Summary Of Footbinding In China

The development of footbinding was so distant and steam long and the regions influenced by footbinding were so vast that none of a descriptive and explanatory framing could state the real meaning of the footbinding completely. The author Dorothy Ko illustrated the complex historical development of footbinding in her journal “The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeen-Century China”. She described three historic stages of footbinding: the heyday of footbinding, the prohibition of footbinding and the revival of footbinding through three main perspectives – wen civility, ethnic boundaries separating Han and Manchu, and the embellishment of the body. Although there were still some arguments seem not so persuasive in author’s article most …show more content…
So this proposal was more convictive to show that footbinding was a way used by Chinese to conquer “barbarians”. In addition, Qu’s proposal was disclosed in Wanli yehuo bian , a work written by Shen Defu in Ming dynasty but Shen did not write any source for Qu’s proposal. This made the argument of Dorothy less reliable since the primary source she used could not be verified. To make her argument stronger, Dorothy could quote a more reliable primary source, give a definition about Chinese civility and a more detailed explanation of in what aspect did footbinding relate to …show more content…
This symbolized that the meaning of footbinding was converted from the demand for beauty of the society to the demand for morality. The example of Sun Zhixie strongly supported this shifting of meaning in footbinding. The trap devised by other officials to kill Zhixie after knowing that he shaved his head and had the women in his family unbind their feet implied that their morality has already distorted and Zhixie’s attempt to suicide symbolized his resist to the moral kidnapping. Although most of author’s arguments fit her thesis, this article was biased as a secondary source because it was written based on the perspective of Chinese elite males. Most of historical articles ignored the feeling of women. To be unbiased, we must seek the initiative and motivation of women about their persist in footbinding because footbinding was experience upon their own body. And we have to realize that the existing of footbinding was not only the reflection of political status but also the self-esteem and desire of women in ancient