Foot binding
It’s a good thing the Chinese gave up mutilating females’ feet in the name of beauty in 1911.
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. By the time a girl turned three years old, all her toes but the first were broken, and her feet were bound tightly with cloth strips to keep her feet from growing larger than 10 cm, about 3.9 inches.
Too bad modern America has taken it up .
With vanity always in fashion and shoes reaching iconic cultural status, women are having parts of their toes lopped off to fit into the latest Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos. Cheerful how-to stories about these operations have appeared in women’s magazines and major newspapers and on television news programs.
Hey, at least it’s voluntary.
(Second link via Follow Me Here )
Men forcibly mutilating women's feet = tragedy. Women doing it voluntarily to themselves = comedy.
Posted by Geoff on December 8 2003 09:58
Well, one could really just consider any form of cosmetic surgery a form of voluntary mutilation. And there certainly is a lot of that going on in America today. One wonders what future generations will make of this.
Posted by Jimcat on December 8 2003 13:18
Even the Chinese foot binding wasn't mandatory. Footbinding was actually illegal during the Yuan Dynasty 1279-1368 (Kublai Khan). But it was considered a way to show who was ethnic Chinese and it continued. The banning of footbinding was actually a bad move for women, who had plenty of freedom before hand. But of course, leaving the house would prove they were breaking the law by having bound feet, so women became homebound as well as footbound.
And it wasn't men forcibly binding women's feet. It was women forcibly binding women's feet. It was mother's doing it to daughters.
Posted by Ann on December 10 2003 21:57
I have done much reserch on foot binding and have much knolege on the subject. In my studies I have found that foot binding did not start in the sung dynasty but in the Hung dynasty.
Posted by Sarah Pentecost on November 15 2005 10:23