Women belonged to their fathers, husbands, brothers or uncles, like goats & cattle

By Naim Ibrahim

Women walk around the Forbidden City dressed in their traditional attire.

I imagine them swaying, walking on their bound lotus gait, in tiny steps. But no, they walk just like women in other countries. They wear shoes. With Nike & Skechers logos on them.

A few hundred years ago all upper class women here would’ve had their feet bound.

But why do you think anyone would ever want to do that?

During the tenth-century a court dancer who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon is said to have entranced Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and precious stones. She was the Taylor Swift of 10th century imperial China. She soon inspired other upperclass women to bind their feet.

What was considered purely an elite practise during the Song dynasty soon spread to lower social classes by the Ming & Qing dynasties. Hundreds of millions of women bound their feet in the next few hundred years. The practice continued until it was finally outlawed after the Nationalist Revolution in China in 1912.

What was it really about? Beauty? A rite of passage? A girl’s preparation for puberty and childbirth? Or a girl’s willingness to obey?

Societies have a way of valuing things based on myths they believe in. In today’s world for instance, everyone believes the American dollar has value & Taylor Swift sings beautiful songs. But if you were to present a $100bill & a Taylor Swift concert ticket to a Ming Emperor’s court, they’d probably think you are a lunatic.

A woman with lotus gait feet, swaying & hardly able to walk was beautiful to them.

Today, we think of the practise as wicked. Totally inhuman. But do the mothers & fathers from Ming & Qing dynasties really mean to deliberately harm their girl children?

That was a time when, in nearly all societies, women were the property of men. If you and I lived a hundred years ago for instance, I’d probably be trying to marry off my fourteen-year-old to the man who offered the biggest dowry to me. Women belonged to their fathers, husbands, brothers or uncles, like goats & cattle.

We’ve come a long way. But there’s still a long way to go.