-1Talk given at Casa Asia
Barcelona 5.27.04
FOOTBINDING IN CHINA: A WOMEN”S STORY
Dorothy Ko
Barnard College, Columbia University, New York City
Introduction: How Footbinding was Done
My talk focuses on the curious traditional Chinese custom of footbinding. This
painful practice started around the 10th century, and continued unto the 20th century.
When a daughter from a well-to-do family reached five to six years old (the age of gender
separation in China,) her mother and grandmother would prepare a piece of fresh binding
cloth and make several pairs of beautiful small shoes. On an auspicious day, the older
women traveled to the temple to offer a tiny pair of votive shoes to the Bodhisattva
Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, praying that the girl’s feet would be soft and pliable (for
a diagram showing the method of binding, see my book Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for
Bound Feet, The University of California Press, 2002)
Footbinding is unique to China. Its East Asian neighbors Korea and Japan did not
practice it, even though they borrowed Chinese writing, government, and many other
aspects of Chinese culture. The Europeans were especially fascinated by it, and take it to
be the most graphic symbol of Chinese culture. The priest Odoric was the first European
traveler to mention it, in the 1320s. Jesuit and Franciscan monks who traveled to China
in the 15th and 16th centuries all marveled at how smart Chinese men were in devising
-2footbinding to keep women at home (for details of European accounts, see my “Bondage
in Time, Footbinding and Fashion Theory, Fashion Theory vol. 1, no. 1 (1997): 1-27.)
They were not wrong: the Chinese did value the home as a sanctuary and women
enjoyed the high value associated with domesticity. But it would be wrong to suggest
that footbinding was invented by men to restrict and oppress women. Today I would like
to show that there were deeper cultural reasons behind footbinding that motivated women
to bind their feet voluntarily. In the interest of time I’d focus on three: Chinese attitudes
of sexual pleasure, Chinese concept of gender difference, and the value of women’s
handwork, especially embroidery and shoe-making.
I. Chinese Attitudes of Sex
The traditional Chinese have rather healthy attitudes toward the enjoyment of sex.
I would like to take you inside a Chinese house to see how rich men and women lived in
the traditional times, and to see how footbinding was central to the love lives of both
sexes.
Erotic paintings have a long tradition in China, but the earliest that has survived
are from the 16th century. This one is taken from an extraordinarily fine set of six silk
album leaves. The hairstyle of the man identifies him as a subject of the Manchu or Qing
dynasty (1644-1911). She is lovingly clothed in Han Chinese style underwear—a dutou
bib—and very elaborate red silk shoes with arched heels and an anklet tied with a silk
ribbon.
Look carefully at this painting. Take note of: the setting, relationship between
man and woman, difference from European erotic pictures…
•
Man and nature; yin and yang; sex as regenerative process
-3•
Parity between man and woman; no guilt; sexual pleasure of woman as important
goal in 16th century medical treatises
•
From sex in nature to sex in culture: Notice the symbols of status and wealth—
book and scholar’s rock; expansive drapery and textiles; polygyny i.e. sexual
pleasure as part of male privilege
•
Shoes not taken off: visual concealment as enticement; clothing more provocative
than naked bodies, i.e. high culture value of clothing: covered bodies distinguish
humans from beasts
In sum, this brief survey of erotic paintings shows that from the 16th century on,
footbinding was central to the sexual imagination and erotic desires of men. Women
were allowed to have pleasure, but their role is to serve the men. (For men’s desires for
bound feet, see my forthcoming book, Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of
Footbinding, The University of California Press, 2005.)
II. Telling Males Apart from Females
But footbinding served a second, more serious social function—as a symbol of
womanhood. In an earlier black-and-white erotic print (Huayin jinzhen, ca. 1610), a
couple in shown in very similar setting—half-indoor-outdoor, sex as yin-yang
communion, opulent textiles.
Look carefully—which one is male? Female?
In sum, the Chinese believed that male and female difference was not located in
the body or anatomy, but is the product of culture. Footbinding (along with jewelry) is an
important indicator of gender difference and the value of women’s culture.
III. Value of Women’s Labor
-4I would like to end with a third meaning of footbinding: as a status symbol for the
women.
Traditional women from both the upper and lower classes, according to
Confucian teaching, had to work with their hands.
Spinning, weaving, sewing,
embroidery, and shoemaking constitute “nugong” or women’s work.
Women paid
special attention to the making of their shoes. In particular, shoes played a special role
in wedding ceremonies. After her engagement, the bride would ask for the shoe size of
her future parents-in-law and sisters-in-law, so as to make gift shoes for them. These
embroidered shoes showcased the bride’s skills, literary a test and contest.
So important was shoemaking to the women’s identities that each region of China
developed its own special shoe styles (for details of regional styles, see my Every Step a
Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet.)
In this way, shoes as products of women’s hands and women’s culture became
symbols of regional and national culture. Like a nicely bound pair of feet, embroidered
shoes constituted a status symbol for the women who made and wore them.