Foot Binding In Ancient China

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

Arranged Marriages have been around since time can remember. An arranged marriage is a marital union between a man and a woman who were selected to be wedded together by a third party. Historically, arrange marriages were the main way to marry. In certain parts of the world, it is still the primary approach. There are two types of arrange marriages. The first is a traditional marriage where the children can, with strong objections, refuse to marry their soon to be spouse. In a forced marriage, the children have no say in the matter. Bread Givers shows an excellent representation of the pressures on children from their parents to be married against their will.

Arranged marriage is found in various cultures and countries around the world, including Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East; having an arranged marriage is thought of as an Afghani tradition and has been a part of life for many families. The practice of arranged marriage has advantages and disadvantages; it can create more family power and give more financial security. Sadly being forced into a marriage can disrupt the independence of the engaged, most women stop their education when they become engaged resulting in many women being illiterate. This makes it impossible for them to be successful without depending on their husbands. Arranged marriage is found in many cultures throughout the modern world, though in a lot of cases it results in a happy family it can also be very limiting on women and often girls are married before they can give consent.

Women controlled many of the in house affairs, such as dealing with servants, family resources, and money. In terms of authority, a man’s mother and wife were treated with a higher level of respect than other women. Although, throughout both dynasties, when a women entered marriagehood, she became part of her husband's family; the women were also not able to obtain their dowry. During the Song Dynasty, confucian beliefs and social norms were much more present. Surrounding women, confucian beliefs generally say a women should stay at home and had the lion’s share of work. The custom of footbinding throughout the Song Dynasty further depressed women's role and social standing. Footbinding began at the higher class and elite; the custom was in place to make womens feet smaller and more attractive. This was a painful process of binding feet with cloth to achieve beauty and luxury, which became so socially acceptable that it was even forced by many parents onto their daughters. The fear was not being able to find a husband if the daughter had big feet. Over time, the status of women negatively declined between each dynasty.

Beauty of a woman was very important to men because it often showed wealth. Footbinding was a cruel way to show a woman’s beauty in Ancient China, especially during the Song dynasty. It is thought that foot binding began in around 900 AD during the Tang dynasty and continued until 1911 when it was finally banned. "The practice of binding feet was originally introduced about a thousand years ago, allegedly by a concubine of the emperor. Not only was the sight of women hobbling on tiny feet considered erotic, men would also get excited playing with bound feet, which were always hidden in embroidered silk shoes” (Wild Swans) Footbinding was considered very attractive and was very common. Many times, a girl who did not have bound feet were rejected by

According to Mackie (1996: 1001) the practice of foot binding spread from the imperial palace, transmitting down through the classes until it was nearly universally adopted. Thus, foot binding can be seen as symbolising one's status. Foot binding came to symbolise gentility, and it was only the absolute lowest of the lower class who were the exception to the convention. Such destitute individuals could not afford for female family members to be foot-bound when their manual labour was needed (Mackie 1996: 1001). However, to avoid such disgrace, many poor families preferred to “struggle along for a precarious living, bringing up their daughters with small feet” (Doolittle 1865: 201). This is in keeping with Veblen's (1934) view that foot binding is a costly display of a family's wealth (Mackie 1996: 1002). Likewise in Africa, female mutilation reportedly spread partly due to individuals wanting to emulate their higher status neighbours who had already adopted the practice (Mackie 1996: 1004). In addition to symbolising wealth, Mackie suggests that female mutilation symbolises a family's commitment to values of purity and chastity (Mackie 1996: 1000, 1008). Given the costs and risks associated with female mutilation, that a family would choose to commit to the practice shows how willing they are to ensure that males can be confident in terms of paternity. With this intention, female mutilation can be seen as symbolising a female's purity and future fidelity (Mackie 1996:

When girls were school age their feet began bending to make them smaller. Their feet were swathe in bandages and drawn towards their heels which caused the bones to break creating a small 3 inch foot. Unfortunately, because of this custom many girls had complication which caused them to have infections, paralysis and some even died because of this gruesome tradition. The Chinese thought that this tradition of binding feet would give a young lady of the affluent class the opportunity of getting a good husband. The lower class and peasants did not divulge in this tradition because the women were needed to work in the

Some aspects of the lifestyle ancient civilizations lived almost seem appalling or intolerable when compared to the very developed and carefully shaped the world inhabited today. One of these characteristics of previous societies that prove to be rather challenging to conceive in current times consists of the lack of rights, privileges, and equity women had. Society maintained this assumption of a man’s superiority up until the women’s rights movement of the early twentieth century; yet with the two sexes essentially equal in America today, imagining a restricted life as a female proves unfathomable. Looking back at the history of human kind, men almost always subdued women and treated them as property. When focusing on the first

As a class, each student read and conjured their own opinions of the short passages we read about many different cultures. The first passage; Their Eyes Were Watching God, the black culture was discussed. Characters in this passage had some judgments about their own culture/race. The second passage was called Bound Feet, they had to decide is they should do something that all women in the Chinese culture do or decide not to do it because you don't want to be like the rest of the world. In the story Brick Lane the question talked about was should they stay true to who they were born as or conform to who everyone is expecting them to become.

The most prevalent symbol in the poem “Flower Feet” by Ruth Fainlight are the feet of Chinese women who were forced to bind their feet. Foot binding is an old Chinese trend in which young girls had their feet broken in

The oppression of women has been brought into light in the recent years but it was the norm in many societies in early history especially in premodern east Asia. During that time, the roles of men and women in society were determined by great scholars that had the power to get their voice to be heard and set general rules in society. In China, scholars like Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi had great impact on the way people divided the roles between men and women. The overall oppression of women in premodern east Asia can be seen through quotes from great scholars about how women should be obedient to men, should not make important decisions in their families, and are not spoken of equally to men in society.

In the article, Ko highlights the many misconceptions modern people have on footbinding such as keeping a woman’s foot bound, kept them in a hobbled and subservient domestic state or as sex objects . Afterwards, she states that our “certainties may turn out to be dead wrong” suggesting to readers that she is going to shine a positive light on footbinding. Ko goes more in depth about the three things men believed footbinding was, and why the tradition of binding ones foot was important at that time. The Chinese believed that wearing shoes differentiated and distinguished them from beasts as well as savages

Those individuals who are proposed of the idea of arranged marriage ask the question “whether a parent can be trusted to find the right partner for a child” (Kolker, 62). These days parents and children argue about almost every single topic let alone finding a spouse for them. It sounds weird when a mother looks for brides for her grown son. But, marriage “as we understand it,

When coupled with the line "the bound feet" (Piercy, 20), the poem appears as if it were a comment solely about the injustice forced upon Chinese women from 934 until 1949. Foot binding is a painful process which includes breaking all of the toes and arch of the foot to grossly alter the shape of the foot, so that the foot, when mature would be no more than four inches long.  The first break was usually made when a girl was three to five years old, then the feet were wrapped in yards of cloth to prevent them from growing or reshaping. The pain from the initial break was nothing compared to the enduring pain the women experienced for the rest of their lives. The pain was caused by the drastically deformed feet. (Chinese foot binding- lotus shoes)

Schiavenza, Matt. “The Peculiar History of Foot Binding in China.” In The Atlantic. 16 September, 2013 article was published. Web. 1st October, 2013 article was accessed. From http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/the-peculiar-history-of-foot-binding-in-china/279718/