Gender politics and beauty standards go hand in hand for women.

Footbinding IMO is akin to genital mutilation, a rite of passage into womanhood perpetuated not necessarily by an oppressive patriarchy but by grandmothers and mothers who had their own bodies forcibly mutilated by the previous generation presumably for their own good. I honestly think it’s less about beauty/beauty standards and much more about the politics and construction of gender.

There are a few things I would like to clarify -

1) An unbound foot did not make a woman unmarriageble material - the practise was adopted by lower class people who wanted better marriage prospects for their daughters so they imitated the upper classes. Being able to sustain a crippled woman was in effect, a status symbol.

2) It was not the tiny feet that made the women erotic, it was the fact that because they could not utilise their calves (quite often their calves were atrophied), they had relatively strong pelvic and quad muscles that were built up from years of shuffling around. The strong pelvis/quad muscles were said to make a woman “tighter” if you catch my drift.

3) A woman’s ability to make shoes was highly prized. It was considered a sign of good breeding. It also gave many women with bound feet, a voice in many respects because quite often, the embroidery on their shoes would reflect her wishes. Images of coins, little boys (a desire for such), as well a symbols like fish or oranges (symbols of prosperity) were popular and allowed them to express themselves as many of them were illiterate.

Lula J., may God bless your grandmother!

The hands in that picture don’t look too healthy - is there such a thing as hand-binding? They look like anorexic/corpse Nicole Richie hands.