Foot binding and how it came to be and how it was abolished. From the Qing Dynasty to Mao Zedong himself.

1. FOOT BINDING:
BEAUTY IN A LIFETIME OF PAIN
Yizza Gonzales
05/07/2014
History 323
Final Presentation

2. FOR THE SAKE OF BEAUTY
• Woman for thousands of years have
literally done anything and
everything they could to become
beautiful in their society.
• Parents, especially mothers to their
daughters, have done what they
can to ensure the well being of their
children. Especially when society
demands it of them.
• Mutilation was a common practice in
many places of the world. China was
no exception. All that mattered was
that it was considered beautiful.

3. WHAT IS FOOT BINDING?
• Foot binding is a practice that literally binds the foot and forces it to stay small
and into a crescent shape.
• The process behind it usually involves a small girl anywhere from the age of
three to six to have her feet soaked and then broken. Her feet were forced
into the shape by forcing her toes to meet the sole of her foot. Where the arch
of her foot was to develop would also be broken and forced up to make the
foot smaller. The feet were then bound tightly with some type of linen usually
silk or cotton.
• The process of getting the foot into the perfect shape took years to do and
while the bones may have healed it was common for them to break again
multiple times.
• It was not uncommon for infections and death to result from this practice.
• Warning next slide contains a not so pleasant images.

5. THE REASON BEHIND THE PRACTICE
• The reason behind it all lies in the
thought of what beauty and status is.
• You had to afford to have your feet
bound. To top that off your family
would lose a worker because it was
crippling.
• What do you think is beautiful a
beautiful woman?
• During the time when foot binding was
practiced a small foot was not only
seen as beautiful. It was erotic.
• To a man it was not disgusting or
horrifying it was beautiful. It made his
wife perfect at least in her looks.

6. THE GOLDEN LOTUS:
CONTROL AND SUBMISSION
• The term Golden Lotus refers to what the
ideal length of the foot is. Four inches were
called Golden Lotus.
• If they were five inches they were Silver
Lotus. And anything bigger were termed Iron
lotus.
• Not only was having a small foot deemed
beautiful it was also a way to force woman
to rely more on the men.
• Upper class men did not want girls with
unbound feet. If they were to marry her feet
had to have been bound and how they
were bound was a big factor.
• In the time that it came into popularity
woman had no power and could not even
wander the streets freely.
• Using binding it was easy to control wives
and daughters by keeping them in the
house as walking was painful. It was also an
easy way to enforce their submission.

7. THE SONG DYNASTY
• This is the dynasty that is responsible for
the start of the practice of foot binding.
Though it is said to have existed since
Sui Dynasty.
• One of the stories behind its practice
was that of the Emperor falling in love
with a dancer with bound crescent
feet.
• It was practiced mostly by the higher
class and slowly moved into practice
with all the classes.
• The higher class could afford to bind all
their daughters feet because they
didn’t need to work.
• Not every girl in lower class was
subjected to it. Mostly only the oldest in
hopes of marrying her up into society.

8. ALL THINGS MUST END.
• It was at the end of Qing dynasty
that foot binding started to fall
out of favor. Though of course
efforts to try to stop it had
occurred before with no success.
• In the 19th centaury when the
practice was at it highest peak
westerners started to move into
the country. With the traders
came the missionaries and the
wives of these missionaries.
• These wives became strong
activists against the practice.
They received their support from
nationals who had traveled
abroad.
• They succeed except for small
groups that continued the
practice.

9. THE COMPLETE ABOLISHMENT OF FOOT BINDING
• In 1949 Mao Zedong took over China and it
became then that foot binding was
completely forbidden.
• By this point in time foot binding was
completely out of fashion and not many
were still practicing it.
• Western fashion had made its way into the
markets and were now popular.
• Men also liked the sight of bare natural feet
more than beautifully clad bound feet.
• Only a few remote regions were left.
• Unfortunately there were still many women
with their feet bound and we can still see
evidence of it today.

10. BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Blake, C. Fred. 1994. "Foot-Binding in Neo-Confucian China and the Appropriation of Female
Labor." Chicago Hournals (The University of Chicago Press) 19 (No. 3): 676-712. Accessed April 26,
2014. http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/blake/pdfs/1994%20%20Foot-
binding%20in%20Neo-Confucian%20China.pdf.
• 1998. Discover Foot Binding in Shanghai - the Culture of 4-inch Feet. Accessed May 1, 2014.
http://www.chinahighlights.com/shanghai/article-discover-foot-binding.htm.
• images, all. n.d. Pinterest. Accessed April-May 2014.
http://www.pinterest.com/orangetelephone/asian-footbinding/.
• Kam, Nadine. 1998. YMW. March 10. Accessed May 1, 2014.
http://archives.starbulletin.com/98/03/10/features/story1.html.
• Linzey, Julia. n.d. Bounded Patriarchy. Accessed April 19, 2014.
http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/fall99/linzey/where.html.
• SCHIAVENZA, MATT. 2013. The Atlantic. September 16. Accessed April 24, 2014.
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/the-peculiar-history-of-foot-binding-in-
china/279718/.
• 2012. Scribol Anthropology and History. 1 04. Accessed 04 19, 2014.
http://scribol.com/anthropology-and-history/chinese-foot-binding-in-pictures/1.