Editing Foot binding (section)

== 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. In the late 20th&nbsp;century some feminists introduced positive overtones, reporting that it gave some women a sense of mastery over their bodies and pride in their beauty.<ref name="Patricia Buckley Ebrey 1890, pp 1-34">Patricia Buckley Ebrey, "Gender and Sinology: Shifting Western Interpretations of Foot binding, 1300-1890", ''Late Imperial China'' (1999) 20#2 pp 1-34.</ref>

===Beauty and erotic appeal===
[[File:Woman with bound feet reclining on chaise lounge, China LCCN2001705601.jpg|thumb|240px|left|Bound feet were considered beautiful and even erotic.]]
Before foot binding was practised in China, admiration for small feet already existed as demonstrated by the [[Tang dynasty]] tale of [[Ye Xian]] written around 850 by [[Duan Chengshi]]. This tale of a girl who lost her shoe and then married a king who sought the owner of the shoe as only her foot was small enough to fit the shoe contains elements of the European story of [[Cinderella]] and is thought to be one of its antecedents.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jruLAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 |title=Footbinding: A Jungian Engagement with Chinese Culture and Psychology |author= Shirley See Yan Ma |pages=75&ndash;78 |publisher=Taylor & Francis Ltd |date=4 December 2009 |isbn=9781135190071 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/25ii/10_25.2.pdf |title=Asian Origins of Cinderella: The Zhuang Storyteller of Guangxi |journal=Oral Tradition |volume=25 |number=2 |first=Fay |last=Beauchamp |pages=447–496 |access-date=2017-07-25 |archive-date=2017-12-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215135835/http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/25ii/10_25.2.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> For many, the bound feet were an enhancement to a woman's beauty and made her movement more dainty,<ref>{{cite book|last=Ebrey|first=Patricia Buckley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vr81YoYK0c4C&pg=PA160 |title='Cambridge Illustrated History of China|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=New York|pages=160–161|edition=2nd|isbn=9780521124331}}</ref> and a woman with perfect lotus feet was likely to make a more prestigious marriage.{{sfn|Hershatter|2018|p=47}}{{sfn|Hershatter|2018|p=45}} Even while not much was written on the subject of foot binding prior to the latter half of the 19th&nbsp;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.{{sfn|Hershatter|2018|p=45}} The desirability varies with the size of the feet—the perfect bound feet and the most desirable (called {{gloss|golden lotuses}}) would be around 3 Chinese inches (around {{cvt|4|in|cm|order=flip|sigfig=1|disp=or}}) or smaller, while those larger were called {{gloss|silver lotuses}} (4 Chinese inches—around {{cvt|13|cm|in|sigfig=2|disp=or}}) or {{gloss|iron lotuses}} (5 Chinese inches—around {{cvt|17|cm|in|sigfig=2|disp=or}}—or larger, and thus the least desirable for marriage).<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZbJ3DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 |title=The Aesthetics of Dress |first= Ian |last=King |page=59 |isbn=9783319543222 |publisher=Springer|date=31 March 2017}}</ref> Therefore people had greater expectations for foot binding brides.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Brown|first1=Melissa J.|last2=Feldman|first2=Marcus W.|last3=Ehrlich|first3=Paul R.|date=2009|title=Sociocultural Epistasis and Cultural Exaptation in Footbinding, Marriage Form, and Religious Practices in Early 20th-Century Taiwan|url= |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|volume=106|issue=52|pages=22139–22144|doi=10.1073/pnas.0907520106|jstor=40536412|pmid=20080786|issn=0027-8424|pmc=2796906|bibcode=2009PNAS..10622139B|doi-access=free}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Gates|2014|p=56}}

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.{{sfn|van Gulik|1961|pp=218}} Howard Levy, however, suggests that the barely revealed bound foot may also only function as an initial tease.{{sfn|Gates|2014|p=56}}

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.<ref name=slippers /> Walking on bound feet necessitated bending the knees slightly and swaying to maintain proper movement and balance, a dainty walk that was also considered to be erotically attractive to some men.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity |author=Janell L. Carroll |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9X8EAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |page=8 |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-495-60499-0 }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xmdKklZM9-kC&pg=PA117 |title=Bodies under Siege: Self-mutilation, Nonsuicidal Self-injury, and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry|author= Armando R. Favazza | page=117|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|edition= third |date=2 May 2011|isbn=9781421401119 }}</ref> The psychoanalyst [[Sigmund Freud]] considered foot binding to be a "perversion that corresponds to [[foot fetishism]]",<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hacker|first1=Authur|title=China Illustrated|date=2012|publisher=Turtle Publishing|isbn=9781462906901|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O5JyAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT252}}</ref> and that it appeased male [[castration anxiety]].<ref name=mackie />

===Role of Confucianism===
[[File:A HIGH CASTE LADYS DAINTY LILY FEET.jpg|thumb|220px|A woman with her feet unwrapped]]

During the [[Song dynasty]], the status of women declined.<ref name=mackie /> A common argument is that it was the result of the revival of [[Confucianism]] as [[neo-Confucianism]] and that, in addition to promoting the seclusion of women and the [[cult of widow chastity]], it also contributed to the development of foot binding.<ref name="ebrey 2"/> According to [[Robert van Gulik]], the prominent Song Confucian scholar [[Zhu Xi]] stressed the inferiority of women as well as the need to keep men and women strictly separate.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Ibp1RTW0AoC&pg=PA46 |title= Chinese Outcasts: Discrimination and Emancipation in Late Imperial China |author= Anders Hansson |page=46 |publisher=Brill |year= 1996 |isbn= 978-9004105966 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="ebrey 2">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GDPskRXfl5cC&pg=PA10 |title=Women and the Family in Chinese History |author= Patricia Buckley Ebrey |pages=10&ndash;12 |publisher=Routledge |date=19 September 2002 |isbn= 978-0415288224}}</ref> However, historian [[Patricia Buckley Ebrey|Patricia Ebrey]] suggests that this story might be fictitious,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yTvLQbaH81wC&pg=PA139 |title= Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation |author= Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee |date= April 2006 |isbn= 978-0-7914-6749-7 |page=139 |publisher= State University of New York Press }}</ref> and argued that the practice arose so as to emphasize the gender distinction during a period of societal change in the Song dynasty.<ref name=mackie /><ref>{{cite journal |title=Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet |first=Aubrey L. |last=McMahan |journal=Grand Valley Journal of History |volume= 2 |issue= 1 Article 3  |citeseerx=10.1.1.648.2278}}</ref>

Some Confucian moralists in fact disapproved of the erotic associations of foot binding, and unbound women were also praised.<ref name="Smith2008">{{cite book |author=Bonnie G. Smith |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History: 4 Volume Set |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EFI7tr9XK6EC&pg=PA358 |year=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=978-0-19-514890-9 |pages=358–}}</ref> The Neo-Confucian [[Cheng Yi (philosopher)|Cheng Yi]] was said to be against foot binding and his family and descendants did not bind their feet.<ref>{{cite book |author=丁传靖 编 |title=《宋人轶事汇编》|location=北京 |publisher=中华书局 |date=1981 |page=卷9，第2册，页455}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/foot-binding-and-ruism-confucianism_us_58c86e8fe4b01d0d473bceed |title=Foot-binding and Ruism (Confucianism) |date=16 March 2017 |author= Bin Song |work=Huffington Post }}</ref> Modern Confucian scholars such as [[Tu Weiming]] also dispute any causal link between neo-Confucianism and foot binding,<ref>{{cite book |title=Confucian thought: selfhood as creative transformation |author= Tu Wei-ming |publisher= State University of New York Press |date= 1985 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="blake"/>

Historian [[Dorothy Y. Ko|Dorothy Ko]] proposed that foot binding may be an expression of the Confucian ideals of civility and culture in the form of correct attire or bodily adornment, and that foot binding was seen as a necessary part of being feminine as well as being civilized. Foot binding was often classified in [[Chinese encyclopedia]] as clothing or a form of bodily embellishment rather than mutilation. One from 1591, for example, placed foot binding in a section on "Female Adornments" that included hairdos, powders, and ear piercings. According to Ko, the perception of foot binding as a civilized practice may be evinced from a [[Ming dynasty]] account that mentioned a proposal to "entice [the barbarians] to civilize their customs" by encouraging foot binding among their womenfolk.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://womenshistory.osu.edu/sites/womenshistory.osu.edu/files/The%20Body%20as%20Attire.pdf |title=The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China |journal=Journal of Women's History|volume =8|number= 4 |date= 1997 |pages= 8–27 |doi= 10.1353/jowh.2010.0171 |first=Dorothy |last= Ko |s2cid=145191396 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="steele"/><ref name="Ko1994">{{cite book |author=Dorothy Ko |title=Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-century China |url=https://archive.org/details/teachersofinnerc00kodo |url-access=registration |year=1994 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-2359-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/teachersofinnerc00kodo/page/149 149]–}}</ref> 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.<ref name="blake">{{cite journal |url= http://anthropology.hawaii.edu/People/Faculty/Blake/pdfs/1994%20%20Foot-binding%20in%20Neo-Confucian%20China.pdf |title= Foot-Binding in Neo-Confucian China and the Appropriation of Female Labor |author= C. Fred Blake |journal=Signs |volume= 19 |number= 3 |date= 1994 |pages= 676–712|doi= 10.1086/494917 |s2cid= 40841025 |access-date= 2016-10-29 |archive-date= 2018-10-25 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181025003227/http://anthropology.hawaii.edu/People/Faculty/Blake/pdfs/1994%20%20Foot-binding%20in%20Neo-Confucian%20China.pdf |url-status= dead}}</ref>

===Feminist perspective===
{{Violence against women|sp=uk}}
Foot binding is considered an oppressive practice against women who were victims of a sexist culture.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yTvLQbaH81wC&pg=PA139 |title=Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation |author=Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee |page=139 | isbn=9780791481790|publisher= SUNY Press |date=February 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rophdLUYIjcC&pg=PT246 |title=Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom: The Liberation of Women's Bodies in Modern China|author= Fan Hong|isbn=9781136303142 |publisher=Routledge|date=2013-04-03}}</ref> It is also widely seen as a form of violence against women.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ac2UAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA423 |title=Ordinary Violence: Everyday Assaults against Women Worldwide|edition= 2nd|author= Mary White Stewart |pages=423–437 |publisher=Praeger|date=27 January 2014|isbn= 9781440829383}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BOKAMXEA_jQC&pg=PA310 |title=Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Violence |volume=1 |editor= Claire M. Renzetti |editor2=Jeffrey L. Edleson |page=276&ndash;277 |publisher= SAGE Publications|date=6 August 2008|isbn= 978-1412918008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kNh3G6Pqdr0C&pg=PA6 |title=Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives|editor= Laura L. O'Toole |editor2=Jessica R. Schiffman |publisher=New York University Press |date=1 March 1997|isbn= 978-0814780411 |page=6 }}</ref> Bound feet rendered women dependent on their families, particularly the men, as they became largely restricted to their homes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fairbank|first=John King|title=The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800–1985|url=https://archive.org/details/greatchineserevo00fair|url-access=registration|year=1986|publisher=Harper & Row|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/greatchineserevo00fair/page/70 70]|isbn=9780060390570}}</ref> Thus, the practice ensured that women were much more reliant on their husbands.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Le|first=Huy Anh S.|date=2014|title=Revisiting Footbinding: The Evolution of the Body as Method in Modern Chinese History|url=http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/927/revisiting-footbinding-the-evolution-of-the-body-as-method-in-modern-chinese-history|journal=Inquiries Journal|language=en|volume=6|issue=10}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_cLd_h5Hh00C&pg=PA93 |title=Footbinding, Feminism, and Freedom: The Liberation of Women's Bodies in Modern China|author= Hong Fan |publisher= Routledge |pages= 90–96|date=1 June 1997|isbn= 978-0714646336}}</ref><ref name="qiu jin"/> The end of the practice of foot binding is seen as a significant event in the process of female emancipation in China,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_cLd_h5Hh00C&pg=PA1 |title=Footbinding, Feminism, and Freedom: The Liberation of Women's Bodies in Modern China|author= Hong Fan |publisher= Routledge |date=1 June 1997|isbn= 978-0714646336 |page=1}}</ref> and a major event in the history of [[Feminism in China|Chinese feminism]].{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}

In the late 20th&nbsp;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.<ref>Dorothy Ko, "Rethinking sex, female agency, and footbinding", ''Research on Women in Modern Chinese History / Jindai Zhongguo Funu Shi Yanjiu'' (1999), Vol. 7, pp 75–105</ref>{{sfn|Hershatter|2018|p=66}}

===Other interpretations===
Some scholars such as Laurel Bossen and Hill Gates reject the notion that bound feet in China were considered more beautiful, or that it was a means of male control over women, a sign of class status, or a chance for women to marry well (in general, bound women did not improve their class position by marriage). Foot binding is believed to have spread from elite women to civilian women and there were large differences in each region. The body and labor of unmarried daughters belonged to their parents, thereby the boundaries between work and kinship for women were blurred.<ref name="fujian">{{Cite journal |last=Gates |first=Hill |date=2001 |title=Footloose in Fujian: Economic Correlates of Footbinding |journal=[[Comparative Studies in Society and History]] |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=130–148 |doi=10.1017/S0010417501003619 |doi-broken-date=2024-11-13 |jstor=2696625 |pmid=18193574 |s2cid=11299781 |issn=0010-4175 }}</ref> 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.<ref name=walsh>{{cite web |url= http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/12/unraveling-a-brutal-custom/ |title=Unraveling a brutal custom |author=Colleen Walsh |work=[[Harvard Gazette]] |date=December 9, 2011 }}</ref>{{sfn|Gates|2014}} 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.{{sfn|Shepherd|2018|pp=113–143}}

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. These scholars argued that the coming of the mechanized industry at the end of the 19th&nbsp;century and the beginning of the 20th&nbsp;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.<ref name="bossen brown gates" /> Coupled with changes in politics and people's consciousness, the practice of foot binding disappeared in China forever after two generations.<ref name="fujian"/><ref name=walsh /> More specifically, the 1842 [[Treaty of Nanking|Treaty of Nanjing]] (after the [[First Opium War]]) opened five cities as [[treaty ports]] where foreigners could live and trade. This led to foreign citizens residing in the area, where many proselytized as Christian missionaries. These foreigners condemned many long-standing Chinese cultural practices like foot binding as "uncivilized" — marking the beginning of the end for the centuries-long practice.{{sfn|Hershatter|2018}}

It has been argued that while the practice started out as a fashion, it persisted because it became an expression of Han identity after the [[Mongol conquest of China|Mongols invaded China]] in 1279, and later the [[Manchu conquest|Manchus' conquest]] in 1644, as it was then practised only by Han women.{{clarify|Wasn't it also practised by Hui Muslims?|date=November 2024}}<ref name="steele">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lw1_yKwk_XkC&pg=PA40 |pages=40–41 |title=China Chic: East Meets West |author1=Valerie Steele |author2=John S. Major |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-300-07931-9 }}</ref> 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&nbsp;centuries.{{sfn|Ko|2005|p=266}} 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.{{sfn|Shepherd|2018|pp=23–31}}