and then around the heel. Bring the heel and toes as
close together as possible. W rap the full length o f
the cloth as tightly as possible
4. Squeeze foot into children’s shoes
5. Walk
6. Imagine that you are 5 years old
7. Imagine being like this for the rest o f your life
C H A P T E R 6
Gynocide: Chinese Footbinding
T he origins o f Chinese footbinding, as o f Chinese
thought in general, belong to that amorphous entity
called antiquity. The 10th century marks the beginning o f the physical, intellectual, and spiritual dehumanization o f women in China through the institution o f footbinding. That institution itself, the implicit belief
in its necessity and beauty, and the rigor with which it
was practiced lasted another 10 centuries. T here were
sporadic attempts at emancipating the foot —some
artists, intellectuals, and women in positions o f power
were the proverbial drop in the bucket. Those attempts,
modest though they were, were doomed to failure:
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Woman Hating
footbinding was a political institution which reflected
and perpetuated the sociological and psychological inferiority of women; footbinding cemented women to a certain sphere, with a certain function —women were
sexual objects and breeders. Footbinding was mass
attitude, mass culture —it was the key reality in a way
of life lived by real women— 10 centuries times that
many millions o f them.
It is generally thought that footbinding originated as
an innovation among the dancers of the Imperial
harem. Sometime between the 9th and 11th centuries,
Emperor Li Yu ordered a favorite ballerina to achieve
the “pointed look. ” The fairy tale reads like this:
Li Yu had a favored palace concubine named
Lovely Maiden who was a slender-waisted beauty and
a gifted dancer. He had a six-foot high lotus constructed for her out o f gold; it was decorated lavishly with pearls and had a carmine lotus carpet in the
center. Lovely Maiden was ordered to bind her feet
with white silk cloth to make the tips look like the
points o f a moon sickle. She then danced in the center
of the lotus, whirling about like a rising cloud. 1
From this original event, the bound foot received the
euphemism “Golden Lotus, ” though it is clear that
Lovely Maiden’s feet were bound loosely— she could still
dance.
A later essayist, a true foot gourmand, described 58
varieties of the human lotus, each one graded on a 9-
