When the girls were around 2-years-old, their mothers would bind their feet. To do so, their mothers would have to bend the girls' toes downwards towards their heels. Then, they would use a heavy object, quite often a large piece of rock, to smash the bones on the feet in order to crush the arch on the feet. A long heavy piece of linen was then used to bind the crushed feet tightly. The bandage was never removed, except when the feet needed to be washed and the soiled linen changed.
The girls would then wear dainty hand-embroidered satin slippers to make their feet attractive to would-be suitors. Believe it or not, such dainty feet, usually no longer than 3 inches, were called "Golden Lilies". And apparently, men in the upper classes of Chinese society found such '"lilies" erotic. They found the way women wobbled and swayed unsteadily on their bound feet arousing because it made the women seem so vulnerable.
My late great-grandmother had bound feet. When I was a little girl, I used to envy her dainty feet, not knowing the pain & suffering she went through for them. She used to wash her feet in her room behind closed doors. When we kids tried to peek to see what she was doing, she would get really upset. I never quite understood why until I found out why her feet were so small.
However, I do remember the awful stench that emanated from her feet each time her bandage was removed. I could not figure out why her feet stank so much. Until I saw the raw pus-filled flesh on her feet one day by accident. Because the feet were always bound up, there was no air circulation to dry up the pus.
So, it seems women with bound feet had to suffer pain and infection throughout their lives. But I couldn't understand why my late great-grandmother did not remove her foot binding when they emigrated from China to Singapore in her late teens. Perhaps she was too scared to see what her feet would look like without the bandages. Or perhaps she was too used to having her feet bound, despite the pain she had to put up with.
In conclusion, I'm glad that I did not have to grow up in such an environment. There is no excuse for anyone, male or female, to inflict such suffering on another human being for the sake of vanity or sexual gratification.
Yet, despite the technological and economic progresses our modern world has achieved, barbaric practices such as female circumcision are still being carried out in some Third World societies. Why is this so? Why is there a need to subjugate and humiliate women in such an appalling manner?
This proves that more needs to be done by the global community to ensure that women in poorer societies are not subjected to such inhumane practices. Women are people too. Women have emotions too. They need to be respected and treated as equals. Not subjugated. Not tortured. Not humiliated.
