Essay on ancient Chinese women's culture

The practice of binding small feet first began during the reign of Li Yu in the Southern Tang Dynasty from 969 to 975 AD. One of Li's queens was so creative that she tied her feet in a crescent shape with silk and danced on golden lotus flowers to please the emperor.

Later, this practice spread to the people, and the custom of binding feet gradually spread to ordinary people.

However, some people believe that small foot binding has already appeared as early as the Warring States Period from 770 to 476 BC, and may be traced back to the Shang Dynasty even earlier.

In short, foot binding, a bad custom in feudal society, has a long history and has harmed countless Chinese women for thousands of years.

It can be said that foot binding is one of the most prominent manifestations of the patriarchal tradition of "men being superior to women".

According to records, folk women begin to bind their feet when they are four or five years old. By the time they reach adulthood, if their feet do not exceed three inches, they will become the highly praised "three-inch golden lotus".

At the time, such small feet were considered an important aspect of "feminine beauty."

Even if a woman has good looks and figure, if she has natural feet or her feet are not tied small enough, she will be ridiculed and she will not be able to get married.

"Such big feet" has also become the most unpleasant word to curse and humiliate women.

In fact, the "beauty" of small feet is predicated on the physical and mental destruction of women.

The method of binding feet is to use artificial force to savagely dislocate or fracture the metatarsal bones of a woman's feet and press them on the soles of the feet, and then wrap them tightly layer by layer with foot-binding cloths. The feet of women who have their feet bound are difficult to walk and very painful.

, more likely to cause disability and death.

The folk saying "a pair of small feet brings a jar of tears" is a concentrated reflection of the suffering that women have suffered for thousands of years.

Once the natural feet are tied into "three-inch golden lotus", women will definitely be very inconvenient and restricted in labor and communication. They have to be trapped at home and have to lean against the wall to stand and walk. Not only does "men dominate the house, but women

"Within the Lord" is a matter of course, and "men are strong and women are weak" has also become a fact. If women have any dissatisfaction, resistance, elopement, etc., it will be even more difficult. They can only swallow their anger and let themselves be manipulated.

In fact, this kind of "beauty" that goes against nature and health and is based on the destruction of women's bodies is not only an extremely distorted and perverted form of beauty, but it also reinforces the oppression and control of women in a patriarchal society.

The effect is as stated in "The Daughter's Sutra": "Lest he (she) walk out of the room lightly, there will be thousands of entanglements to restrain him".

Binding of small feet emerged as a hobby of men, and the aesthetic distortion of men became more and more uncontrollable due to the "three-inch golden lotus", until women's mutilated feet became an important item to arouse men's sexual excitement.

According to records, since the Song Dynasty, a "drinking" game has become popular in many brothels' banquets. The prostitutes' little feet and their little shoes are highlighted from beginning to end. The prostitute's client puts the wine glass into the prostitute's little feet.

Come pass, pour wine, and drink in your shoes.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, some men still enjoyed participating in this "drinking" game and were excited about the opportunity to drink from the wine glasses in the prostitutes' tiny shoes.

As for the rotten literati of the past dynasties, they were even more interested in discussing small feet as "knowledge". They spared no effort in pen and ink, wrote articles, and commented in detail. They took pleasure in being humble, for fear that they would not understand the aesthetics and flirtation of men playing with small feet.

The role is clearly explained.

For example, in the Qing Dynasty, a scholar named Fang Xuan called himself "Dr. Xianglian" and wrote an article titled "Xianlian Pinzao", in which he went to great lengths to classify the feet into five styles, nine categories and eighteen types.

, and became famous for it.

As for why the deformed little feet, which have been tortured to the point of broken bones, dislocated joints, bloody flesh, and dripping pus, have become the sexual targets of Chinese men?

This is because in feudal society, bound feet were an extremely private matter for women. Except for their husbands and people with very close relationships, they could not be viewed by anyone at will. This made the binding of feet closely related to sexual secrets, and it was even thought that if not handled properly, it would

If it causes sexual immorality, the little feet are the "instruments to induce sexual immorality".

According to the sour literati, bound feet not only make a woman's gait more graceful and enchanting, but also make men "become more sympathetic and pityful as they look at her" during the day, and "the closer they are, the more resistant they are to caressing" at night.

The highest standards for the beauty of small feet were also determined by them: one is fat, two is soft, and three is beautiful, "If it is fat and soft, it can be found in form, but if it is beautiful, it should be met by God" and so on.

Between the lines, there is morbid love, envy and adoration for small feet, and the appreciation and play of deformity and deformity as beauty, which shows how seriously China's male aesthetic concepts have been corrupted in the traditional patriarchal cultural background.

However, in the Qing Dynasty, when women were most severely tortured and small-foot worship was the most outrageous, a group of insightful people such as Li Ruzhen, Yu Zhengxie and others severely criticized this social evil habit.

Li Ruzhen pointed out in her book "Flowers in the Mirror" that "women are good in nature", but men tend to make them "pretentious" and bind their feet to make them "weird". She also pointed out that "why are the two feet mutilated and unable to walk?"

Difficult but beautiful?” Kang Youwei, a famous reformer and reformist, submitted a petition to Emperor Guangxu in 1898 to “ban women’s foot binding.” He listed the harmful effects of the bad habit of foot binding on the country and the people, and believed that “the most shocking thing is to laugh at those who humiliate them.”

, nothing better than women’s foot-binding,” and clearly advocated that “women’s foot-binding is strictly prohibited.”

After the Manchu feudal dynasty was overthrown, Sun Yat-sen, as the interim president of the Republic of China, officially banned foot binding in 1912.

During the May Fourth Movement, foot binding became the target of various revolutionary movements and radicals. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and others wrote articles denouncing the destruction and oppression of women by foot binding.

More importantly, more and more women are participating in the anti-foot-binding movement, taking anti-foot-binding as an important task in the fight for the liberation of Chinese women.