Analysis Of Patricia Ebrey's To The Chinese Footbinding

Modern attitudes toward the traditional Chinese practice of footbinding are often harsh and unforgiving, casting it as a barbaric, archaic form of patriarchal torture. While much of the western world has historically been appalled by the custom, in the years since its ban, many Chinese nationals have also vehemently decried it, raising questions as to how and why this practice survived for roughly 700 years. Public audiences tend to consider footbinding a best-forgotten, undesirable tool of misogyny, as obsolete as whalebone corsets or lead-based face paint have become in the West. Yet most critics give little consideration to the practice’s rich and complex history, which continues to influence the identity of present-day China. In doing so, …show more content…
To radical Western feminists it has gained notoriety as the most extreme of the many ways women have felt compelled to endure pain, discomfort, and inconvenience to meet standards of beauty that do women little if any good, even when they embrace them wholeheartedly.” (Ebrey, 37) In an effort to investigate this viewpoint more thoroughly, this paper will reflect on footbinding through a socio-cultural lens using analysis of the works provided by Patricia Ebrey, Howard S. Levy, R. H. Van Gulik, and Dorothy Ko. Each author provides a distinct outlook on the matter, and conveys a particular expertise concerning the subject. Through combined explication of these works, this paper will delineate the possible origins of footbinding before juxtaposing various interpretations of the cultural significance of the practice, the ideas of chastity versus eroticism regarding the bound foot, and trance the expectations of sexual difference between women and men into modern …show more content…
By the time scholars began writing about it, footbinding was already relatively established. The possible factors affecting the development of footbinding in China are many and varied, stemming primarily from economic, sexual and power dynamics. Ebrey notes that a trend of rigid distinction between the sexes began during the Sung dynasty, evidenced in contemporary visual art, which depicting women as much fainter and more fragile than men, compared to earlier works. (Ebrey, 37) “Footbinding seems to have spread during the Sung, from the palace and the entertainment quarters to the homes of the elite who frequented those quarters.” (Ebrey, 38) Legends attributed the first bound feet to a palace dancer in the Later Tang dynasty, between 923-935, who bound her feet to make them smaller and more alluring when performing. “Palace dancers probably originated footbinding in about the 10th century,” Levy asserts, “which suggests that compression at first was only slight and not severe enough to seriously hamper movement. But as time went on, and the practice spread beyond the palace, the foot became so compressed that the woman usually hobbled about with difficulty or had to lean on a wall, cane, or another person for support.” (Levy, 30) Van Gulik concurs, contending that evidence indicates that footbinding became a trend sometime during the 50 year interval between the Tang and Sung