extreme measures just to be classified as pretty in the terms of their times.
In the ancient times, the practice of wrapping one's feet had lasted from the 10th century to the 20th century. They also believed that wrapping one's feet would keep one's body weight under control.
I feel that husbands should love their wife no matter how they look. Although I could understand the reason behind woman tying their foot, and obviously knowing the consequences doesn't only last temporarily but permanently, I could not understand why this tradition lasted for so many centuries, it's like an unfading fashion. It was also surprising that it lasted from mother to children, from grandmother to grandchildren.
Even till now, people also sacrifice themselves to be beautiful in their standards. They suffer from eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa, and even go through drastic measures like plastic surgery.
I can’t help but think how people ever would be satisfied of themselves and accept the way they are. I hope that in the future people would find content with themselves and finally accept the way they are and how they look.
BW3E33LEE
When i heard of foot-binding, i thought it makes big and ugly feet into a delicate and pretty shape and for the sake of beauty, it's worth it. Little did i know, i was actually wrong. While listening and reading through the article of foot-binding, i find that foot-binding is not as simple as i thought. Empathising on the women that survive foot-binding, i wince at every word they said such as, "Young bones are easy to break" which means their feet are being bend inwards forcefully, causing the bones to crack and being bandaged, then as they grow, the shape begin to form. I was so surprised that in the past, only women with bound feet can marry into a wealthy family. Its kind of ridiculous to go to such extent for beauty and marriage. It is a relief that foot binding no longer exist, at least i hope no one is doing it secretly now. It is scary. Moreover, i do not think beauty deserves so much sacrifices and pain because it is but a word.
Its the 21st century and many have the mind concept that being slim equates to being good looking.That is way people develop diseases like bulimia and anorexia nervosa.
Turn back time and , hey! Woman in the past too go to certain extend to look good too! They BIND their feet as to the people then the smaller the feet the better. Also, the binding of feet would allow the young girls even from the country side to marry into money and rise in both social status and wealth! So, just to 'look good' and have a high status, woman bind their feet despite the pain. To me a woman should not be judged by the size of their feet.
Still, moving back to now doesn't all these remind one of how the woman now starve themselves to too 'look good' so that man would be attracted to them.
Woman should be judged by their character and not looks or even more so their size of the feet. Which is why to me people should just be themselves :D!
BW3E25YVO
Foot binding was a custom practised on young females for around a thoudsand years, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century.
It was viewed as a form of beauty and their main aim was to develop the perfect lotus foot. Foot binding is a extremely painful process and four toes on each foot would break within a year. As the girl reached adulthood, her feet would remain small and dysfunctional, prone to infection, paralysis, and muscular atrophy.
However, many females chose to bear the pain so that they will be able to find a better husband. Only the poorest do not practice this custom as they needed able-bodied women to work the fields.
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.
Michelle Kwok: BW3E4MIC
After reading the article, I find that we are living in a very fortunate century whereby we do not have to go through foot binding and farming.
To me, foot binding is an extremely cruel act because foot binding involves breaking of the bones and deforming of bones. Imagine living in that conditions whereby your feet is once very nice and normal but when you reach the age of about seven, your mum tell you that it was time to bind your feet and without any psychological preparations, your mum tries very hard to squeeze your feet into a very small deform shaped shoe by breaking your feet bones and tying them together in a weird manner. How will you feel? If it’s me, I’ll call it ridiculous. No doubt that it was a kind of beauty and status symbolisation but why did they want to do such a thing that would cause so much inconvenience in your future life? Like make ups and nice clothing, foot binding make girls feel more beautiful and guys would normally like women of this kind at that point of time. However, they did not consider the factors before executing the actions. Just because of a concubine that was so well liked by an emperor. To me, it was more than for status symbolism, it was a tradition. It was stated that foot binding was banned and yet people still continue because they were afraid that man would not marry them but since it was banned, the explanation should have been clear and yet they chose not to believe when they themselves have experience it before. It was also passed down from generations to generations in a family and so it was like a tradition.
I also think that the people then were being unrealistic. Was it better to have a capable wife to help out in the family or was it better to have a wife for display? What is a wife for displayed married in the first place? Wouldn’t it be better to buy a display than to have a living “display” that only eats and take up space but couldn’t do anything else? Rich people have maids at that time too but it doesn’t mean that not doing anything would mean that you are a high-class person. Rather, I think that such women are useless people. What is a person for if his/her presence makes no difference to others?
However, I also pity the women then. They were made to act as if they had to do nothing but when revolution came, they were force to work in the field, farming and sowing. I’m so thankful that females nowadays do not have to bind their feet.
After reading those articles, I feel that I am very fortunate to live in this century and this country and not that time whereby girls need to bind their feet until so tiny that it caused great pain whenever they tried walking.
In my opinion, foot binding was a completely a disgusting and ridiculous thing to do. Imagine that you are a jubilant girl and leading a carefree life. Out of the blue moon, your mother wants to bind your feet to a 3 inches or even smaller shoes. Before the process was started, your feet were washed in hot water and massaged. This helped to make the feet a little easier to compress. In the first step of footbinding, the four smallest toes were painfully pressed against the sole of the foot with a cotton cloth. The cloth used was two inches wide and ten feet long. The largest toe was the only toe that was free from the binding. The next step was to bring the cloth bandage "around the heel so tightly that the front and back of the foot were drawn in toward each other, forcing the instep of the foot to arch upward" (Campbell1). After the process of footbinding, your feet were forced into the tiny shoes that were three inches long. These shoes were called "lotus shoes" and were made out of silk. Just by imagining these procedures already give me goose bumps. I cannot imagine if I really need to bind my feet. The pain and sufferings I need to bear is very scary.
I think that the guys who loved a girl whose feet were so tiny were extremely selfish. They did not think of the unbearable pain a girl need to go through to keep their feet small. I did some research on “why guys loved those girls who had such tiny feet in the past.” The results lead me to be utterly disgusted by them. (http://bosp.kcc.hawaii.edu/Horizons/horizons_1999/footbinding2.html)
It is also say that, some people believed that footbinding was developed because Chinese men were afraid that the women could easily leave them. Another possible reason was to stop Chinese women from being or becoming promiscuous. If the women were restricted from walking, it would be harder for them to leave the house and have an affair with another man. Others felt that it was a sign of beauty to have small feet. However, I think that no matter what the reasons are, they should not for the sake of own pleasure and cause the women to suffer. In that time, the smaller the feet the girls had the better marriage they would get as those wealthy people only liked those girls who had three inches or below feet. Those who exceed three inches would be considered ugly and would be despised. It was all girls’ dream to marry a guy that was wealthy so that they would not need to worry for the rest of their lives on food and clothes.
I also feel sorry for those girls who bind their feet for the sake of wealth. When revolution came, all the wealth had been confiscated and they need to work in the fields.
In conclusion, I am very thanking that girls do not need to bind their feet anymore…
BW5N4CHU
I think that foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, yet it is hard to understand exactly what foot binding was like with the modern outlook we have today. The reason for women binding their feet went deeper than fashion and reflected the role of women in Chinese society. It was necessary then in China for a woman to have bound feet in order to achieve a good life.I felt that you don't have to go into these extent in hurting your body parts just to look beautiful or to get a husband.Nowadays women tend to get stronger and can live without man therefore we do not really need to treat ourselves to these to get pretty.I would never agreed to it.
Besides knowing these,the most cruel thing is when girls from the age of four to six have to go through these process, i think is a totally a horrible thing for a child as these process far prevent them from growing healthy and these detrimental to the young girls' health and worst of all, if they get some diseases, they could even die from it,it is so ridiculous,i'm glad that this foot binding process have been reduced.
I think that foot binding is a very stupid way of telling people that he or she is very pretty and one should not fall to peer or parental pressure to bind their foot just because everybody is doing it. It looks so ugly and the "victim" can hardly walk properly. They should have known that it was a fashion and would not last forever. They deserve their punishment for not making the right choice during their childhood. >_<
A structured and good information about people's lifestyles which would make them look more desirable.
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