Foot binding

Origin There are a number of stories about the origin of foot binding before its establishment during the Song dynasty. One of these accounts is of Pan Yunu, a favourite consort of the Southern Qi Emperor Xiao Baojuan. In the story, Pan Yunu, renowned for having delicate feet, performed a dance barefoot on a floor decorated with the design of a golden lotus. The Emperor, expressing admiration, said that "lotus springs from her every step!" ( ), a reference to the Buddhist legend of Padmavati, under whose feet lotus springs forth. This story may have given rise to the terms 'golden lotus' or 'lotus feet' used to describe bound feet; there is no evidence, however, that Consort Pan ever bound her feet. The general view is that the practice is likely to have originated during the reign of the 10th-century Emperor Li Yu of the Southern Tang, just before the Song dynasty. Li Yu created a golden lotus decorated with precious stones and pearls and asked his concubine Yao Niang to bind her feet in white silk into the shape of the crescent moon. She then performed a dance on the points of her bound feet on the lotus. Some of the earliest possible references to foot binding appear around 1100, when a couple of poems seemed to allude to the practice. He observed that "women's foot binding began in recent times; it was not mentioned in any books from previous eras." In the 13th century, scholar wrote the first known criticism of the practice: "Little girls not yet four or five years old, who have done nothing wrong, nevertheless are made to suffer unlimited pain to bind small. I do not know what use this is." zaju actresses with a form of footbinding of the period The earliest archeological evidence for foot binding dates to the tombs of Huang Sheng, who died in 1243 at the age of 17, and Madame Zhou, who died in 1274. Each woman's remains showed feet bound with gauze strips measuring in length. Zhou's skeleton, particularly well preserved, showed that her feet fit into the narrow, pointed slippers that were buried with her. The first European to mention foot binding was the Italian missionary Odoric of Pordenone in the 14th century, during the Yuan dynasty. However no other foreign visitors to Yuan China mentioned the practice, including Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo (who nevertheless noted the dainty walk of Chinese women, who took very small steps), perhaps an indication that it was not a widespread or extreme practice at that time. The Mongols themselves did not practice footbinding but it was permitted for their Chinese subjects. As foot binding restricted the movement of a woman, one side effect of its rising popularity was the corresponding decline of the art of women's dance in China, and it became increasingly rare to hear about beauties and courtesans who were also great dancers after the Song era. The Manchus issued a number of edicts to ban the practice, first in 1636 when the Manchu leader Hong Taiji declared the founding of the new Qing dynasty, then in 1638, and another in 1664 by the Kangxi Emperor. This pride was reflected in the elegantly embroidered silk slippers and wrappings girls and women wore to cover their feet. Handmade shoes served to exhibit the embroidery skill of the wearer as well. These shoes also served as support, as some women with bound feet might not have been able to walk without the support of their shoes and would have been severely limited in their mobility. Contrary to missionary writings, many women with bound feet were able to walk and work in the fields, albeit with greater limitations than their non-bound counterparts. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were dancers with bound feet as well as circus performers who stood on prancing or running horses. Women with bound feet in one village in Yunnan Province formed a regional dance troupe to perform for tourists in the late 20th century, though age has since forced the group to retire. However the rebellion failed and Christian missionaries, who had provided education for girls and actively discouraged what they considered a barbaric practice that had deleterious social effect on women, then played a part in changing elite opinion on foot binding through education, pamphleteering and lobbying of the Qing court, as no other culture in the world practised the custom of foot binding. MacGowan held the view that foot binding was a serious problem that called into doubt the whole of Chinese civilization; he felt that "the nefarious civilization interferes with Divine Nature." Members of the Heavenly Foot Society vowed not to bind their daughters' feet. In 1895, Christian women in Shanghai led by Alicia Little, also formed a Natural Foot Society. This missionary-led opposition had stronger impacts than earlier Han or Manchu opposition. Western missionaries established the first schools for girls, and encouraged women to end the practice of foot binding. Christian missionaries did not conceal their shock and disgust either when explaining the process of foot binding to Western peers and their descriptions shocked their audience back home. In 1883, Kang Youwei founded the Anti-footbinding Society near Canton to combat the practice, and anti-foot binding societies appeared across the country, with membership for the movement claimed to reach 300,000. The anti-foot binding movement stressed pragmatic and patriotic reasons rather than feminist ones, arguing that abolition of foot binding would lead to better health and more efficient labour. Kang Youwei submitted a petition to the throne commenting on the fact that China had become a joke to foreigners and that "footbinding was the primary object of such ridicule." Reformers such as Liang Qichao, influenced by Social Darwinism, also argued that it weakened the nation, since enfeebled women supposedly produced weak sons. In his "On Women's Education", Liang Qichao asserts that the root cause of national weakness inevitably lies in the lack of education for women. Qichao connected education for women and foot binding: "As long as foot binding remains in practice, women's education can never flourish." Qichao was also disappointed that foreigners had opened the first schools as he thought that the Chinese should be teaching Chinese women. In 1906, Zhao Zhiqian wrote in ''Beijing Women's News'' to blame women with bound feet for being a national weakness in the eyes of other nations. Many members of anti-foot binding groups pledged to not bind their daughters' feet nor to allow their sons to marry women with bound feet. In 1902, Empress Dowager Cixi issued an anti-foot binding edict, but it was soon rescinded. In 1912 the new Republic of China government banned foot binding, though the ban was not actively implemented, and leading intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement saw foot binding as a major symbol of China's backwardness. Provincial leaders, such as Yan Xishan in Shanxi, engaged in their own sustained campaign against foot binding with foot inspectors and fines for those who continued the practice, while regional governments of the later Nanjing regime also enforced the ban. In a region south of Beijing, Dingxian, where over 99% of women once had bound feet, no new cases were found among those born after 1919. In Taiwan, the practice was also discouraged by the ruling Japanese from the beginning of Japanese rule, and from 1911 to 1915 it was gradually made illegal. The practice lingered on in some regions in China. In 1928, a census in rural Shanxi found that 18% of women had bound feet, while in some remote rural areas, such as Yunnan Province, it continued to be practiced until the 1950s. In most parts of China the practice had virtually disappeared by 1949. By the 21st century, only a few elderly women in China still had bound feet. In 1999, the last shoe factory making lotus shoes, the Zhiqian Shoe Factory in Harbin, closed. ==Practice==

Variations and prevalence Foot binding was practised in various forms and its prevalence varied in different regions. Not all women were always bound—some women once bound remained bound throughout their lives, some were only briefly bound and some were bound until marriage. Foot binding was most common among women whose work involved domestic crafts and those in urban areas; Feet were bound to their smallest in the northern provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi and Shaanxi, but the binding was less extreme and less common in the southern provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou, where not all daughters of the wealthy had bound feet. Foot binding limited the mobility of girls, so they became engaged in handwork from childhood. Urban–rural differences in prevalence became especially stark in the early 20th century. In port cities such as Xiamen and Shanghai, anti-footbinding societies successfully curbed the practice by the 1910s. A 1937 survey in Xiamen found that only 4.5 percent of women still had bound feet, almost all of them born before 1905. In contrast, rural surveys from the 1920s show lingering adherence: in villages of Hebei Province, 99.2 percent of women born before 1890 had bound feet, and as late as 1915, 60 percent of young girls were still being bound. These disparities suggest that urban elites abandoned footbinding first, while the practice persisted in the countryside into the 1930s. Ethnic variation played a significant role in footbinding's distribution. Manchu women, who were officially prohibited from binding their feet, did not bind their feet. The most a Manchu woman might do was to wrap the feet tightly to give them a slender appearance. The Hakka people were unusual among Han Chinese in not practising foot binding. Most non-Han Chinese people, such as the Manchus, Mongols and Tibetans, did not bind their feet. Some non-Han ethnic groups did. Foot binding was practised by the Hui Muslims in Gansu Province. The Dungan Muslims, descendants of Hui from northwestern China who fled to central Asia, were also practising foot binding up to 1948. In southern China, in Canton (Guangzhou), 19th-century Scottish scholar James Legge noted a mosque that had a placard denouncing foot binding, saying Islam did not allow it since it constituted violating the creation of God. Process The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to develop fully, usually between the ages of four and nine. Binding usually started during the winter months since the feet were more likely to be numb and the pain would not be as extreme. First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood. This was intended to soften the foot and aid the binding. Then the toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent in-growth and subsequent infections, since the toes were to be pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. Cotton bandages, long and wide, were prepared by soaking them in the blood and herb mixture. To enable the size of the feet to be reduced, the toes on each foot were curled under, then pressed with great force downwards and squeezed into the sole of the foot until the toes broke. and the shape could not be reversed without a woman undergoing the same pain again. The timing and degree of foot binding varied among communities. Health problems The most common problem with bound feet was infection. Despite the amount of care taken in regularly trimming the toenails, they would often in-grow, becoming infected and causing injuries to the toes. Sometimes, for this reason, the girl's toenails would be peeled back and removed altogether. The tightness of the binding meant that the circulation in the feet was faulty, and the circulation to the toes was almost cut off, so injuries to the toes were unlikely to heal and were likely to gradually worsen and lead to infected toes and rotting flesh. The necrosis of the flesh would initially give off a foul odour. Later the smell may have come from various microorganisms that colonized the folds. Most of the women receiving treatment did not go out often and were disabled. Disease inevitably followed infection, meaning that death from septic shock could result from foot binding, and a surviving girl was more at risk of medical problems as she grew older. It is thought that as many as 10% of girls may have died from gangrene and other infections owing to foot binding. At the beginning of the binding, many of the foot bones would remain broken, often for years. However as the girl grew older the bones would begin to heal. Even after the foot bones had healed, they were prone to rebreaking repeatedly, especially when the girl was in her teenage years and her feet were still soft. Bones in the girls' feet would often be deliberately broken again to further change the size or shape of the feet. This was especially the case with the girl's toes, which were broken several times since small toes were especially desirable. Older women were more likely to break hips and other bones in falls, since they could not balance properly on their feet, and were less able to rise to their feet from a sitting position. Other issues that may have arisen from foot binding included paralysis and muscular atrophy. == Views and interpretations ==

There are many interpretations to the practice of foot binding. The interpretive models used include fashion (with the Chinese customs somewhat comparable to the more extreme examples of Western women's fashion such as the Wasp waist), seclusion (sometimes evaluated as morally superior to the gender mingling in the West), perversion (the practice imposed by men with sexual perversions), inexplicable deformation, child abuse and extreme cultural traditionalism. Western interpretations of footbinding were shaped by changing assumptions about gender, aesthetics, and social order, and do not fully capture the range of meanings the practice held within Chinese society. In the late 20th century some feminists introduced positive overtones, reporting that it gave some women a sense of mastery over their bodies and pride in their beauty. For many, the bound feet were an enhancement to a woman's beauty and made her movement more dainty, and a woman with perfect lotus feet was likely to make a more prestigious marriage. Even while not much was written on the subject of foot binding prior to the latter half of the 19th century, the writings that were done on this topic, particularly by educated men, frequently alluded to the erotic nature and appeal of bound feet in their poetry. The desirability varies with the size of the feet—the perfect bound feet and the most desirable (called ) would be around 3 Chinese inches (around ) or smaller, while those larger were called (4 Chinese inches—around ) or (5 Chinese inches—around —or larger, and thus the least desirable for marriage). Therefore people had greater expectations for foot binding brides. The belief that foot binding made women more desirable to men is widely used as an explanation for the spread and persistence of foot binding. Some also considered bound feet to be intensely erotic. Some men preferred never to see a woman's bound feet, so they were always concealed within tiny 'lotus shoes' and wrappings. According to Robert van Gulik, the bound feet were also considered the most intimate part of a woman's body. In erotic art of the Qing period where the genitalia may be shown, the bound feet were never depicted uncovered. Howard Levy, however, suggests that the barely revealed bound foot may also only function as an initial tease. An effect of the bound feet was the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Women with such deformed feet avoided placing weight on the front of the foot and tended to walk predominantly on their heels. Some men found the smell of the bound feet attractive and some also apparently believed that bound feet would cause layers of folds to develop in the vagina, and that the thighs would become sensuously heavier and the vagina tighter. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud considered foot binding to be a "perversion that corresponds to foot fetishism", and that it appeased male castration anxiety. It was claimed by Lin Yutang among others, probably based on an oral tradition, that Zhu Xi also promoted foot binding in Fujian as a way of encouraging chastity among women; that by restricting their movement, it would help keep men and women separate. However, historian Patricia Ebrey suggests that this story might be fictitious, and argued that the practice arose so as to emphasize the gender distinction during a period of societal change in the Song dynasty. Some Confucian moralists in fact disapproved of the erotic associations of foot binding, and unbound women were also praised. The Neo-Confucian Cheng Yi was said to be against foot binding and his family and descendants did not bind their feet. Modern Confucian scholars such as Tu Weiming also dispute any causal link between neo-Confucianism and foot binding, as Confucian doctrine prohibits mutilation of the body as people should not "injure even the hair and skin of the body received from mother and father". It is argued that such injunction applies less to women, rather it is meant to emphasize the sacred link between sons and their parents. Furthermore, it is argued that Confucianism institutionalized the family system in which women are called upon to sacrifice themselves for the good of the family, a system that fostered such practice. The practice was carried out only by women on girls, and it served to emphasize the distinction between male and female, an emphasis that began from an early age. Anthropologist Fred Blake argued that the practice of foot binding was a form of discipline undertaken by women themselves, and perpetuated by women on their daughters, so as to inform their daughters of their role and position in society, and to support and participate in the neo-Confucian way of being civilized. Feminist perspective Foot binding is considered an oppressive practice against women who were victims of a sexist culture. It is also widely seen as a form of violence against women. Bound feet rendered women dependent on their families, particularly the men, as they became largely restricted to their homes. Thus, the practice ensured that women were much more reliant on their husbands. The early Chinese feminist Qiu Jin, who underwent the painful process of unbinding her own bound feet, attacked foot binding and other traditional practices. She argued that women, by retaining their small bound feet, made themselves subservient by imprisoning themselves indoors. She believed that women should emancipate themselves from oppression, that girls could ensure their independence through education, and that they should develop new mental and physical qualities fitting for the new era. and a major event in the history of Chinese feminism. In the late 20th century, some feminists have pushed back against the prevailing Western critiques of foot binding, arguing that the presumption that foot binding was done solely for the sexual pleasure of men denies the agency and cultural influence of women. In many parts of late imperial China, women themselves played a central role in maintaining the practice and often viewed bound feet as a symbol of status and a means to secure advantageous marriages. Historical evidence, including women’s poetry and personal writings, particularly those produced by women from elite families, suggests that some women expressed pride in their bound feet and incorporated the practice into prevailing ideals of femininity and self-worth. They argued that foot binding was an instrumental means to reserve women to handwork, and can be seen as a way by mothers to tie their daughters down, train them in handwork, and keep them close at hand. This argument has been challenged by John Shepherd in his book Footbinding as Fashion, and shows there was no connection between handicraft industries and the proportion of women bound in Hebei. Foot binding was common when women could do light industry, but where women were required to do heavy farm work they often did not bind their feet because it hindered physical work. Bossen and Gates argued that the coming of the mechanized industry at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, such as the introduction of industrial textile processes, resulted in a loss of light handwork for women, removing a reason to maintain the practice. Mechanization resulted in women who worked at home facing a crisis once machine-made yarn displaced home production. During the Qing dynasty, attempts were made by the Manchus to ban the practice but failed, and it has been argued the attempts at banning may have in fact led to a spread of the practice among Han Chinese in the 17th and 18th centuries. John Shepherd provides a critical review of the evidence cited for the notion that foot binding was an expression of "Han identity" and rejects this interpretation. ==In popular culture==

The bound foot has played a prominent part in many media works, both Chinese and non-Chinese, modern and traditional. These depictions are sometimes based on observation or research and sometimes on rumors or supposition. Sometimes, as in the case of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth (1931), the accounts are relatively neutral or empirical, implying respect for Chinese culture. Sometimes, the accounts seem intended to rouse like-minded Chinese and foreign opinion to abolish the custom, and sometimes the accounts imply condescension or contempt for China. • Anna Bunina mentions the custom in her 1810 fable "" (The Peking Stadium), which describes a Chinese woman attempting to run a race and barely finishing the boys' course, yet still getting applause for the effort. Bunina used the custom as an allegory to her own difficulties in getting recognition as a poet. • Flowers in the Mirror (1837) by Ju-Chen Li includes chapters set in the "Country of Women", where men bear children and have bound feet. • The Three-Inch Golden Lotus (1994) by Feng Jicai presents a satirical picture of the movement to abolish the practice, which is seen as part of Chinese culture. • In the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), Ingrid Bergman portrays Gladys Aylward, a British missionary to China who is assigned as a foreigner the task by a local Mandarin to unbind the feet of young women, an unpopular order that the civil government had failed to fulfill. Later, the children are able to escape troops by walking miles to safety. • Ruthanne Lum McCunn wrote a biographical novel, Thousand Pieces of Gold (1981, adapted into a 1991 film), about Polly Bemis, a Chinese American pioneer woman. It describes her feet being bound and later unbound when she needed to help her family with farm labor. • Emily Prager's short story "A Visit from the Footbinder", from her collection of short stories of the same name (1982), describes the last few hours of a young Chinese girl's childhood before the professional footbinder arrives to initiate her into the adult woman's life of beauty and pain. • Jung Chang's family autobiography Wild Swans presents the story of Yu-Fang, the grandmother, who had bound feet from the age of two. • Lisa Loomer's play The Waiting Room (1994) deals with themes of body modification. One of the three main characters is an 18th-century Chinese woman who arrives in a modern hospital waiting room, seeking medical help for complications resulting from her bound feet. She describes the foot-binding process, as well as the physical and psychological harm her bound feet have caused. • Lensey Namioka's novel Ties That Bind, Ties That Break (1999) follows a girl named Ailin in China who refuses to have her feet bound, which comes to affect her future. • Lisa See's novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005) is about two Chinese girls who are destined to be friends. The novel is based upon the sacrifices women make to be married and includes the two girls being forced into getting their feet bound. The book was adapted into a 2011 film directed by Wayne Wang. • The Filipino horror film Feng Shui and its sequel Feng Shui 2 feature a ghost of a foot-bound woman inhabits a bagua and cursed those who holds the item. • Sieglinde Sullivan from Black Butler had her feet bound when she was young as part of the "Emerald Witch" hoax invented by the German military. • Lisa See's novel China Dolls (2014) describes Chinese family traditions including foot binding. • Xiran Jay Zhao's novel Iron Widow (2021) is set in a futuristic world inspired by medieval China that still practices foot binding. The main character, Wu Zetian, had her feet bound in childhood and suffers from chronic pain due to it. • Edward Rutherfurd's novel China: An Epic Novel, is set in late Qing Dynasty China, when foot binding was still common practice among Han Chinese in the north. Bright Moon, the daughter of a main character Mei-Ling, has her feet bound to increase her chances of a good marriage, and the practice is described in detail. The character soon resents that she has her feet bound, as it causes her severe pain, and stops her from participating in many activities. • In episode 9 of the anime series The Apothecary Diaries, a servant girl was found dead in a moat. After an autopsy, it was found that she had her feet bound. • Lisa See's novel ''Lady Tan's Circle of Women'' (2023) inspired by the life of Tan Yunxian also describes the tradition of foot binding for young girls. == See also ==

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