Podcast: A Short History Of Foot-Binding

Why is it that for almost a thousand years about three billion Chinese women malformed their feet through foot-binding? How did it become a thing? What have been the cultural and political implications of foot-binding? And what brought the practice to an end? These are all questions that this episode of Stuff You Should Know answers.

The practice of foot-binding started around 970 AD, when the then-emperor saw a ballerina with wrapped feet dancing, and he was enchanted. It took only that, and the other girls and women – who all wanted to be liked by the emperor – were soon going at it, soaking their feet in hot water and animal blood almost everyday, wrapping bandages around them, folding the toes in and so on. Later, when it become a tradition, the ritual of transforming your feet began at 4 years old and it was performed by your grandma or a village lady. It goes without saying that the pain as you were receiving this treatment, and for pretty much the rest of your life, was excruciating.

When you look at the long-lasting effects of this tradition, you find, among other things, that it both fostered dominance over women (because women who were, for example, victims of domestic violence couldn't run away; they also couldn't travel handicapped as they were, hence they became very dependent on their husbands), and it also created strong bonds between women.