Chinese Foot Binding

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

cared for their sons they would not go easy on their studies and if they cared for their daughters they would not go easy on their footbinding. One recent study estimated that there are still one million women in China with bound feet. The last Chinese women, still living with bound feet was in Hawaii in 1994.
There are many legends of how footbinding began, one such legend is Lady Yao, a dancer and concubine for Prince Li Yu, danced with such grace that the prince required her to bind her feet to resemble new moons all the time. Another, is that it began out of the sympathy for Empress Taki who had club feet. Although it has not been proven how footbinding started, one of the biggest reasons the practice continued for over 1000 years was it's sexual appeal.
Humans have shown they will do just about anything- good, evil, or in-between for sex. Footbinding is a very bold issue that many Chinese do not like to talk about. Some men felt troubled because it suggests that men are ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

14 inch corsets, cutting off their breathing and damaging their organs. Some women today have breast implants knowing they risk getting cancer. Some women and men go to ridiculous lengths to fit in with societies values. The beauty of bound feet was a value deeply rooted in the Chinese sexual psyche. The feet were only unbound for cleaning and for love making. This allowed men to fantasize about the feet. They were told that looking at an unwrapped bound foot would forever destroy their aesthetic pleasures. To this day elderly Chinese men will look at a women's feet before he does her face. The girls were bound at the early age to take advantage of the softness of their bones. Before ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: