I have always been intrigued to learn about different cultural normalities across the globe, one specifically being the different ideologies and ways that beauty is defined. Whenever I get the opportunity to venture out of the country, I like to take time and try to delve into the local culture. Sometimes this can be difficult because I am stuck in a resort or tourist city, however this does not pose a huge boundary. Oftentimes I flip through magazines or just observe the locals as they go about their day. It astonishes me to see how different women find beauty in themselves, and the massive strides they are willing to take to change and improve. In Mexico, I have found that women seem most confident with long, straight dark hair and somewhat tanned, curvy bodies. In America, on the other hand, many women find beauty in having toned muscles, although staying skinny to avoid masculinity. There is a strong pressure on women to wear their makeup to look as though they are not wearing any, which is a contradiction in my mind. While these two countries have quite different, they each find their own social pressures to look better and are willing to have plastic surgery or tattooed makeup in order to achieve certain things.
In some countries, the practices to achieve this level of perfection have oftentimes become a part of the culture, such as in China. It is difficult for us as Americans to compare baby circumcision to the Chinese practice of footbinding, as we find circumcision to be normal and foot binding certainly not. In studying the content for this week, I had to remember to view practices like these from an unbiased lens and understand that one practice I may find obscure is perhaps completely normal to another.
At the time that footbinding was common, it certainly was a functional aspect of the culture and lifestyles of the Chinese people. Having small feet proved to be beneficial for the woman in many social aspects throughout the entirety of her life. Bound feet were once seen as a mark of class, with only the wealthiest of families having the ability to do so for their daughters. Young women with bound feet were unable to perform the labor-intensive jobs that were expected of lower class families, who were forced to leave their feet unbound. Many families would choose to dedicate their resources towards binding the feet of one daughter, with the hopes of her marrying wealthy and moving up the ladder (Greenhalgh 1977). Therefore, the practice of footbinding was not only functional for wealthy families to maintain their power, but it also allowed the middle-class families to gain upward traction.
Bound feet were more than just a status symbol. They were also found erotic by men and prospective husbands. It was a beauty standard; the smaller the feet the more beautiful the woman. I find that this is comparable to American culture today when considering the pain that was endured by Chinese women to please their male counterparts. In America, we see an abundance of female facial plastic surgery, in an effort to remove wrinkles or any signs of aging. To the American man, a younger woman is a more beautiful woman. And although she may be bedridden or face later medical complications, she is willing to go through these surgical procedures in order to fit the part.
Although foot binding was outlawed in China in 1912, many women secretly partook anyways, even going to lengths of tricking government inspectors (Lim 2007). As a child, Wang Lifen explains how she would secretly break her young, soft bones as a child in order to reach the symbol of status that so many young girls yearned for (Lim 2007). This proves that even though the practice was made illegal, the lives of the women did not immediately change. It is one thing to make a new law for the safety and protection of the community, but it is a much bigger step to change the culture for the better. Years and generations of influence and adherence had been drilled into the brains of Chinese women who felt this was the only way to make something of themselves in life.
The article entitled Footbinding by Lisa See had the most drastic effect on me and my understanding for the torture that these young girls began enduring at ages as young as three. Through her use of the interpretive theory, See describes her and her sister’s own experiences and the pain that was not only experienced but expected (See 2005). It was interesting to me to finally read an article that explained the feelings of some women that did not want to partake in this cultural normality. The article by Louisa Lim that I read included interviews with women who partook in the practice even after it was outlawed, because that is how they felt beautiful. They describe how the pain was completely worth it, and how at this point in their elderly lives they don’t even remember the process. On the other hand, See and her sisters did not believe that footbinding was the only way to achieve adequate beauty. Her sister’s actions to fight against the practice really stood out to me. I think that this mix of Chinese people with such opposing opinions is why the outlaw of 1912 took a long time to completely succeed. Some women found importance in following with traditional culture, while others emphasized moving forward. As an outsider looking in, I am glad that women now do not feel so pressured to go through this pain in order to be satisfied with their own bodies, although I know there is still much more room for improvement in this realm. Women across the world are willing to alter themselves in such massive and permanent ways just for the acceptance of others. I hope that the future brings more confidence for men and women across the globe to accept themselves and their peers rightfully so.
Greenhalgh, Susan. “Bound Feet, Hobbled Lives: Women in Old China.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 1977, pp. 7–21. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3346103.
Lim, Louisa. Painful Memories for China’s Footbinding Survivors. NPR, 19 Mar. 2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8966942.
See, Lisa. “Footbinding.” Snow Flower and the Fan, Random House Inc., 2005, pp. 17–34.
Your post was interesting and I really enjoyed how you discussed the ways in which other countries have different beauty standards. Sometimes, it’s hard to think of what others find to be beautiful or handsome when it feels like American standards are so widespread. I think plastic surgery is something that all countries have in common. Every culture has beauty standards that are not always easy to meet.
As you had said in your post, I had a hard time thinking about the painful experiences of footbinding to be related to the act of circumcision on a child. The personal accounts of the pain that young girls had to go through in the Lisa See article was hard to read. Especially when they chose to keep binding the youngest sister’s feet even though it was very clear that she had a very serious infection. I found it interesting that from pressure from her elder, the mother had decided to keep binding her foot even though she knew it was possible that the infection could potentially kill her. The elder had put it in a sense that she is better off with a chance of being beautiful, even with the possibility of death, than if she were to recover and have deformed feet. The mother did not want to have her live a life with deformity and being undesirable, so she sacrificed her health for her beauty. In a way, we do this in our communities with plastic surgery. Every time a woman goes under the knife, she risks the chance that something could happen with the anesthesia, that she could get an infection during recovery, or that the doctor could be inexperienced or tired and mess up the procedure. But we take these risks because it is better to try and be beautiful than it is to live life being ‘ugly’ and ‘undesirable’.
It’s important that you mentioned how beauty is also associated with class and status. It is true even in our culture. We perceive attractive people to be successful and trustworthy, which we associate with having a good job that likely pays a lot of money. In China, they associated small feet and footbinding as the bridge from low status to high status. Beauty is as good as money to a family with multiple children, because that means the daughter will be sold for a large dowry and will inevitably generate money and status for the family. It makes me wonder in what ways we perceive plastic surgery and our attempts at achieving beauty. Since we live in a capitalist society, do you think we view beauty in an equivalent way? Do you think beauty generates money for families?