Analyzing Ruth Fainlight's 'Flower Feet'

Angela Sanchez
Ms. Kratt
Comp 2
26 March 2017
Beauty and its Beastly Ways
Beauty to many people is how something looks; one of the main attractions for humans is the shape of the body. A good example of how women would go to the extremes with their bodies to be fashionable is the poem “Flower Feet” written by Ruth Fainlight. In this poem it explains what feet binding is and why young girls did this, the reason was so that they were fashionable and considered higher class. Even though it would cripple them for life to have their feet banded back, but rich women didn’t need to move. Women are the main ones that have always been made to try to change their bodies to be more beautiful or fashion of the time. However, as women got more rights and
Being a heavyset woman was an asset during this time, not only in the U.S. but in Europe too. Women during this time wanted tiny waists and even if it was very painful. Which is a very big difference from the look that women strive for today. Around this time Peter Paul Rubens created a painting called "The Large Bathers", he was very famous for depictions of plump, sensual women (5). This painting depicted relatively large, sensual and curvy women naked bathing in a stream. Paul Rubens very unique view on women during this time helped give to the term “Rubenesque” which was used to describe a woman of ideal beauty that was more on the plump side. Another famous painting that had women that were full figured was “After bath” painted by Pierre-Auguste Renior (1) This painting was less famous than the “The Large Bathers” but it depicted about the same thing larger women nude after a bath. Times changed around the 20th century for women and some people think it was for the worst. Around 1890 and 1910 Gibson girl body shape was starting to become very popular among women. A “Gibson girl” body shape is a
During this time the ideal body shape for women was surprisingly more boyish. The ideal woman had a flat chest and a downplayed waist, they would wear bras that flatten their chests and wore clothes that gave them a curve-less look. (6) This was the time of the flappers and when women had their first taste of freedom. This freedom was small yet enough to make women want much more in later years. The bob cut was the most popular hairstyle during this time, which was very different because for many years long hair was believed to be very beautiful and desirable. Women who wore flapper embraced the idea of equality for women and indulge in smoking, danced, drank, drove cars, listened to jazz, and revealed in casual sex (5). This made women more independent and less reliable on men. Men noticed these more independent women and felt slightly threatened in their masculinity. During this time, more adds came out about what only men could do like grow beards or mustaches. This fashion for men would continue for several decades, mainly because women started to be able to do more stuff for themselves so men had to have something only they could do. Things for women only got better for them after the 20s. The thin boyish figure wasn’t a trend that lasted terrible wrong, a decade or so later and the curvy figure came back. During the time of 1930 to 1950 lady’s supposed to have