Chinese Foot Binding

There is a traditional technique from rural China which involved the binding of the feet of female young people to stop them from developing. It was a barbaric practice that was debilitating and disabling to the feet. It was carried out as a smaller sized foot was thought to be an appealing characteristic in the female and a higher dowry is usually commanded by the family for the bride-to-be when the feet had been bound. There was an important industry in these rural communities for the decorative and carefully created footwear that these people will have to use because of the smaller and disfigured feet. Around 100 or so years ago societal pressures started to mount to ban the foot binding and this generally was successful and it is not done any longer. The technique had to stop as it was so debilitating and painful for the child. After they became a grownup, the destruction had been done and there was not much that might be done to manage the pain and deformity. However, there are still some elderly woman alive that had their feet bound when they were small children.



You can find theoretically parallels to this practice of chinese foot binding that might be seen today. Some commentators attempt to associate the practice today of women who force their feet into the high heel shoes as being just like the practice. In rural China the foot binding was all about the female carrying out something that pleases the male, in spite of the consequences in terms of discomfort and disability. The practice today of wearing tight fitting high heel footwear by females has outcomes in the terms of foot deformity and foot pain. It is also supposedly done in the perspective of the female doing something which is pleasing to the eye of the man. There is some controversy if the connection between the two practices really do justify the kind of evaluation that they have been subjected to.