Sole Beauty

The painful history of foot binding

- By Sue Amory Verner

“Will it hurt, Mother?”

Changying met Mother’s deep brown eyes. Was she crying? Mother rubbed Changying’s feet, massaging oil on the bottom and over the toes. Her light touch felt almost like a hug. Then Mother took firm hold of the pinky and snapped it. Lightning stabbed Changying. She fought the thrust of her stomach. Mother continued. A second toe. A third. A fourth. Unbelievable pain. Agony even. Pain that started now and would last the rest of her life.

“You are a good daughter, Changying,” Mother said when it was done. Changying nodded, choking back the sobs. She could not stop the tears, but she did not scream. This was important. This was what a woman had to do. This was beauty.

What Is Beauty?

How important is beauty to you? What would you do to have a boy or girl like you? To have someone call you attractive? To look like another person wants you to look? In China starting sometime in the 900s CE, the answers to these questions were striking. Women, first of the upper classes and later of all classes, went through a torturous process known as foot binding. Foot binding was a “beauty treatment.” The goal of foot binding was to restrict the foot’s growth, making it tiny, delicate, and cone shaped. In those times, if a woman wanted to be beautiful, she had to have tiny feet.