Podiatry Experts

Chinese Foot Binding

There is a traditional technique from rural China that involved the binding of the foot of female youngsters to prevent them from developing. It was a brutal practice and was very painful and deforming to the feet. It was done as a more compact foot was thought to be a desirable characteristic in the female and a higher dowry could be demanded by the family for the bride if the feet had been bound. There was a considerable industry in these rural communities for the decorative and carefully designed footwear that these people would be required to use because of the smaller and disfigured feet. More than 100 or so years ago community pressures did start to mount to get rid of the practice and this mostly was successful and it is not done anymore. The practice needed to stop as it was so debilitating and deforming for the child. When they became a grownup, the damage had been done and there is very little that might be done to deal with the suffering and deformity. Having said that, you will still find quite a few elderly woman alive that had their feet bound when they were young kids.

You can find theoretically commonalities to this practice of chinese foot binding that may be seen today. Several experts try to associate the practice these days of females who force their feet into the high heel shoes as being similar to the practice. In rural China the foot binding was all about the female performing something which is very pleasing to the male, regardless of the consequences in terms of pain and deformity. The practice today of wearing tight fitting high heel shoes by females has outcomes in the terms of foot deformity and foot pain. It is also supposedly done in the context of the female doing something that is agreeable to the eye of the male. There is some controversy if the connection between the two practices really do justify the kind of evaluation that they have been put through.