Perceptions of female beauty

[Lace Neil Singer]

http://www.womanhonorthyself.com/?p=2630

I found this while looking for something else. Interesting; and a lot of it still goes on.

[Giggle Goose]

I recommend to the ladies (and the adventurous men) the historical fiction novel "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan." You learn a lot about the agony of foot binding; and even more importantly; why the hell they did it!

The feet weren't considered "golden lilies" until the bones had actually broken. And women who didn't have bound feet were considered worthless in a marriage.

[anriana]

That entire site is hilarious. "Stupid whore women need to cover up... but... uh... we don't mean it like those Islamofascisterrorist, that's totally different."

[Lace Neil Singer]

I recommend to the ladies (and the adventurous men) the historical fiction novel "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan." You learn a lot about the agony of foot binding; and even more importantly; why the hell they did it!

The feet weren't considered "golden lilies" until the bones had actually broken. And women who didn't have bound feet were considered worthless in a marriage.

I did a project on footbinding once, in sociology. The mechanics are terrifying; try this. Take a ruler and measure your feet to find out how many inches they are. Then compare them to the ideal, ie a foot 3 inches long. My feet are 8.5 inches; I can only imagine the agony that I would have to go thru to get 3 inch feet. O_o

[Flyndaran]

I did a project on footbinding once, in sociology. The mechanics are terrifying; try this. Take a ruler and measure your feet to find out how many inches they are. Then compare them to the ideal, ie a foot 3 inches long. My feet are 8.5 inches; I can only imagine the agony that I would have to go thru to get 3 inch feet. O_o

Umm, are they the same size as that of poorly fed chinese women of olden times?
That idea is simply the self handicapping to show how awesome one is. If a woman could afford to never walk properly, then they become inhuman and somehow lifted above the commoner that must work for a living.
It's similar to why so many, men especially, regularly injure themselves for no discernable benefit. Why do so many smoke when everyone knows it's stupid? To show that one is so capable that he can actively hinder himself and still function. Just look how awesome his genes must be.
See, there is an evolutionary reason why the ladies often like the dangerous dumbasses. Marry the stable provider, but boink the dumbass equals the best of both worlds for offspring.

[Flyndaran]

That entire site is hilarious. "Stupid whore women need to cover up... but... uh... we don't mean it like those Islamofascisterrorist, that's totally different."

We could go the other way and allow everyone to go naked. But as I've been near heavily clothed people that burn my nose hairs off with stank, I wouldn't want to imagine them without fabric as a barrier... or take their recently vacated seat on the bus.

[rdp78]

It is hard to understand why a culture would make woman suffer just so they are accepted into society and even though it is tradition it doesn't mean it should be continued. Of course, a few practices have stopped like foot binding (forget those pointy 6" high-heels this was the utilimate foot torture) in China and wearing corset (okay, it is still done but only a few do it on their own terms) in Western countries but there are still some that could be fatal like the neck rings of the Padaung tribe that are still practiced with no let down.

[lordlundar]

Umm, are they the same size as that of poorly fed chinese women of olden times?

Nope, it's much the same as a DD brest is viewed today. An ideal that is very rare (in the case of the foot, impossible) in nature. The 3 inch foot is considered the ideal because it still allowed the woman to walk (sort of) while being dainty.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Also, footbinding started as a RICH woman's fad; it only spread among the poor later. Some girls' feet were only bound later, as they were needed to work in the fields. But in the beginning of the fad, it was primarily a fad of the rich; so they were hardly "poorly fed". That statement just shows absolute ignorance of the custom, as well as completely ignoring the suffering.

I can't find it now, but I watched a youtube video that showed a woman with a two inch foot. o_o

[smileyeagle1021]

may I be the one to point out that yes, the practice of foot binding seems barbaric... but what about the practice of cutting open the breast and shoving baggies full of saline in to make them bigger, it's done on the butt as well. What about the practice of separating the skin from the face, stretching it and then reattaching it? Or injecting poisons into the face? Or poking holes in the ears? Thinking about it, those things probably would seem barbaric to an outsider, but seem perfectly normal to westerners. So should we stop all those things? And it's not just women who do it. Men (albeit normally not volunteerily) have their foreskin cut off for what has become cosmetic reasons. Men have also been known to hang weights on the penis in an attempt to stimulate it into growing longer. So this perception of beauty goes both ways.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Click the link; it's not just about footbinding.