"Chinese Foot Binding" could have been women's own fault

SmokeySunDrops · 2024-10-21T19:42:37+00:00

Foot binding had to happen when the foot was not yet fully grown, it was performed on underage girls exclusively. Even if it was done by mothers to their daughters it was never the victims 'fault'

Good_Result2787 · 2024-10-21T19:30:58+00:00

I think looking at current trends and then trying to apply them as a possible reason for why something else may have been done centuries ago is probably not the best approach. Particularly when all you're really going on here is very weak correlation. Tbf, I'd ask for at least some standard of proof going the other way about it being a measure for making women less mobile, though I'd be lying if I said it would surprise me to find that was the case given how not only restrictive but painful it was.

Keep in mind people didn't bind adult women's feet. You did this to children. And not only this, but it's a process that usually had to be repeated as the foot kept growing or developing. We're talking about twisting the feet vs. wearing "weird eye makeup" or long nails. You do list more serious conditions in there was well, but it's well-established that these are unhealthy disorders. So too would be the binding, except again we're talking about stuff you have to do as the foot develops.

light_n_air · 2024-10-21T19:43:41+00:00

I'm sorry but this post is something else.

There's not a lot of info on how it came to be or why it was popular.

This is just ... not true. Even the Wikipedia article you linked yourself went over its origin in the second paragraph: "The prevalence and practice of footbinding varied over time and by region and social class.^\1]) The practice may have originated among court dancers during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in 10th-century China and gradually became popular among the elite during the Song dynasty." and "in some areas, footbinding raised marriage prospects.".

Chinese sources are even more explicit: the last Song Dynasty emperor favored women with small feet, so this became a trend in court dancers, and gradually spread to the general population as a status symbol. Its popularity in the Noble Classes meant that women who did not have wrapped feet could not secure a good marriage, so eventually the practice became common.

Furthermore, in the Ming Dynasty, not binding your feet became illegal for a period. It was literally mandated by the (exclusively male) government to bind your feet. The practice of foot binding is widely praised and worshipped in literature and poetry written by men - I can find you thousands of famous works on this topic and how small feet is tied to women's virtue.

In other words, a very powerful man initially found it attractive, so it became a widespread status symbol and pre-requisite to good marriages. It then became illegal not to and there is a lot of culture pressure to look that way. Women most definitely did not decide to break their feet in 3 different places and live in agonising pain for the rest of their lives for no reason.

blonde___guardian · 2024-10-21T19:47:04+00:00

A lot of men don't even know what those things are.

Do men not recognize the results of these things, though? Do men, as a class, ignore smooth skin, full lips, a narrower waist in relation to wider hips + breasts, long hair, and women with lower BMI? It's all very well and good to claim ignorance about the beauty process, but men now - and I'd argue historically - are pretty horny for its outcomes.

kyonshi61 · 2024-10-21T20:10:07+00:00

Foot Binding is when women would wrap some shit around their feet to make them smaller

... Did you even read the wiki article you linked?

It was when little girls as young as 4 would have their feet broken and deformed, and bound tightly to the point where toes would fall off, making it excruciatingly painful to walk or take off the bandages for the rest of their lives. I'd say it's more along the lines of FGM than wearing a corset or shapewear.

ETA: This post is honestly the most Dunning-Kruger shit I've seen in a while lol

Cactaceaemomma · 2024-10-21T19:48:05+00:00

China during that time was patriarchal. Everything women did was to get a husband. Foot binding wasn't a trend. It was a requirement.

Trikger · 2024-10-21T19:43:23+00:00

Men didn't like bound feet because they didn't want their women to run away. They liked them because it showed fragility and dependence, and there is a strong link between foot binding and foot fetishism, which isn't shocking at all.

You're comparing the modern era with historical ones. "It's not for you, it makes me feel more confident," doesn't apply in an era where women were treated as property. What a woman wanted mattered very little. Women were to be chosen and "purchased." Four-year-olds don't choose to have their feet broken and bound.

Most_Vermicelli9722 · 2024-10-21T19:44:46+00:00

Foot binding was specifically for men. It was required for women so they could get a chance at better marriage (or marriage at all sometimes). Remember that these times were really anti-women in China. Women were taught that they were useless until they had a son. Girls were taught they they were useless tree branches. Women didn’t have too many options.

Men desired mutilated feet. It was considered more intimate than vagina by some. It was said that these feet reminded them of their own penis. A good, pure girl had to be mutilated. Girls with healthy feet were used as the lowest kind of concubines, prostitutes etc.

attendquoi · 2024-10-21T20:14:03+00:00

Did you even read the Wiki before linking it? Or any of the sources cited?

NCLB strikes again lol

MongoBobalossus · 2024-10-21T20:23:44+00:00

Lol, “I have no in depth knowledge about Chinese cultural norms or the history of foot binding, but I’m going to act like I do and compare it to today with no context or understanding.”

This sub is a hoot.

Sharp_Potential3660 · 2024-10-21T20:25:42+00:00

Foot Binding is when women would wrap some shit around their feet to make them smaller

Literally no. It’s something adults did to children.

Your source: “ The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to develop fully, usually between the ages of four and nine.”

a384wferu4 · 2024-10-21T20:10:48+00:00

EDs don't always have to do with looking attractive

MidoriEgg · 2024-10-21T20:01:46+00:00

When it comes to a cultural practice like that, normally everyone in the culture is involved in perpetuating it, not just men or women. Of course in ancient China, men had a lot more power in society so obviously that needs to be considered. It would be a lot easier and more accurate to argue that ‘men’ where responsible for the eunuch social class in China, but I feel like laying responsibility for things purely within the gender lines misses a lot of the nuance.

Footbinding not really comparable to modern beauty trends or even corsetry, since it’s a disfigurement forced on children rather than individuals choosing to tight-lace their corset or paint their nails. Like yes, pressure to be beautiful might influence someone’s decisions with regards to altering their looks, but ultimately, unlike footbinding, we still have a choice.

Valuable-Marzipan761 · 2024-10-21T20:42:45+00:00

Bad analogy because this was done to children.

PracticalControl2179 · 2024-10-22T01:17:17+00:00

Adding to all the other great points people here have already made:

https://www.np.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/s/DZsBrS4ZU2

Considering that you yourself have multiple comments saying women should have a BMI of 19-21 and you call that woman a “chonk” in this viral video, it’s pretty rich of you to complain that you don’t understand why women get anorexia and bulimia.

-BubbaZanetti- · 2024-10-22T01:57:46+00:00

If you’re genuinely interested in foot binding, there’s lots of information and research outside that one Wiki page. If you can’t find your answer, suggest you contact Anthropologists and/or Sociologists at universities in your country who specialise in historical Chinese culture. Run them through your theories on the premise of foot binding, and linkage with current Western beauty standards.

Women and men change their appearance. Isn’t part of Red Pill improving your appearance to more attractive ‘Alpha’ features (masculine facial symmetry, muscularity, weight/height etc) to increase your sexual market value?

Seems contradictory to label things women do for their appearance as ‘weird shit’, when to improve their SMV, beyond the gym, dieting, skincare, tanning, hair colour/styling, waxing men are doing, they’re also taking steroids, hormone (and other) medications, hair and beard transplants, dental reconstruction, Botox, and undergoing facial reconstruction surgeries, usually on the jawline, cheekbones and eye sockets. Men opting for leg-lengthening surgery is increasing. Disordered eating is a thing for men. There’s also the young men “bonesmashing” (damaging facial bone structure in order to permanently alter it) to get chiseled jaws and ‘hunter eyes’.

Sharp_Engineering379 · 2024-10-21T21:11:42+00:00

Just look at all the weird shit women do for beauty men never aks them to. Body modification like BBL, lip filler, face lifts, long claw like nails, weird eye makeup, toe nail shit, anorexia, bulemia, worrying about hip dips, worrying about thigh gaps. A lot of men don't even know what those things are.

Not for men.

Askmen have to limit the hourly posts from men who whine they don’t like women’s fashion choices, and women don’t care. Why don’t men get it?

If her nose is pierced, if her jeans are high waisted, if her lips are over filled, it’s not for men?

Who in the hell is teaching men that everything women do is for their approval?

Makuta_Servaela · 2024-10-22T01:25:18+00:00

"It makes me feel confident" = "If I don't do this, people (usually men, occasionally women or her own mother wanting her to attract a man) will act like I'm sick or weird-looking (make-up), or that I'm masculine/gay (shaving), that I'm morbidly obese and old (eating disorders) or I may be denied employment opportunities. Being discriminated against, treated like I'm sick or weird, treated like I'm obese, or treated like I'm masculine/gay feels bad".

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Zabadoodude · 2024-10-21T22:21:23+00:00

Foot binding was a class signifier more than anything else. Lower class women couldn't have their feet bound because they had to work in the fields. A Lower class woman that became wealthy (or was pretending to be) could not have bound feet, because the process could only be done to young girls.

Feet weren't bound because Chinese men found it hot, or because Chinese women thought it looked nice. They were bound to flex that your daughter came from a wealthy family that could afford to have her never to spend long periods of time on her feet doing hard manual labor. Women with bound feet were prefered as wives because it showed she came from such a family.

VonFatalis · 2024-10-21T19:45:55+00:00

Lemme just preface by stating I'm not a Chinese scholar, so feel free to fact check me.

As far as the consensus goes, most historians generally agree that footbinding was indeed socially desired and enforced by women, in an attempt to imitate the concubine an emperor was deeply fawning over. The nobles initially started it among their clans not just to gain favour with the emperor, but also to kinda have a visually distinguish away from the lower class.

Obviously the practice spread downwards on the social ladder, since people saw the court as for lack of a better term, trendsetters for society, with mothers and grandmothers being the ones to perform the procedure. The idea of a bound foot in the shape of a crescent became synonymous with femininity, so much so that having an unbound foot would actually hurt your chances of getting married.

I believe the claim about restricting women's mobility and confining them to the house was just a happy coincidence with the practice, since that was already a socially desired outcome at the time. Confucian ideals would have pressured women to take on a more passive role in the household, bound foot or not.

ConstanteConstipatie · 2024-10-21T20:21:01+00:00

Women say they do it for themselves but that’s obviously not true

Anxious_Cicada3234 · 2024-10-21T21:17:30+00:00

It was a cultural trend participated in by both men and women. Trying to blame a specific gender for it is weird. That’s just not how culture works.

SulSulSimmer101 · 2024-10-21T19:45:21+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Title	"Chinese Foot Binding" could have been women's own fault
Author	babazuki
Upvotes	0
Comments	75
Date	October 21, 2024 7:22 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1g8y99e/chinese_foot_binding_could_have_been_womens_own/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/chinese-foot-binding-could-have-been-womens-own.1533044 https://theredarchive.com/post/1533044

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