I've never thought about high heels related to foot binding. In a movie I like, "She's the Man", at one point Amanda Bynes's character is discussing high heels with her mother and she says, "Because heels are a male invention designed to make women's butts look smaller... and to make it harder for them to runaway."

It seems men have been influencing out footwear for ages.

*cringes*

I've read about foot binding in a book called Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. I would have never associated high heels in doing this

Sandrilyona wrote:

Women with such deformed feet avoided placing weight on the front of the foot and tended to walk predominantly on their heels. - doesn't it remind you on how we walk on high heels?

When I wear heels I put most of my weight on my toes...?

I've long disliked the aspect of high heels that they basically make you vulnerable. You can't run, sometimes you can barely even walk. I've always been a practical person, like I dislike wearing skirts just in case I have to do something that would be difficult in a skirt (I don't know, climbing over a wall or something. Sure now I'm a "grown up" I don't climb over many walls, but I MIGHT.)

Once I was talking to my brother about flip flops. He said he didn't like them because they make girls' calves look fat. I had to point out to him that they make calves look NORMAL since you usually see bare calves elongated in heels. Then he remembered that he doesn't like heels either and got over the fat calf thing.

(Why doesn't he like heels? If I was guessing, I'd say because he prefers ladies to be independent. Not because he's a feminist, but because he's too lazy and antisocial to be a gentleman and assist a woman in need. He expects a girl to take care of herself. My bf is kinda like this actually. Is it good or bad? I don't know.)

OUCH OUCH *Cry*

I think walking in high heels is more about what you're comfortable with.  I wore them all throughout high school and I always felt most comfortable with placing the weight on the front portion of my feet.  I also never had a problem with my bum wiggling with this method.  XP

I did see an exhibit at the musuem of sex once, they had a chinese exhibit going on at the time and much of it was foot binding. It is gross and looks supremely painful.

I'm short and I love heels cause they make me taller. I have some shoes that are mid-size heels, like about 2 inches, and chunky, which are very comfortable to walk in and I can easily run down or up stairs in them to catch a train if I have too. Plus I easily walk faster then most people in them too. I do have the problems with the higher heels, I can only wear them for so long before they hurt my feet. But for some reason the higher the heel the more I drool at it in the store and want to buy it. Although I do have one pair of corso como's that are really cushiony inside and can wear those a long time.

Oddly enough I have a slight knee problem, and my knee feels better when I wear heels. I'm double jointed and tend to lock my knees out when I'm standing, but heels make me keep my knee bent so I don't do that.

Sandrilyona wrote:

Bound feet were once considered "intensely erotic".[dubious – discuss][citation needed] Qing Dynasty sex manuals listed 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet.[1]  Some men preferred never to see a woman's bound feet, so they were always concealed within tiny "lotus shoes" and wrappings. Feng Xun is recorded as stating, "If you remove the shoes and bindings, the aesthetic feeling will be destroyed forever" -- an indication that men understood that the symbolic erotic fantasy of bound feet did not correspond to its unpleasant physical reality, which was therefore to be kept hidden. For men, the primary erotic effect was a function of the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Women with such deformed feet avoided placing weight on the front of the foot and tended to walk predominantly on their heels. - doesn't it remind you on how we walk on high heels

It wasn't the lotus gait that was the attraction, but rather its percieved effects, as the gait caused the women to use inner thigh muscles that were thought to make the vagina tighter.

This, and this primarily, was the real appeal of foot binding.

If you want to know the real realities of foot binding, i advise you check out this photo album from a friend of mine full of real antique photo's on foot binding with excellent commentory/captions (some of it is not for the faint hearted);

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N … 279516959/
".......what we do know is that the process of binding a foot was agonizing -- so painful that by some estimates one girl in 10 died of shock in the first few days......

Some comments;

(1) There are several serious statements found across the Web that say things such as wearing high heeled shoes are just as bad for your feet as Chinese foot binding. The people who say such things are either blithering idiots, or as clueless as a rock under a barrel.

(2) There are also several serious statements found across the Web that say Chinese foot binding simply consisted of wrapping cloth tightly around the foot for two years to slow the growth and development of the foot. The people who describe it like that should get the "Nobel Prize for Making the Understatement of the Millennium", and are guilty of glossing over the horrific reality of what went on under those pretty white strips of cloth.

To those broad-minded souls who think that anything and everything falling under the umbrella of what we call "culture" is a wonderful thing, and that all of China was a civilized country of age and wisdom, then please read this barbaric description of what FOOT BINDING really entailed for the BILLIONS of little girls that were forced into it for ultimate "sexual" and / or so-called "cultural" reasons.



OK..... GRAB YOUR DAUGHTER (or your SISTER) and LET'S DO IT !!!

".......At about the age of three to six years old, when the bones of the young girl's feet were fully developed, the footbinding began. It was generally an elder female member of the girl's family or a professional footbinder who started the binding. It was seen as preferable to avoid having the mother do it as she might be sympathetic to the pain of her daughter's feet and loosen the bandages. The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to properly develop. Binding usually started during the winter months so that the feet were numb, meaning the pain would not be as extreme.

First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood, this is to soften the foot to aid the binding. Then her toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent ingrowth and subsequent infections since the toes were to be pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. To prepare her for what was to come next the girl's feet were delicately massaged. Cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the same blood and herb mix as before.

The toes on each foot were then pressed downwards into the sole of the foot until they were broken, and held against the sole of the foot. The foot was then drawn straight with the leg and the arch broken. The bandage would be repeatedly wound in a figure eight movement, starting at the inside of the foot at the instep, then carried over the toes, under the foot, and round the heel, the freshly broken toes being pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. At each pass the binding was tightened, pulling the ball of the foot and the heel ever close together. When the binding is done, the end of the binding cloth is sewn tightly to prevent the girl from loosening it. As the wet bandages dried they would constrict greatly, making the binding even tighter.

This binding ritual would be repeated as often as possible (for the rich at least once daily, for poor peasants two or three times a week), with fresh bindings. Each time the feet were unbound they would be kneaded to make the joints more flexible, then washed and the nails meticulously trimmed. Immediately after this pedicure the feet are rebound and the bindings are pulled tighter each time, making this process continually more and more painful. The unbound feet would regularly be soaked in a concoction (also considered a "special potion") that caused any necrotised flesh to fall off.

The girl was not allowed to rest after her feet had been bound, however much pain she was in she would often have to walk long distances on her broken & bound feet, so that her own body weight crushed her feet into the correct shape.

The most common ailment of bound feet was infection. Toenails would often ingrow and could lead to flesh rotting, if the infection got into the bones of the feet it could cause toes to drop off. Toes dropping off was seen as a positive, as the feet could then be bound even tighter than before. Disease inevitably followed infection meaning that death could result from foot binding.

As the girl grew older, she was more at risk from medical problems. Even after the foot bones healed they were prone to re-breaking. Older women were more likely to break hips and other bones in falls and were less able to stand up from sitting......"

The above was condensed in the Wiki from the following books : (1) Jackson, Beverly: Splendid Slippers. Berkley: Tenspeed Press. 1997, (2) Levy, Howard S: The Lotus Lovers: The Complete History of the Curious Erotic Tradition of Foot Binding in China. New York:Prometheus Books 1991, and (3) Cummings, S & Stone, K: Consequences of Foot Binding Among Older Women in Beijing China. American Journal of Public Health EBSCO Host. Oct 1997.

And finally THIS :

"..........It usually began somewhere between the ages of four and seven. Possibly even later if the family was poor and needed their daughter to do work around the house or farm. A bandage, ten feet long and two inches wide was wrapped tightly around the foot, forcing the [already broken] four small toes under the sole of the foot. This made the feet narrower but at the same time it made the feet shorter because it also forced the big toe and the heel closer together by bowing the arch of the foot. The bandage was tightened each day and the girl was put into progressively smaller and smaller sized shoes. The entire process usually took about two years at the end of which the feet were essentially dead and utterly useless.......

The feet had to be washed and manicured on a daily basis. If they weren't manicured properly the toe nails could cut into the instep and infection could set in. If the bindings were too tight they could cut off circulation which could lead to gangrene and blood poisoning.

The feet had to be massaged and given hot and cold compresses to help relieve the pain and help improve circulation. If all this isn't bad enough, corns would develop on the toes that were bent under and would have to be cut off with a knife. But wait! It gets worse! With the lack of circulation flesh would rot and fall off and sometimes the toes would ooze pus.

The pain was said to have been excruciating especially if this process was begun at a later age...... It is difficult to imagine the suffering that these women had to endure. Here is an account from a woman that went through this ordeal:

A CHINESE WOMAN TELLS HER TALE

"When I was seven my mother….washed and placed alum on my feet and cut my toenails. She then bent my toes toward the plantar with a binding cloth ten feet long and two inches wide doing the right foot first and then the left. She...ordered me to walk but when I did the pain proved unbearable, that night...my feet felt on fire and I couldn't sleep; mother struck me for crying. On the following days I tried to hide but was forced to walk on my feet...after several months all toes but the big one were pressed against the inner surface......mother would remove the bindings and wipe the blood and puss which dripped from my feet. She told me that only with removal of the flesh could my feet become slender...every two weeks I changed to new shoes. Each new pair was one to two tenths of an inch smaller than the previous one....

In summer my feet smelled offensively because of puss and blood; in winter my feet felt cold because of lack of circulation...four of the toes were curled in like so many dead caterpillars...it took two years to achieve the three inch model...my shanks were thin, my feet became humped, ugly and odoriferous........ "

http://www.angelfire.com/ca/beekeeper/foot.html

ARE YOU STILL WITH ME SO FAR ? HAVING THE BONES OF YOUR FEET CRUSHED AND BOUND FOR LIFE IS NOT THE SAME AS WEARING A PAIR OF HIGH HEELS TO A SOCIAL FUNCTION ON FRIDAY NIGHT.

If you cannot figure that one out, it's probably time for your milk and cookies.

THE CHINESE WOMEN SPEAK: http://www.josephrupp.com/story1116.html

Do you want to delve more deeply into the psychological factors that --- after the practice became entrenched in China --- caused women to willingly go along with it all, being "bound together" with other women in their suffering ? You may go back and review the above two links, and also this excellent paper that discusses it all from a base context of immigrant foot binding practiced in the USA : http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~epf/2001/chang.html

A VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC OF DISCUSSION THAT REMAINS PARTIALLY UNRESOLVED, AND OPEN FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION : WAS THIS A MINORITY  PRACTICE OF THE HAN CHINESE, OR A MAJORITY ONE ? Or, was Chinese society split RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE ?

One paper (already quoted above) makes the general remark that "....In some areas and among some social groups, such as the Hakka in southern China, women's' feet were generally not bound and even among the imperial courts of the Ming and Qing dynasties the practice was not strictly observed. Despite these exceptions, however, footbinding was more commonly practiced than not....." http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9 … vento.html

In any case, ROUGHLY HOW MANY HUMAN BEINGS WERE CRIPPLED AND DEFORMED BY THIS PSYCHOPATHIC PERVERSION OF LUST AND CULTURE ?

RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD. ONE ESTIMATE GIVEN FOR TOTAL COUNT OF CHINESE GIRLS WHO HAD THEIR FEET CRUSHED AND BROKEN : 4.5 BILLION.

THAT'S ONLY A MEAGER AVERAGE OF 4.5 MILLION LITTLE GIRLS A YEAR over 1000 YEARS. WAY LESS THAN THAT NUMBER WHEN THEY STARTED IT, AND RUNNING TO THE TENS-OF-MILLIONS (OR HUNDREDS-OF-MILLIONS) A YEAR BY THE TIME MAO PUT A SERIOUS END TO IT ALL IN 1946.

4.5 BILLION GIRLS TOTAL.


EXCELLENT MAP showing FOOT BINDING BY REGIONS : http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi … where.html

CONGRATULATIONS TO THOSE CHINESE LEADERS AND REGIONS THAT REFUSED TO ALLOW THE NATURAL LIVES OF THEIR WOMEN TO BE DESTROYED BY FOOT BINDING



***************************************************
(There's plenty more to read if you are interested, part 2 etc,  i recommend it http://www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N … 279516959/ )

So yeah. Foot binding and wearing high heals are nothing alike! This was a truly barbaric, excrutiatingly painful and inhuman practice, too cruel for words...Millions of girls were killed by it, billions of girls were forced to have it. Wearing a pair of high heals by choice and suffering a bit of back pain, its nothing in comparison to the enforced torture (and regularly lethal) torture of foot binding. Women who wear high heals all the time (and so suffer obvious negative health consequences) are idiots, girls who suffered foot binding were torture victims.

Last edited by Tokis (03-17-2010 16:45)

If you think about it, high-heels actually make a wonam put the weight on the front (like how the majority of people here have said they were them) It actually kinda makes sense - bunions et cetera. If it were to put strain on the heel would the heel not be where the toes are?

o.O ... Just a male perspective

Sandrilyona wrote:

Tokis wrote:

It wasn't the lotus gait that was the attraction, but rather its percieved effects, as the gait caused the women to use inner thigh muscles that were thought to make the vagina tighter.

I think it were all of the mentioned reasons, just the matter of taste of men of those times)
Whichever reason it was its stil horrible.

It all boiled down to vaginal tightness and sex though. You should read this chapter on sex and bound feet;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N … 279516959/

It was barbaric. But i disagree with your comparisons between foot binding and wearing high heal shoes;

1. Women have the choice to wear high heal shoes. Chinese girls were forced to have their feet bound.
2. Foot binding is excrutiatingly painful and involved breaking the bones of the feet so that women could fit into their lotus shoes. High heal shoes do not involve breaking the bones of the feet to fit the feet into them.
3. Wearing high heals doesn't have to cause pain, foot binding was constantly painful.
4. Health problems caused by wearing high heals are only caused by wearing stupidly high ones or wearing them too much etc (both of which are by choice), health problems are pain were a guarantee of foot binding.
5. There has never been a time in western society where fathers/mothers etc have forced to their little girls to wear high heals every single day. This was the norm with footbinding in China.
6. One in ten girls died from having their feet bound- wearing high heals does not cause you to die.
7. Some men may find high heels sexy, but i have never heard of a man who turned down a woman for marriage simply because she didn't like wearing high heels all the time. Unbound women though were considered ugly and practically unmarriable though (amoungst the majority of people's in China who upheld the practice).


Seriously, foot binding was barbaric beyond all words. You have the choice to wear high heels though- no one is forced into wearing them. Of course they cause health issues, they change the weight distribution of the foot and the posture of the body, but these issues are all self-inflicted by women who choose to wear high heals.

Tokis wrote:

Seriously, foot binding was barbaric beyond all words. You have the choice to wear high heels though- no one is forced into wearing them. Of course they cause health issues, they change the weight distribution of the foot and the posture of the body, but these issues are all self-inflicted by women who choose to wear high heals.

You are of course right, but I believe there's still an issue. We are not in the position of historic China where girls HAD to have their feet bound, but how long would it take us to get there? What little changes could happen to add up to something equally barbaric? Things do not always get better.

I mean some women ARE required to wear heels for their job. Girls expect that they will wear high heels when they grow up and they want to wear heels at a young age. Women think they have to wear heels to be sexy and attract a man. It's also just another area in which women compete with each other. One girl will complain about pain from her shoes and another will vow to wear her feet out so much that she doesn't feel the pain any more and can become the alpha heel wearing female a la the aforementioned Victoria Beckham.

No heels aren't all bad and you can wear them for fun too. And okay a dystopian future where high heels rule our lives and we end up like the Chinese ladies over again is hella unlikely. But I still think it's okay to compare the two while reminding women that they DO have choices about such things.

I'm trying to read the post you've linked to from flickr but it's tough going with all the tangents! Does seem enlightening though.