BY Observer Staff
Four Central students will be presenting their research on the ancient practice of foot-binding at the Symposium on University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE) on May 15.
Chong Ahn, assistant professor of history, was the faculty mentor for the students’ project.
“By showing these various stories, we are going to argue that … the representation of the practice as something oppressive to women’s bodies is a later western, colonial possession of that history,” Ahn said.
According to Elizabeth Glasman, one of the presenting students, foot-binding was a practice in which silk wraps were bound around the feet of women so tightly that the bones would break to create a smaller, more beautiful foot. The ideal foot was bound to be an exact three inches, this being called the golden lotus.
“Foot-binding was a social practice, it is closely connected to family backgrounds and marriage process, whose feet were bound,” Glasman said.
Foot-binding was seen as a mark of sexuality; a bound foot was deemed to be a very sexual object, according to Crystal MacDonald, one of the presenting students.
“It has been said that foot-binding in Chinese culture could be seen as women empowerment,” MacDonald said. “Without bound feet they would only be servants and considered nothing.”
Not only was foot-binding considered an important sexual symbol, it was also a pre-requisite for marriage.
“Foot-binding became taboo, exotic and even erotic,” Graham said.
For the Chinese, foot-binding had become the boldest form of beauty; with no known origin and no known time period. Scholars in the 12th century did not even know when foot-binding had begun.
“It’s about women empowering women, by producing proper draughts for their family,” Ahn said.
Men would judge women on how beautiful their feet were. Faces didn’t matter to them; they could be considered ugly as long as they had a beautifully bound foot, Graham said.
According to the first presentation, earlier in the year, having bound feet was a form of femininity. The process was considered beautiful, and was done to daughters out of love.
The process of binding feet has been going on for many centuries; the last factory that produced shoes for bound feet was closed in 1999, MacDonald said.
“If they took their wrappings off, it became very personal. The silk bandages became a part of who they were,” Glasman said.
Now there are very few, if any women who have bound feet. The older generations are now gone, marking the end of one of the longest forms of beauty, foot-binding.
