Pain: Beauty Is Pain

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Recommended: How societies promote beauty culture

Kiana Moore
Grose
Eng 102
21 March 2014
Beauty is Pain
Throughout history women have had to endure horrible things to be deemed beautiful. The ancient tradition of foot binding in China, however, takes the “beauty is pain” concept to a whole new level. Foot binding, also known as lotus feet, is the Chinese custom of applying painfully tight binding to the feet of a young girl to break all of the bones in both feet and to also prevent further growth in order to keep the feet three inches long. Although one may feel that this was completely ridiculous, having this procedure done meant that a girl will be able to get married to a wealthy man and will be referred to as attractive. The cost of beauty comes with a massive price as well. The loss of the ability to walk is the biggest price a Chinese girl had to pay in order to be accepted in the Chinese culture. During the Sung Dynasty period, women have mutilated, bound, deformed, permanently damaged and altered their bodies not only to be accepted in society, but also to satisfy men erotically and sexually as well as weaken themselves to make men feel more powerful.
No one is quite sure exactly how the process of foot binding was first started or how it gained its popularity, but there are a lot of tall tales. Some believe that the practice began when a concubine called “Precious Thing” belonging to Prince Li Yu danced somewhat like a ballerina on her toes. She did this inside a six foot high lotus. From there, the custom is believed to have been picked up by royalty before becoming popular with commoners. The second belief originated among upper-class court dancers. Court dancers wrapped their feet in white silk to dance atop a golden lotus sculpture. The talented dancers bound thei...

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...ese family, woman belonged in the house and had no place in the outside world. Women were bound to patriarchy in the state society. Women were basically enslaved to become married to any man that came about and felt that their feet were tiny enough to be hitched. Chinese female bodies had been successfully used by men to perform the task often impossible crisis in order to idealize loyalty and integrity. All this body modification did was show that women were inferior to man, smaller feet meant a higher status in society, and putting one’s self in agonizing pain to become married meant crippling yourself for your whole entire life. Putting a ban on foot binding was the best choice in the Chinese culture. Today, women can do whatever they want without mutilating, deforming, and permanently damaging their bodies for the acceptance of men and the acceptance of society.

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