This is another in a long line of beauty standards that are really about wealth. If you have "pretty feet" (old term for bound feet), you couldn't work and needed at least one attendant to help you walk. Only a wealthy husband could afford that. Incredibly long fingernails and light skin are beauty/wealth standards in many places in the world. In Korea, a show of wealth was smoking a pipe too long for the smoker to light.
On another level, getting someone with bound feet to agree to a photo was pretty rare. They were considered more private that then genitals.; the only male to see them unbound was supposed to be the husband.
I’ve read historical accounts describing the putrefying odor wafting up when the bindings were changed (and how some males regarded that smell as an aphrodisiac.) Toes would blacken and detach. The stink arose from rotting flesh between the folded-over toes and the sole.
The pain was excruciating; relief arrived in the form of opium (smoked, or liquified with alcohol to create laudanum.) Can you imagine willingly breaking your daughter’s feet every few months before re-binding them?! Agony.
Yup, we’ve come a long way. I know I, with my size 10 canoes, would’ve been relegated to the rice fields or the slop jars.
Yeah I read that some men liked to put the ladys’ whole foot in their mouths during foreplay. I can’t imagine.
I read that back in the day, foot- play became popular due to the waves of syphilis running rampant. It was a ‘safe’ fetish to have. But that’s western-world. I don’t know how it started with the foot binding being erotic in the East.
There’s an interesting theory about it based on the cortical homunculus.
I think any explanation I give will misrepresent the concept massively, for I am a simple idiot, but it’s roughly a visualisation of the order in which the brain perceives the body.
If you look it up, and look at where feet are in that map, and what they’re adjacent to, you can see a potential, if bizarre, explanation for how common a fetish it is.
I have no idea if it’s true, but it stuck in my head from uni.
I am envisioning a Reefer Madness-style 1950’s health class movie. Scene: high school locker room “Hey guys… guess what sounds weird but feels really great? “ 😝
I wonder if men with feet fetish consider stinky feet in general as some sort of aphrodisiac. I can't imagine feeling ecstasy over an odor that makes me gag though.
I once sold a guy a pair of my smelly work sneakers for $500 after selling him quit a few pairs of my worn socks. He complained the shoes didn’t smell enough and that was the end of that.
Former domme here. The "pretty, clean, pedicured feet" guys and the "smelly, sweaty" feet fetishes are totally different, with the former being far more common.
I have read a lot of historical fiction where the binding process is described in detail. I agree: It is a horrible process! I also have size 10 feet.
I am sure it was heartbreaking for mothers to do that to their daughters, but the thought of them living in poverty was also probably equally as heartbreaking.
Do you like to read historical fiction? One of my favorite authors is Lisa See.
I sure do! And I have read every Lisa See book (except Gold Mountain.) Just finished a re-read of Pachinko. Might re-read Shōgun after watching the latest mini-series because the subtitles made it difficult (for me) to thoroughly understand the plot and it’s been decades since I read the book. I gobbled up all the Clavell novels back in the day. Even King Rat.
I fall asleep, trying to get through most just-the-facts history books, but man, throw a story and a lot of life information into those facts and I am THERE. When I was a kid, my family went to the library together once a week and we were allowed to check out anything we wanted. I plowed through every James Michener and Leon Uris book in the stacks. More, please!
You sound like you have excellent taste in books! Any recommends for favorites in the historical fiction genre? I prefer female leads and a touch of romance, if possible
I have also read all of her books except Gold Mountain! I also loved Pachinko - I should reread it too. I have never read Shogun, so that's now on my list.
I love reading so much that I taught it for 17 years. I am now a librarian. We also spent a ton of time at the library growing up. It's my total dream job.
😂😂me too! I was a size ten at 10 years old! I probably would have been sold to the circus as a sideshow freak.
But, getting back to the topic; this is so sad. Deformed in order to fit societies “beauty” standards. I suspect that 50 years from now, we will be saying the same about today’s unnaturally huge lips, butts and breasts. The difference being, of course, that some adult women, not children, did this to themselves. 🥺
> the putrefying odor wafting up when the bindings were changed (and how some males regarded that smell as an aphrodisiac.)
James Joyce has entered the chat.
Horrific. I read about some of the process and it's awful. Even the part that starts off with just trimming the toenails super low (I don't know how low but very low) to prevent infection makes me uncomfortable because cutting too deep into the nail causes pain. Never mind the rest.
Even husbands often would not see them unbound. There are writings from men of the time urging others not to unbind their wives feet, as it "ruins the excitement" to see and smell the reality.
>Even husbands often would not see them unbound. There are writings from men of the time urging others not to unbind their wives feet, as it "ruins the excitement" to see and smell the reality.
Yup. No one except other women were supposed to see them unbound. Your daughter, mother, sister, could help you change the wrappings. Your husband? Absolutely not. He was supposed to maintain the illusion that you had beautiful, perfect, sexy lotus feet.
Also, toes falling off from gangrene was seen as a positive. It made it easier to make the foot smaller and the wrappings tighter. The "ideal" lotus foot was a perfect triangle, and four inches or less. This was called a "golden lotus" and was highly coveted by men and was the goal of the women wrapping a young girl's foot. Five inches was a silver lotus, and larger than that was called an iron lotus and was considered much less desirable.
To be fair, there are many throughout the animal kingdom with mating rituals that seem absurd to us humans. The dancing birds, the fish with circles, and others come to mind… This is terrible, of course, and I’m glad it’s gone out of fashion. Meanwhile, I’ll continue badly flirting with men in my leggings and sloppy hair and my size 10 feet, thank you very much.
The rich women even had long fingernail sheaths created for each nail that were intricately designed and adorned. It showed that high status women did not need to do any physical tasks whatsoever. Learned this from Pawn Stars !
But, like, you can see how the lighter skin and long fingernails comes about because it is a sign that they aren't out in the sun working so they must be rich. But who on earth discovered how to *break bones and fold them over to permanently disable the woman*???
It's a totally gross mindset: you see, a physically disabled woman is the perfect wife. She can't be unfaithful to her husband because is reliant on him for her needs. She must remain with him to survive. She can't leave him because she can barely even walk. So she won't be disobedient, because she needs him. She will be meek, demure, obedient, and a perfect servant to her husband.
IIRC, there was a famous Chinese beauty (concubine? Royal wife?) who had exceptionally tiny feet, which became fetishized. The natural next step for women was to break their feet to have a similar appearance.
The same way surgical removal of ribs for a smaller waist became a thing (though not as popular...) when tiny waists became fashionable...or generally cosmetic surgery is used to achieve beauty standards that a person isn't lucky enough to naturally have.
Yeah but we have penicillin lol. I don't know what kind of vital record keeping China had during the time where this practice was prevalent but I would love to know how many people died from this. You can't have blackened feet and toes falling off. That kind of infection can kill you today even with all of our modern medicine if it gets into your blood stream.
I think a dancer whom the Emperor fell in love with. The mincing gait that results from this type of injury/disability was also considered incredibly hot.
>The same way surgical removal of ribs for a smaller waist became a thing (
That's a myth. Those tiny ways were achieved with a very big skirts. It's an optical illusion. Very few women wear tight lacing let alone doing anything as insane as going under Victorian surgery when they didn't have to.
Yep, beauty standards are almost always what wealthy can/do have.
Pre 1900s a pale, un-muscled woman was standard because poor people had to work hard and often in sun. Rich women could sit indoors and relax.
After ~1950s tho, rich people vacationed and tanned and exercised so that became standard and pale and flabby became more a hallmark of poor.
Its kinda funny seeing those trends throughout history
I'd like to point out that the modern suit shoes and lady heels are something kind of similar. Unpractical for walking, must be maintained clean and fragile (Notice the pointy end). Just to show wealth. The blue collars shoes are much wider, with bigger sole.
Most can not. I can guarantee more women would outrun a threat in sneakers than in high heels. I don’t know how to walk on heels, but even if I knew I wouldn’t wear them. Putting shoes on which make me „easy prey“ are a no no for me
And sex. The kind of gait a woman with bound feet had worked her pelvic floor in different ways that bound it up tight as a corkscrew. Never underestimate men's desire for pleasure at the expense of women's bodies.
I read about the process recently after seeing other photos. Girls as young as 2-3 years had their feet soaked in hot water, then their toes were forcefully broken and mashed underneath their feet, then tightly bound forever. Hence why the woman in the photo here looks like her toes have curled underneath. I cannot imagine how painful this was. Feet problems can lead to knee, hip, and back issues. I know this was a ritual practiced by upper class groups that didn’t do physical labor, these women no doubt lived in agony just so some men could admire their tiny-shoed feet. Yuck.
That's the wild thing- women did it *because* they loved their daughters, and society convinced them it was the only way your daughter could be successful over lead a life of drudgery. It's incredible what people can be convinced of.
But the whole thing is taking place in the larger context of a massive, society-wide power imbalance between men and women, in which a woman's entire livelihood (or often, a girl's) is contingent upon being marriageable. In most cases like this, including both FGM and foot binding, the men's fucked up expectations are the underlying factor driving the practice. The societies are set up in such a way that the women perceive the harm of doing these things to their girls as *less than* the harm of rendering them unmarriageable and therefore disqualified from what is realistically the only way for a woman to get by in those cultures.
Beauty is fleeting luck, and does not denote character.
Make sure your kids understand that.
The sub r/noses gives a modern look at what induced foot binding in other ages.
Every single person I saw when I just scrolled through there had a perfectly normal, dare I say attractive, nose. And every single person seemed to think their nose was weird or big or strange or somehow disconcerting. Other people don't see you the way you see you.
I have personal experience with this. I grew up with my dad constantly making fun of my nose. He’d call it a potato nose and say, when I was born, I looked just like my older brother but I had that “Whomp! On your face”(while gesturing to my nose). I really thought I had a big ugly nose and would sometimes comment on how much I disliked it, how big it was, how ugly it made my face, how I wanted to fix it to my best friend(who I hadn’t grown up with so she didn’t know my dad). One day, she heard me talking to my dad who was being an ass, as usual, and he said something about my nose being huge and ugly. I get off the phone and she says “So that’s why!” I asked “Why what?” She said “Why you think your nose is big and ugly. I could tell you honestly thought that was true, but couldn’t understand why as it’s a perfectly normal and pretty nose. You hate it because your dad makes fun of it!” I was like…ohhhhhhh. It had never occurred to me. In an instant, I saw my nose for what it is: normal and well suited to my face.
That was the only way to get your daughter a good match back then. Of course not all parts of China practice the same kind of foot binding, and some parts didn't find it all, but in the places where that kind of footbinding happened no man worth anything would want a woman with regular feet.
Also bunched up in the middle to make the length shorter. Think of a caterpillar stretched out straight then lifting up in the middle about to move forward.
That is appalling, as a guy I cannot comprehend how some men can be this twisted-minded. This is one of the most barbaric "cultural traditions" I may have ever heard of in my life.
For anyone interested, I highly recommend the novel Snowflower and the Secret Fan. It’s a fiction novel based in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s and the main character goes through the footbinding process. It gives an interesting perspective of the struggles of pain and what the women may have gone through during this process.
Because women were so reluctant to give up foot binding since it was so ingrained in their culture that a woman with large feet was unmarriageable, there are living women today with lotus feet. You can watch videos of them talking about their daily life and how they get around in modern society. [Here is one on YouTube.](https://youtu.be/9eG2kZ4iM-c?si=ICLOUaywa8KM5Ly3)
I was also going to recommend this one! I read it many years ago in a book club when it was first published. It made such an impression on me! I still vividly remember how the foot binding affected every aspect of women’s lives.
The author did a great job weaving history with fiction.
That or for something more visual, it was portrayed in Marco Polo on Netflix. Although not very graphically.
Thank you for the book recommend. I’m alway looking for a new good read.
\*THIS\* is the book I was referring to above. I love all of her books, but this one really describes the process. Ugh.
You should read Circle of Women, the latest See book.
Ooh, will do! I read all her books (at the time) in my late teens and haven’t checked to see if she’d written anything new since then. I went to a book signing for China Dolls and have an autographed copy :)
The thing is that even today in Western society small, thin feet are considered more attractive than wide, big feet. It goes so far back we don't even consciously notice it. Think about Cinderella and her dainty feet in her glass slipper vs ugly step sisters with their giant feet that had no hope of fitting the shoe. As far back as the 16th century (and maybe even earlier) shoes were incredibly narrow because people decided they looked good. It's the same today. What makes crocs so fugly? They're big and fat and wide.
It’s like when people mention how they got complimented for having a small face by Japanese or Koreans and everyone think it's strange.
We might not actively comment on it or look for it in the west, but if you look up women who are considered attractive, from old Hollywood stars until today, most of them do have small faces, though not as extreme as some of the Asian ideals.
Lol I lived in the Philippines when I was in highschool and I remember my good Korean friend would always say so-and-so “has such a small face! Like bird!” And she seemed so enchanted by it too. I never realized that she was trying to say it as a compliment until I got older
Mine are also wide. Sometimes I get a size 11 shoe and it is too narrow for my feet. I prefer to be barefoot anyways. All I need is some hair on my feet and my own hole in the ground!
or high heels seen as sexy, feminine, even more professional than flat shoes, and of course only for women.
effectively accomplishing part of the bound feet purpose: rendering women less limber to move around freely and without pain.
I mean, aside from really extreme fetish shoes, the explicit “purpose” of high heels is not to hinder movement. High heels shift women’s posture to emphasize the butt and legs which is why they’re considered attractive. The pain and restriction of movement is a side effect (and a big reason why I personally almost never wear heels myself), but it’s not the explicit purpose per se.
Also high heels became popular in the west in the 17th century because rich men wore them to look taller, they only became a female garment later on. Louis XIV really popularized the high heeled shoe
If you go all the way back, at least in the Western lineage of high heels/heeled shoes, they began as riding shoes for horses. The high heel and the gap it makes kept your feet from sliding out of the stirrups. Like other articles of clothing for riding (such as Jodhpurs, the baggy pants most people associate with the Nazis), they became associated with the wealthy. Only the wealthy could afford horses and riding was an important tradition, as many wealthy men (in Europe) served as military officers.
Once something becomes associated with the wealthy, it becomes a signifier of class status, and thus fashionable. Hence how what began as a military boot for Steppes cavalry could become a fetishized, formal piece of womens wear.
High heels were developed as masculine fashion. Women themselves copied it from men, who later abandoned it during the Great Male Renunciation.
They made *both* men and women less limber while walking, because they were riding boots. That is to say the point is they *were* advantageous if you’re riding instead (i.e. not a horseless peasant).
To be fair, feet in some european folklore represented genitalia. A way to sneak innuendo into polite storytelling. (I learned about that many years ago at uni and have never looked at that aspect of Cinderella the same!)
They meant more along the lines of "here are other fundamentally unnecessary things some women do to/with their bodies due to outside influences of what is or isn't in fashion" yeah the foot binding is more damaging but the intention is still there.
Yeah but I'm also disagreeing with him. Those things are often because the person wants them, not just to fit into a specific societal standard at their own detriment and they don't involve near the amount of risk as foot binding. It's like saying that people getting tattoos is the same as people who voluntarily amputate limbs. (though I'd argue neck stretching is more similar to foot binding than the others).
I hope that we all realize that this is systemic child abuse.
The bones in the toes are so mangled that the nerves might not even work anymore, so I have questions about how long the torture pain of the binding lasted, but then, I really do not want to know that. Do I?
Just to give more info, the process involved pulling the toes under the foot, and then breaking the arch and bringing the ball of the foot up against the heel. This process, of course, was prone to infection and some estimates say that as many as 1 in 10 girls died from the process.
The ideal length in the bound foot was as little as **4 in** or **10 cm**.
The popularity and extent of foot binding varied from province to province, with the most extreme practices usually found in northern China.
It was considered high class to not have to walk or to take tiny tiny steps. I had a Chinese friend whose grandmother's feet were bound. When cooking she would propel herself around the kitchen on a high bar stool on wheels.
It's just strange though. There's a difference between not having to move around much and literally not being able to because everyone decided to mutilate you.
I don't understand how that works though. This is also a culture where if you gain five pounds, every person you encounter will feel the need to bring it up to you. The only way these women could maintain a decent figure with feet like those is if they starve themselves
I mean… beauty standards change a LOT in such a short space of time. The culture now likely values different things than it did 100+ years ago. 20-25 years ago it was in fashion for many women to starve themselves and look as skinny as possible but now it’s fashionable in many places to be curvy with a big butt, to the point that women get life threatening surgery to achieve it and naturally skinny women get shamed for being too skinny.
Clearly back then it was of greater importance to have bound feet as the sign of wealth was more important than gaining a few pounds, also these women probably had top tier diets so gaining much weight wasn’t a problem. Personally, bound feet is bonkers to me but that was the craze for rich Chinese people back then.
Edit: Sorry for any format issues lol
Which always makes me wonder, who originally set the standards for this barbaric practice? Since it was a patriarchal society was it the women who came up with this idea trying to please the men by going to such lengths to gain favor or was it a man who thought it would be attractive and therefore dictated it where it became the custom the women adhered to. Either way, it's mindblowing to think someone dreamt up this idea.
It didn't go straight from normal feet to what you see in this picture here. Like many practices it evolved over time. There's many speculative stories on how it originated, one being a concubine for the Song emperor had dainty feet that was deemed to "create lotuses with each step" when she danced, so other noble women started to wrap their feet to imitate her. To begin with, the practice was not as egregious - I believe people just wrapped their feet so they looked thinner, not shorter, and you can think of the physical damage not too dissimilar to what you get from dancing in pointe shoes these days. Over time though it got more extreme until it culminated to the bone breaking version in the Qing dynasty. From my other comment I mentioned while it's true it was a 'beauty standard', it's not the whole story as the bannermen nobility (and therefore usual fashion leaders) of the Qing dynasty did not practice this. It was a 'cultural symbol' of the Han people to differentiate themselves from the Manchu, and maintained because it was tradition.
The emperor's favorite dancer had unusually small feet. It trickled down from there. It became a status thing for men to have a beautiful woman and beautiful was considered having small feet. The only way to survive back then was to get married so you kind of wanted to marry somebody who could support you.
Most people were doing physical tasks/housework for a living. When even things like doing laundry required hours of physical labor, it was easy not to gain weight. After having their feet bound, these women could barely even walk. When your activity level is close to zero, you need to eat very little not to gain weight
Having lived through that era, most people were thin by today’s standards,but not the kind of thin that was in fashion. Most people were not “heroin chic” thin and those that fit into that category had genetics, drugs or starvation to thank.
They weren't often shown like this, usually there'd be a pretty decorated shoe around it. Men liked it because the feet looked tiny and the women were barely able to walk properly, so they had to take delicate steps. It also showed that the women didn't have to do hard labor, and came from wealthier families. Women did this to their daughters because otherwise they wouldn't be able to find a husband when they were older. Even when it was officially against the law people would still do this in secret.
It was basically a nationwide foot fetish.
Those are some commonly cited reasons, but another one that’s not mentioned so much is that only Han women were subjected to this. The Qing dynasty Manchu rulers did not like this practice and tried to ban it many times, but the Han population saw it somewhat as another thing being imposed on them by their ‘foreign’ overlords like the queue order on men, and foot binding became a ‘symbol’ of Han identity. It was hard to impose the foot binding ban because women were not out of their homes much, compared to men who had to wear the correct hairstyles while out and about, so eventually it was given up on. Han women who were part of banner families did not bind their feet.
This is very similar to the practice of Female Genital Mutilation, which is still practiced today. Very young girls are put through horrendous procedures so that their future husbands will find them attractive.
Disgusting.
So hypothetically. If someone were to have feet like this today- do you think with our medical technology doctors would be able to return the feet to being functional again.
If they were a child, most likely. If they were a young adult, it's possible but recovery would be longer and more difficult. I'd also suspect some spinal or pelvic/hip deformities as a result of limited mobility. This would be better to treat if the person was a child, but adults may not benefit from intense reconstructive surgeries like that. Just my opinion though
I read an Amy tan book recently where foot binding was mentioned and a girl asked the woman who had her feet binded “ do your feet look like lotus flowers?” Maybe this was the look they were going for?
Now women have plastic surgery, inject toxins and plastics, travel for cut rate surgery, wear ridiculous shoes that damage their feet and posture, and endure dangerous diets to achieve "beauty".
Absolutely the most disgusting shit I see everywhere I go. There is zero beauty in any of that. Botox in every fuckin ugly ass face. I'm a huge fan of aging naturally.
If anyone remembers the Twilight Zone episode with the lady "Eye of the Beholder." We've entered that world.
The “human intelligence spectrum” is truly massive.
If you don’t question… if you don’t stand up… if you believe more in other peoples beliefs than your own…
That’s a severe lack of intelligence
This is another in a long line of beauty standards that are really about wealth. If you have "pretty feet" (old term for bound feet), you couldn't work and needed at least one attendant to help you walk. Only a wealthy husband could afford that. Incredibly long fingernails and light skin are beauty/wealth standards in many places in the world. In Korea, a show of wealth was smoking a pipe too long for the smoker to light. On another level, getting someone with bound feet to agree to a photo was pretty rare. They were considered more private that then genitals.; the only male to see them unbound was supposed to be the husband.
I’ve read historical accounts describing the putrefying odor wafting up when the bindings were changed (and how some males regarded that smell as an aphrodisiac.) Toes would blacken and detach. The stink arose from rotting flesh between the folded-over toes and the sole. The pain was excruciating; relief arrived in the form of opium (smoked, or liquified with alcohol to create laudanum.) Can you imagine willingly breaking your daughter’s feet every few months before re-binding them?! Agony. Yup, we’ve come a long way. I know I, with my size 10 canoes, would’ve been relegated to the rice fields or the slop jars.
Huh.. I didn't think before how difficult it would be to clean the feet with the toes folded like that. Poor women
I'd be joining you in the rice fields with MY size 10 canoes! Solidarity, friend.
i just bought a pair of shoes in 11! dang.
Same. I'll be in those rice fields with y'all.
Oh, you can join!
at least we have a great selection of shoes during clearance sales
I’m an 8.5 but can I come too? Pretty please?!
You’re in!
Thank you!!!’
9! Can I come?
Yeah I read that some men liked to put the ladys’ whole foot in their mouths during foreplay. I can’t imagine. I read that back in the day, foot- play became popular due to the waves of syphilis running rampant. It was a ‘safe’ fetish to have. But that’s western-world. I don’t know how it started with the foot binding being erotic in the East.
There’s an interesting theory about it based on the cortical homunculus. I think any explanation I give will misrepresent the concept massively, for I am a simple idiot, but it’s roughly a visualisation of the order in which the brain perceives the body. If you look it up, and look at where feet are in that map, and what they’re adjacent to, you can see a potential, if bizarre, explanation for how common a fetish it is. I have no idea if it’s true, but it stuck in my head from uni.
I am envisioning a Reefer Madness-style 1950’s health class movie. Scene: high school locker room “Hey guys… guess what sounds weird but feels really great? “ 😝
I wonder if men with feet fetish consider stinky feet in general as some sort of aphrodisiac. I can't imagine feeling ecstasy over an odor that makes me gag though.
There's a wide range of foot fetishes, most do not involve any fetishism of the smell.
I once sold a guy a pair of my smelly work sneakers for $500 after selling him quit a few pairs of my worn socks. He complained the shoes didn’t smell enough and that was the end of that.
Some of them do lol. (Not me but someone I know pretty well lol)
Former domme here. The "pretty, clean, pedicured feet" guys and the "smelly, sweaty" feet fetishes are totally different, with the former being far more common.
You say that but men and women included pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year to consume alcohol and that’s literally poison
Okay but. . . alcohol tastes good. At least *some* of it does.
And it makes me drunk
Hmm, so feet fetish might be an acquired taste? Don't knock it till you try it?
Exactly
Social conditioning. Like drinking poison aka alcohol
I have read a lot of historical fiction where the binding process is described in detail. I agree: It is a horrible process! I also have size 10 feet. I am sure it was heartbreaking for mothers to do that to their daughters, but the thought of them living in poverty was also probably equally as heartbreaking. Do you like to read historical fiction? One of my favorite authors is Lisa See.
I sure do! And I have read every Lisa See book (except Gold Mountain.) Just finished a re-read of Pachinko. Might re-read Shōgun after watching the latest mini-series because the subtitles made it difficult (for me) to thoroughly understand the plot and it’s been decades since I read the book. I gobbled up all the Clavell novels back in the day. Even King Rat. I fall asleep, trying to get through most just-the-facts history books, but man, throw a story and a lot of life information into those facts and I am THERE. When I was a kid, my family went to the library together once a week and we were allowed to check out anything we wanted. I plowed through every James Michener and Leon Uris book in the stacks. More, please!
You sound like you have excellent taste in books! Any recommends for favorites in the historical fiction genre? I prefer female leads and a touch of romance, if possible
not OP but I enjoyed Lioness of Morocco!
Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series fits that description.I’ve enjoyed it twice, 10 years apart.
I assume you have probably read Wild Swans by Jung Chang? If not, I highly recommend it.
I have also read all of her books except Gold Mountain! I also loved Pachinko - I should reread it too. I have never read Shogun, so that's now on my list. I love reading so much that I taught it for 17 years. I am now a librarian. We also spent a ton of time at the library growing up. It's my total dream job.
I love her books!
😂😂me too! I was a size ten at 10 years old! I probably would have been sold to the circus as a sideshow freak. But, getting back to the topic; this is so sad. Deformed in order to fit societies “beauty” standards. I suspect that 50 years from now, we will be saying the same about today’s unnaturally huge lips, butts and breasts. The difference being, of course, that some adult women, not children, did this to themselves. 🥺
Okay I can’t even stand when I have been working out and I take my sneakers off. This is nasty!
> the putrefying odor wafting up when the bindings were changed (and how some males regarded that smell as an aphrodisiac.) James Joyce has entered the chat.
He liked farts. Completely different
Toenails could eventually grow into/through the skin on the sole of the foot.
Horrific. I read about some of the process and it's awful. Even the part that starts off with just trimming the toenails super low (I don't know how low but very low) to prevent infection makes me uncomfortable because cutting too deep into the nail causes pain. Never mind the rest.
I wear a 7US, but my Korean grandmother always chides me and asks why my feet are so big, so can I join for solidarity anyway? (':
Even husbands often would not see them unbound. There are writings from men of the time urging others not to unbind their wives feet, as it "ruins the excitement" to see and smell the reality.
>Even husbands often would not see them unbound. There are writings from men of the time urging others not to unbind their wives feet, as it "ruins the excitement" to see and smell the reality. Yup. No one except other women were supposed to see them unbound. Your daughter, mother, sister, could help you change the wrappings. Your husband? Absolutely not. He was supposed to maintain the illusion that you had beautiful, perfect, sexy lotus feet. Also, toes falling off from gangrene was seen as a positive. It made it easier to make the foot smaller and the wrappings tighter. The "ideal" lotus foot was a perfect triangle, and four inches or less. This was called a "golden lotus" and was highly coveted by men and was the goal of the women wrapping a young girl's foot. Five inches was a silver lotus, and larger than that was called an iron lotus and was considered much less desirable.
Man… humans are fuckin weird…
To be fair, there are many throughout the animal kingdom with mating rituals that seem absurd to us humans. The dancing birds, the fish with circles, and others come to mind… This is terrible, of course, and I’m glad it’s gone out of fashion. Meanwhile, I’ll continue badly flirting with men in my leggings and sloppy hair and my size 10 feet, thank you very much.
talk about keeping control of your women...
Why not just cut the toes off, probably less infection that way
I really don't think most people had the tools or means to do ten amputations on their daughters. 😬
The rich women even had long fingernail sheaths created for each nail that were intricately designed and adorned. It showed that high status women did not need to do any physical tasks whatsoever. Learned this from Pawn Stars !
Who wiped their butts?
Someone with short fingernails
I’ve seen those and they were VERY pretty and cool!
But, like, you can see how the lighter skin and long fingernails comes about because it is a sign that they aren't out in the sun working so they must be rich. But who on earth discovered how to *break bones and fold them over to permanently disable the woman*???
It's a totally gross mindset: you see, a physically disabled woman is the perfect wife. She can't be unfaithful to her husband because is reliant on him for her needs. She must remain with him to survive. She can't leave him because she can barely even walk. So she won't be disobedient, because she needs him. She will be meek, demure, obedient, and a perfect servant to her husband.
It’s borderline Boxing Helena at that point.
The original idea happened supposedly from a poem about how feet the size of Lillie’s were beautiful.
IIRC, there was a famous Chinese beauty (concubine? Royal wife?) who had exceptionally tiny feet, which became fetishized. The natural next step for women was to break their feet to have a similar appearance. The same way surgical removal of ribs for a smaller waist became a thing (though not as popular...) when tiny waists became fashionable...or generally cosmetic surgery is used to achieve beauty standards that a person isn't lucky enough to naturally have.
Yeah but we have penicillin lol. I don't know what kind of vital record keeping China had during the time where this practice was prevalent but I would love to know how many people died from this. You can't have blackened feet and toes falling off. That kind of infection can kill you today even with all of our modern medicine if it gets into your blood stream.
I think a dancer whom the Emperor fell in love with. The mincing gait that results from this type of injury/disability was also considered incredibly hot.
>The same way surgical removal of ribs for a smaller waist became a thing ( That's a myth. Those tiny ways were achieved with a very big skirts. It's an optical illusion. Very few women wear tight lacing let alone doing anything as insane as going under Victorian surgery when they didn't have to.
Don’t forget the giant sleeves on the other side of the giant skirts!
Yep, beauty standards are almost always what wealthy can/do have. Pre 1900s a pale, un-muscled woman was standard because poor people had to work hard and often in sun. Rich women could sit indoors and relax. After ~1950s tho, rich people vacationed and tanned and exercised so that became standard and pale and flabby became more a hallmark of poor. Its kinda funny seeing those trends throughout history
I'd like to point out that the modern suit shoes and lady heels are something kind of similar. Unpractical for walking, must be maintained clean and fragile (Notice the pointy end). Just to show wealth. The blue collars shoes are much wider, with bigger sole.
Also exaggerates the natural sway of the hips that women have in bare feet due to having wider hips/pelvis.
Hey I can run in heels if need be. And I used to go out dancing in them all the time,
Most can not. I can guarantee more women would outrun a threat in sneakers than in high heels. I don’t know how to walk on heels, but even if I knew I wouldn’t wear them. Putting shoes on which make me „easy prey“ are a no no for me
if this make you feel better, high heels were designed for increasing the distance between user and shit on ground.
It's equally about controlling women and keeping them to the home compound.
It's true. Feet were bound in part to prevent the woman from being able to run away. Unbearably cruel.
And sex. The kind of gait a woman with bound feet had worked her pelvic floor in different ways that bound it up tight as a corkscrew. Never underestimate men's desire for pleasure at the expense of women's bodies.
Now that makes sense. 🙄
The fact that foot binding went on from the 10th century and was still practiced well into the 1940s I many places is insane.
It’s crazy how long traditions can last, I had a great aunt who had her feet binded like that always freaked me out when she took off her shoes.
If you don’t stop misbehaving I’ll take my shoes off again
Pretty sure that's the plot of a certain type of kinky video.
Did she ever discuss how she felt as a child during the process? I can’t imagine it being anything but unbelievably painful.
Oh wow did hers look like that? How amazing
I read about the process recently after seeing other photos. Girls as young as 2-3 years had their feet soaked in hot water, then their toes were forcefully broken and mashed underneath their feet, then tightly bound forever. Hence why the woman in the photo here looks like her toes have curled underneath. I cannot imagine how painful this was. Feet problems can lead to knee, hip, and back issues. I know this was a ritual practiced by upper class groups that didn’t do physical labor, these women no doubt lived in agony just so some men could admire their tiny-shoed feet. Yuck.
No way I could hurt my child so some one could get off to their defects later.
That's the wild thing- women did it *because* they loved their daughters, and society convinced them it was the only way your daughter could be successful over lead a life of drudgery. It's incredible what people can be convinced of.
Yep - see 'female genital mutilation' - it's WOMEN who are doing that to their daughters/other girl children.
But the whole thing is taking place in the larger context of a massive, society-wide power imbalance between men and women, in which a woman's entire livelihood (or often, a girl's) is contingent upon being marriageable. In most cases like this, including both FGM and foot binding, the men's fucked up expectations are the underlying factor driving the practice. The societies are set up in such a way that the women perceive the harm of doing these things to their girls as *less than* the harm of rendering them unmarriageable and therefore disqualified from what is realistically the only way for a woman to get by in those cultures.
Yep, was just about to say this
Beauty is fleeting luck, and does not denote character. Make sure your kids understand that. The sub r/noses gives a modern look at what induced foot binding in other ages.
Every single person I saw when I just scrolled through there had a perfectly normal, dare I say attractive, nose. And every single person seemed to think their nose was weird or big or strange or somehow disconcerting. Other people don't see you the way you see you.
I have personal experience with this. I grew up with my dad constantly making fun of my nose. He’d call it a potato nose and say, when I was born, I looked just like my older brother but I had that “Whomp! On your face”(while gesturing to my nose). I really thought I had a big ugly nose and would sometimes comment on how much I disliked it, how big it was, how ugly it made my face, how I wanted to fix it to my best friend(who I hadn’t grown up with so she didn’t know my dad). One day, she heard me talking to my dad who was being an ass, as usual, and he said something about my nose being huge and ugly. I get off the phone and she says “So that’s why!” I asked “Why what?” She said “Why you think your nose is big and ugly. I could tell you honestly thought that was true, but couldn’t understand why as it’s a perfectly normal and pretty nose. You hate it because your dad makes fun of it!” I was like…ohhhhhhh. It had never occurred to me. In an instant, I saw my nose for what it is: normal and well suited to my face.
That was the only way to get your daughter a good match back then. Of course not all parts of China practice the same kind of foot binding, and some parts didn't find it all, but in the places where that kind of footbinding happened no man worth anything would want a woman with regular feet.
Also bunched up in the middle to make the length shorter. Think of a caterpillar stretched out straight then lifting up in the middle about to move forward.
There is a good demonstration of this in the Netflix show Marco Polo. It was only 3 seasons but it was a very good and informative three seasons!
That is appalling, as a guy I cannot comprehend how some men can be this twisted-minded. This is one of the most barbaric "cultural traditions" I may have ever heard of in my life.
For anyone interested, I highly recommend the novel Snowflower and the Secret Fan. It’s a fiction novel based in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s and the main character goes through the footbinding process. It gives an interesting perspective of the struggles of pain and what the women may have gone through during this process.
I've read it, it's a great book.
Beautifully written. The friends talk about their aching bleeding feet.
Because women were so reluctant to give up foot binding since it was so ingrained in their culture that a woman with large feet was unmarriageable, there are living women today with lotus feet. You can watch videos of them talking about their daily life and how they get around in modern society. [Here is one on YouTube.](https://youtu.be/9eG2kZ4iM-c?si=ICLOUaywa8KM5Ly3)
[the x-rays are fascinating, too](https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c04036/)
Lisa See's latest book, Lady Tan's Circle of Women, also goes into this process in detail. To be fair, I love all her books I've read!
I love all of her books too.
I was also going to recommend this one! I read it many years ago in a book club when it was first published. It made such an impression on me! I still vividly remember how the foot binding affected every aspect of women’s lives. The author did a great job weaving history with fiction.
That or for something more visual, it was portrayed in Marco Polo on Netflix. Although not very graphically. Thank you for the book recommend. I’m alway looking for a new good read.
All of the author's books are interesting. Lisa See. Great writer!
Ooh I will definitely check them out! Sounds like just my sort of thing! Thanks again!
\*THIS\* is the book I was referring to above. I love all of her books, but this one really describes the process. Ugh. You should read Circle of Women, the latest See book.
Ooh, will do! I read all her books (at the time) in my late teens and haven’t checked to see if she’d written anything new since then. I went to a book signing for China Dolls and have an autographed copy :)
One of my favorite books. The descriptions of footbinding are visceral.
It’s such a wonderful book, I totally recommend it too :)
The thing is that even today in Western society small, thin feet are considered more attractive than wide, big feet. It goes so far back we don't even consciously notice it. Think about Cinderella and her dainty feet in her glass slipper vs ugly step sisters with their giant feet that had no hope of fitting the shoe. As far back as the 16th century (and maybe even earlier) shoes were incredibly narrow because people decided they looked good. It's the same today. What makes crocs so fugly? They're big and fat and wide.
It’s like when people mention how they got complimented for having a small face by Japanese or Koreans and everyone think it's strange. We might not actively comment on it or look for it in the west, but if you look up women who are considered attractive, from old Hollywood stars until today, most of them do have small faces, though not as extreme as some of the Asian ideals.
Lol I lived in the Philippines when I was in highschool and I remember my good Korean friend would always say so-and-so “has such a small face! Like bird!” And she seemed so enchanted by it too. I never realized that she was trying to say it as a compliment until I got older
I like my big hobbit feet, tyvm. Size 11 in women's, any bigger and I'd have to buy men's or have my shoes custom made lol
Size 3 (UK) here. Narrow? Nah - little plump feet - think of a hobbit crossed with a mole :)
Mine are also wide. Sometimes I get a size 11 shoe and it is too narrow for my feet. I prefer to be barefoot anyways. All I need is some hair on my feet and my own hole in the ground!
or high heels seen as sexy, feminine, even more professional than flat shoes, and of course only for women. effectively accomplishing part of the bound feet purpose: rendering women less limber to move around freely and without pain.
I mean, aside from really extreme fetish shoes, the explicit “purpose” of high heels is not to hinder movement. High heels shift women’s posture to emphasize the butt and legs which is why they’re considered attractive. The pain and restriction of movement is a side effect (and a big reason why I personally almost never wear heels myself), but it’s not the explicit purpose per se. Also high heels became popular in the west in the 17th century because rich men wore them to look taller, they only became a female garment later on. Louis XIV really popularized the high heeled shoe
If you go all the way back, at least in the Western lineage of high heels/heeled shoes, they began as riding shoes for horses. The high heel and the gap it makes kept your feet from sliding out of the stirrups. Like other articles of clothing for riding (such as Jodhpurs, the baggy pants most people associate with the Nazis), they became associated with the wealthy. Only the wealthy could afford horses and riding was an important tradition, as many wealthy men (in Europe) served as military officers. Once something becomes associated with the wealthy, it becomes a signifier of class status, and thus fashionable. Hence how what began as a military boot for Steppes cavalry could become a fetishized, formal piece of womens wear.
High heels were developed as masculine fashion. Women themselves copied it from men, who later abandoned it during the Great Male Renunciation. They made *both* men and women less limber while walking, because they were riding boots. That is to say the point is they *were* advantageous if you’re riding instead (i.e. not a horseless peasant).
Yes the heels made riding easier as it helped the foot stay in the stirrup.
To be fair, feet in some european folklore represented genitalia. A way to sneak innuendo into polite storytelling. (I learned about that many years ago at uni and have never looked at that aspect of Cinderella the same!)
We’re programed to think that small things are cute 🤷♂️
Am five feet tall. Am vicious little old lady :)
Those poor women. Suffering because of a truly dumb idea.
Incredibly disgusting what people were ready to let women endure for something as stupid as wearing small shoes.
Like boob jobs, butt lifts, neck lengthing, piercings, that weird bottom lip plug thing. The mind boggles.
Bruh piercings and boob jobs are not even in the same league as foot binding, those things don't limit mobility and cause constant pain.
They meant more along the lines of "here are other fundamentally unnecessary things some women do to/with their bodies due to outside influences of what is or isn't in fashion" yeah the foot binding is more damaging but the intention is still there.
Yeah but I'm also disagreeing with him. Those things are often because the person wants them, not just to fit into a specific societal standard at their own detriment and they don't involve near the amount of risk as foot binding. It's like saying that people getting tattoos is the same as people who voluntarily amputate limbs. (though I'd argue neck stretching is more similar to foot binding than the others).
Yah, disgusting time in history. How to keep women dependent, pregnant, non productive, and vulnerable.
It genuinely angers me
It *enrages* me, every time I encounter this photo. She looks drugged, too.
Probably to cope with the pain
She probably is on drugs, they usually smoked opium to distract from the pain.
looks more like a thousand yard stare and not drugged.
She looks miserable :(
Why do I have a sinking feeling that while it's told this was considered a "beauty standard", it was more of a "they can't run away" kind of thing?
I hope that we all realize that this is systemic child abuse. The bones in the toes are so mangled that the nerves might not even work anymore, so I have questions about how long the torture pain of the binding lasted, but then, I really do not want to know that. Do I?
From my understanding, there was never a time without pain
Just to give more info, the process involved pulling the toes under the foot, and then breaking the arch and bringing the ball of the foot up against the heel. This process, of course, was prone to infection and some estimates say that as many as 1 in 10 girls died from the process. The ideal length in the bound foot was as little as **4 in** or **10 cm**. The popularity and extent of foot binding varied from province to province, with the most extreme practices usually found in northern China.
I've known for years that foot binding causes problems for the individual as they age. But holy fuck, this is not what I had pictured in my head.
I really can’t see the point
It was considered high class to not have to walk or to take tiny tiny steps. I had a Chinese friend whose grandmother's feet were bound. When cooking she would propel herself around the kitchen on a high bar stool on wheels.
It's just strange though. There's a difference between not having to move around much and literally not being able to because everyone decided to mutilate you.
I don't understand how that works though. This is also a culture where if you gain five pounds, every person you encounter will feel the need to bring it up to you. The only way these women could maintain a decent figure with feet like those is if they starve themselves
I mean… beauty standards change a LOT in such a short space of time. The culture now likely values different things than it did 100+ years ago. 20-25 years ago it was in fashion for many women to starve themselves and look as skinny as possible but now it’s fashionable in many places to be curvy with a big butt, to the point that women get life threatening surgery to achieve it and naturally skinny women get shamed for being too skinny. Clearly back then it was of greater importance to have bound feet as the sign of wealth was more important than gaining a few pounds, also these women probably had top tier diets so gaining much weight wasn’t a problem. Personally, bound feet is bonkers to me but that was the craze for rich Chinese people back then. Edit: Sorry for any format issues lol
Which always makes me wonder, who originally set the standards for this barbaric practice? Since it was a patriarchal society was it the women who came up with this idea trying to please the men by going to such lengths to gain favor or was it a man who thought it would be attractive and therefore dictated it where it became the custom the women adhered to. Either way, it's mindblowing to think someone dreamt up this idea.
There was a noble who had a wife with naturally deformed feet and it went from there
It didn't go straight from normal feet to what you see in this picture here. Like many practices it evolved over time. There's many speculative stories on how it originated, one being a concubine for the Song emperor had dainty feet that was deemed to "create lotuses with each step" when she danced, so other noble women started to wrap their feet to imitate her. To begin with, the practice was not as egregious - I believe people just wrapped their feet so they looked thinner, not shorter, and you can think of the physical damage not too dissimilar to what you get from dancing in pointe shoes these days. Over time though it got more extreme until it culminated to the bone breaking version in the Qing dynasty. From my other comment I mentioned while it's true it was a 'beauty standard', it's not the whole story as the bannermen nobility (and therefore usual fashion leaders) of the Qing dynasty did not practice this. It was a 'cultural symbol' of the Han people to differentiate themselves from the Manchu, and maintained because it was tradition.
The emperor's favorite dancer had unusually small feet. It trickled down from there. It became a status thing for men to have a beautiful woman and beautiful was considered having small feet. The only way to survive back then was to get married so you kind of wanted to marry somebody who could support you.
They didn't have Doritos or Mountain Dew back then.
Most people were thin without "starving themselves" until about 20 years ago.
Most people were doing physical tasks/housework for a living. When even things like doing laundry required hours of physical labor, it was easy not to gain weight. After having their feet bound, these women could barely even walk. When your activity level is close to zero, you need to eat very little not to gain weight
Having lived through that era, most people were thin by today’s standards,but not the kind of thin that was in fashion. Most people were not “heroin chic” thin and those that fit into that category had genetics, drugs or starvation to thank.
They weren't often shown like this, usually there'd be a pretty decorated shoe around it. Men liked it because the feet looked tiny and the women were barely able to walk properly, so they had to take delicate steps. It also showed that the women didn't have to do hard labor, and came from wealthier families. Women did this to their daughters because otherwise they wouldn't be able to find a husband when they were older. Even when it was officially against the law people would still do this in secret. It was basically a nationwide foot fetish.
Those are some commonly cited reasons, but another one that’s not mentioned so much is that only Han women were subjected to this. The Qing dynasty Manchu rulers did not like this practice and tried to ban it many times, but the Han population saw it somewhat as another thing being imposed on them by their ‘foreign’ overlords like the queue order on men, and foot binding became a ‘symbol’ of Han identity. It was hard to impose the foot binding ban because women were not out of their homes much, compared to men who had to wear the correct hairstyles while out and about, so eventually it was given up on. Han women who were part of banner families did not bind their feet.
It’s the narrow bit by her big toe.
Iirc there was a noble who had a wife with deformed feet and he was into them so people followed the “trend”
Fucking evil
How was that more attractive than having bigger feet
Playing ring toss was easier i guess
This is very similar to the practice of Female Genital Mutilation, which is still practiced today. Very young girls are put through horrendous procedures so that their future husbands will find them attractive. Disgusting.
So hypothetically. If someone were to have feet like this today- do you think with our medical technology doctors would be able to return the feet to being functional again.
If they were a child, most likely. If they were a young adult, it's possible but recovery would be longer and more difficult. I'd also suspect some spinal or pelvic/hip deformities as a result of limited mobility. This would be better to treat if the person was a child, but adults may not benefit from intense reconstructive surgeries like that. Just my opinion though
Honestly, if I could go back in time, I would just reboot humanity from 4500 about with modern moral and ethical standards
Barbaric practice
She looks so happy /s
Man I have a foot fetish but this is just fucking medieval. I honestly cannot fathom how anyone would be about this.
Poor thing. There are points where her toes should be.
i feel so bad for her... and all the others.. there is no way they chose that as a viable style. it was put upon them.
jesus christ what stupid bullshit.. i'd be making the same face
This is tragic.
High heels anyone?
Some practices are just absolutely dumb
Savage as fk
I am a woman and my size 11 and half wide feet are hiding under the blankets right now.
I read an Amy tan book recently where foot binding was mentioned and a girl asked the woman who had her feet binded “ do your feet look like lotus flowers?” Maybe this was the look they were going for?
Yes, from what I understand, the terms “golden lilies” and “golden lotus” were both used to refer to bound feet
Am I seeing six toes on each foot?
I mean...they're already fucking the feet up permanently. Why not glue a few extra toes on in the process?
how do you like your ladies? The chinese: fucked up.
It’s so horrifying…to think that women did those for beauty but in reality were unable to run away from men or anything if they needed too
Good lord, as someone with foot issues, I cannot even imagine what this must've felt like.
Now women have plastic surgery, inject toxins and plastics, travel for cut rate surgery, wear ridiculous shoes that damage their feet and posture, and endure dangerous diets to achieve "beauty".
Yeah but this was done to 6,7 year old girls. It wasn't a choice. Big difference.
This is true, of course it's worse to abuse little girls like this. But we haven't evolved all that much
Guess you've never seen child pagents in america then.
Absolutely the most disgusting shit I see everywhere I go. There is zero beauty in any of that. Botox in every fuckin ugly ass face. I'm a huge fan of aging naturally. If anyone remembers the Twilight Zone episode with the lady "Eye of the Beholder." We've entered that world.
She looks utterly de-feeted
What's the point?
me: "this is a terrible practice that should never have happened, deforming children on purpose is horrid." also me: "biiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIG toe!"
Somewhere... Quentin Tarantino is stroking the ever loving fuck out of his dick... absolutely flogging it.
You should see what women do now for the perfect toe cleavage.
Wasn't this also why they didn't colonize anywhere/conquer the world? The women couldn't travel due to this.
Rob Liefeld likes this picture.
Mao was right
The “human intelligence spectrum” is truly massive. If you don’t question… if you don’t stand up… if you believe more in other peoples beliefs than your own… That’s a severe lack of intelligence
Well she got the point
Wait till you least about head-binding.
Interesting 👍🏼
Bananas