Footbinding Essay

In Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account, Mackie (1996) examines the practices of female foot binding in China, and infibulation in Africa. Specifically, the paper considers the conditions which brought these practices about, how foot binding came to an end, and why infibulation still persists. Mackie offers his 'convention account' and asserts that such practices are self-enforcing conventions which are perpetuated by interdependent expectations on the marriage market (Mackie

Young Chinese Girls Footbinding in 900 C.E. In the article “Footbinding: From Status Symbol to Subjugation” Lousia Lima wrote about how Chinese women at young age had to footbinding. Footbinding at the young age is actually bad for their feet because their toes would bend from those shoes which it looks like they have small feet. Lima explained how it was started in china, “But historical records from the Song dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) date footbinding as beginning during the reign of Li Yu, who ruled

white silk, and making her small feet and graceful with an arched like the crescent moon (Greenhalgh). If she was the first, it didn’t matter. Secondly it was believe that footbinding came to, was because the status of woman were declining and concubines were becoming popular since of dowries for girls were increasing and footbinding became a fashion statement to every female and male (Mackie 1996). “It was then in the late Tang Dynasty and the early period Sung periods that foot binding became a predominantly

Chinese Footbinding In addressing the subject of footbinding, one primary difficulty becomes apparent - that much remains within the realm of the unknowable. Any factual knowledge about the practice may only be drawn from 19th- and 20th-century writings, drawings or photographs. In addition, many of these documents represent a distinctly Western point of view, as they are primarily composed of missionary accounts and the literature of the various anti -footbinding societies.[1] The historical

For almost a thousand years, footbinding was passed down from generation to generation in China as a tradition. For girls to get their feet bound was a rite of passage, usually starting around the age of three to seven years old while the bones are still flexible. This custom was done for many reasons, including beauty, eroticism, feminity, and subordination. Footbinding was the norm, as were tiny waists in Victorian England. The difference is the pain during the binding as well as the lasting effects

The origins of footbinding date back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279), and since then, many historians have debated the motivation for this seemingly strange tradition. Some view footbinding as “an expression of male dominance” or as a “demonstration that families did not need their women’s labor” (Modern China 348). Others interpret footbinding as vital towards understanding standards of “sexuality, fashion, prestige, and beauty” (Modern China 348). The practice of binding feet can be viewed as an

Although no definite reason or person has been identified as responsible for the birth of footbinding, there are a few theories. One deals with the Shang dynasty's last empress' malformed feet. Some say she had club feet, bound them in attempts to distil beauty from malformation, and convinced her "spouse to make the compression of feet obligatory for young girls" (Levy, 37). Another scenario involves the Mongols attempting to impair the health of the Chinese women in order to weaken the Chinese

small feet. There was a custom called Footbinding that mostly members of the upper class endured upon their young daughters. This custom of Footbinding required young girls, around the age of four, to tightly bind their feet to keep them from growing past the approximant size of three inches. This process was extremely painful, yet necessary in order to marry. It began during the Qing Dynasty and was a popular way to show status and wealth. The novel of “Footbinding,” by John King Fairbank, tells of

Foot Binding~ Have you ever heard of footbinding? Do you know what it is? In case you don’t know what it is, footbinding is what they did to young girls around four years old or even younger to the girls who lived in China (Ancient) was a process that made the girl’s foot to stop growing permanently. To be exact, footbinding is the custom of painfully tightening a girls foot to prevent their feet from growing. This was an extremely painful process, and was to start at an early age due to how long

John King Fairbank, the renowned scholar of Chinese history from Harvard, in his essay ‘Footbinding’ talks in detail about the social malaise that dominated Chinese society for almost 1000 years. He says, “Foot binding spread as a mark of gentility and upper class status” and was a means to “preserve female chastity.” But I agree with his opinion that it was ultimately the manifestation of the oppression of women. Since ancient times, women in China were considered chattels, born to serve the men