Preview

Summary Of Footbinding In China

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
806 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of Footbinding In China
The development of footbinding was so distant and steam long and the regions influenced by footbinding were so vast that none of a descriptive and explanatory framing could state the real meaning of the footbinding completely. The author Dorothy Ko illustrated the complex historical development of footbinding in her journal “The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeen-Century China”. She described three historic stages of footbinding: the heyday of footbinding, the prohibition of footbinding and the revival of footbinding through three main perspectives – wen civility, ethnic boundaries separating Han and Manchu, and the embellishment of the body. Although there were still some arguments seem not so persuasive in author’s article most …show more content…
So this proposal was more convictive to show that footbinding was a way used by Chinese to conquer “barbarians”. In addition, Qu’s proposal was disclosed in Wanli yehuo bian , a work written by Shen Defu in Ming dynasty but Shen did not write any source for Qu’s proposal. This made the argument of Dorothy less reliable since the primary source she used could not be verified. To make her argument stronger, Dorothy could quote a more reliable primary source, give a definition about Chinese civility and a more detailed explanation of in what aspect did footbinding relate to …show more content…
This symbolized that the meaning of footbinding was converted from the demand for beauty of the society to the demand for morality. The example of Sun Zhixie strongly supported this shifting of meaning in footbinding. The trap devised by other officials to kill Zhixie after knowing that he shaved his head and had the women in his family unbind their feet implied that their morality has already distorted and Zhixie’s attempt to suicide symbolized his resist to the moral kidnapping. Although most of author’s arguments fit her thesis, this article was biased as a secondary source because it was written based on the perspective of Chinese elite males. Most of historical articles ignored the feeling of women. To be unbiased, we must seek the initiative and motivation of women about their persist in footbinding because footbinding was experience upon their own body. And we have to realize that the existing of footbinding was not only the reflection of political status but also the self-esteem and desire of women in ancient

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    From a young age Ning Lao Tai-tai was a very active young girl, so her feet were not officially bound until she was seven years old. Foot binding originated in Imperial China around the tenth-eleventh century. As her older sister, Ning Lao Tai-tai got married when she was fifteen, to a man older than her. Ning Lao Tai-tai gives birth to a total of four children, three living to adulthood, two daughters and a son. Ning Lao Tai-tai resembled her grandfather, in regards to their square faces. Ning Lao Tai-tai lived as a daughter, a wife, a concubine, a mother, and a servant. Throughout her life she worked, she was homeless, and she was feeble.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eng 101 Paper

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Chinese practiced foot binding for over a thousand years in the Song and T’ang dynasties. Some people found it very cruel, and then some found it fascinating. The ‘Golden Lotuses’ were the art and symbol for the wealth and beauty of ancient China. For any other culture, one would ask what foot binding is? Or, how did foot binding in Ancient China compare to John Fairbank’s text “Footbinding”? Also, how does the history of ancient China and Fairbank’s text differ and how are they similar? Then, how can foot binding be defended? In this paper, one will be able to understand the cultural significance of foot binding.…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eunuch Character Analysis

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Many were equally sexually exploited, insulted and considered half-people. The worldwide tales of eunuchs were rarely a studied angle of society, due to the long retained stigma against feminine men, and their small, but important, numbers, which made a minority. As the last Chinese court eunuch died in 1996, eunuchs remain an angle we may never see again to the point they once were. Many generations watched this mutilation happen in masses. Keeping eunuchs was as distinct and normal to certain societies of the past as keeping women in pens. On that note, eunuchs were the protectors of these woman's under the voice of the men who controlled them. Looking at examples mainly from the Ottoman, Chinese and Christian empires, three large historical patriarchies with heterosexual constructions of gender, it’s central to look into what made someone become a eunuch as the social order generally blamed eunuchs for being grotesque but did not blame the institutions which created a demand for them because the institutions were too…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Footbinding covered all aspect of the core social, political, moral, and economic institution of Chinese society:”The Chinese family was both the root and microcosm of a highly centralized and stratified political system. “The root of the empire is in the state” … The root of the state is in the family” (Greenhalgh 11). “Feet and shoe were advertisement for upbringing, cultural level and accomplishment, family background and temperament. Impossibly small, these feet were originally a source of great pride. Small feet added prestige to a family” (Ross…

    • 4926 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    first exam guide

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages

    (2) In what ways was the Song dynasty a turning point in the history of Chinese women? Think about foot binding, market in women, sex-role segregation, female deities, and widow chastity. To what…

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    He Qi agrees that, “the positive image of China in previous centuries was partly owing to Westerners’ difficulty in accessing to China and fully grasp their cultural practices.” When western missionaries were sanctioned to go to China, they found that their understanding of foot binding was contradictory with what previous western travelers have been described in previous…

    • 177 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay About Foot Binding

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Foot binding is also known as “lotus feet”. This practice was to prevent the feet from growing. This custom originated from upper-court dancers during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms in Imperial China. As a result, this practice became popular in the Song Dynasty and had spread to all other social classes. Foot binding was a mean to show that you were wealthy. This custom was thought to be beautiful.…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Wild Swans" Quotes

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “The practice of binding feet was originally introduced about a thousand years ago, allegedly by a concubine of the emperor. Not only was the sight of women hobbling on tiny feet considered erotic, men would also get excited playing with bound feet … Men rarely saw naked bound feet which were usually covered in rotting flesh and stank when the bindings removed.” (Ch.1, p. 24-25)…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Brown et al. have also produced data attempting to answer this long-standing theory on the purpose of foot binding. In their 2012 paper, Marriage Mobility and Footbinding in Pre-1949 Rural China: A Reconsideration of Gender, Economics, and Meaning in Social Causation Brown et al preface their data by stating “It has long been assumed that before 1949 Chinese society was hypergamous —that most women married to a “better” household than the one in which they were born.” Despite this belief, they describe “In our sample of 7,314 rural women living in Sichuan, Northern, Central, and Southwestern China in the first half of the twentieth century, two-thirds of women did not marry up. In fact, 22 percent of all women, across regions, married down. In most regions, more women married up than down, but in all regions, the majority did not marry hypergamously.” (Melissa J. Brown et al 1035) In an attempt to reconcile this data, which debunks much of the assumptions that John Mao’s preferred theory rests upon, the paper presents a more likely theory: that feet binding was a form of labor control. In their discussion, they write “We deal elsewhere with the question of why footbinding ended, which can be summarized by saying that we have growing evidence that footbinding was a form of labor control to boost the contribution of young girls to handcraft production…We think changes in the larger political economy that threw…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oh My Aching Feet

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In John King Fairbank’s short story, “Footbinding,” Chinese parents choose to bind their daughters’ feet so they could have a better chance for a good marriage arrangement and success in life. A Chinese custom in practice for decades, “Footbinding spread as a mark of gentility and upper-class status” and as a way “[…] to preserve female chastity” (Fairbank 403). At a very young age, parents tightly wrap their daughters’ feet with cloth to prevent growth and change the shape in order to have small feet. Fairbank tells us, “The small foot was called a ‘golden lotus’ or ‘golden lily’ […]” and more desirable by Chinese men (Fairbank 403). It is a sexual attraction for men-a three inch foot is ideal (Fairbank 405). On the other hand, because of their small feet, foot binding prevents women from doing physical labor, keeps them in the home and safeguards male domination in China (Fairbank 406). Not only does it restrict what women can do, it is a very painful process. Foot binding, a cultural norm in earlier Chinese society, has many negative consequences which outweigh the positive consequences.…

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The modern intuitive ideas of the west really affected how traditional Chinese people viewed the world and their current beliefs. In Pang-Mei Natasha Chang’s memoir, Bound Feet and Western Dress, Yu-I and Hsu Chih-mo gain a new perspective on the world from living in the west.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Traditions in Chinese culture are long-rooted and are taken very seriously from generation to generation. However, there must always be room for modern change in order for society to grow and strive across the globe. In Bound Feet and Western Dress the conflict between Chinese traditions and modern change arises. With this conflict it is important to discuss the different meanings of liberation for men and women and they way in which Chang Yu-I was able to obtain liberation throughout her life.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Foot binding was a practice that started during the Tang Dynasty when a prince, Li Yo, enjoyed watching his concubine dance before him with tiny bound “lily feet”[i]. Since then it became popular in the Han Dynasty. Women would wash and massage their daughters’ feet, turn their toes under, and then they would break their daughters’ arches, and finally wrap the foot tightly in a cotton bandage pulling the big toe and heel together as well as hold the rest of the toes in place[ii]. The average length of the foot was three inches after the process had been completed. This caused the foot to be seriously deformed. The women would be disabled to the point where they could barely walk; sometimes toes would even fall off as a result of the bindings[iii]. Working and peasant class women would not usually have their feet bound because it was necessary for them to be able to do manual labour, but if mothers desired for their daughters to marry into good families they would risk losing their daughters labour to bind their daughters’ feet.…

    • 1396 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Between the Song and Tang dynasties, a fad of small feet arose, and from then the act of footbinding became more and more common in the elite class. As the prosperity of the elite class grew, more numbers of women became concubines, prostitutes, and entertainers. Because of the easy accessibility to those women, negotiating as equals between husband and wives was reduced, setting women against each other and creating jealousy within the…

    • 1335 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bound Feet

    • 1030 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Traditions in Chinese culture are long-rooted and are taken very seriously from generation to generation. However, there must always be room for some type of modern change to occur. Modern change is needed in order for a society to grow and strive. In Bound Feet and Western Dress the conflict between Chinese traditions and modern change arises. With this conflict it is important to talk about the different meanings of liberation for men and women and the way in which Chang Yu-I was able to obtain liberation throughout her life.…

    • 1030 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays