 In Dead Man’s Party, Joyce Summers tells Buffy she has been looking at different schools to send Buffy to, including a girls’ school. Buffy replies, “A girls’ school? So now it’s jackets, kilts, and no boys? Care to throw in a little foot-binding?” Buffy is referring to the Chinese tradition of tightly binding the feet of girls to stunt their growth as small feet were considered a sign of beauty. The process was extremely cruel and painful. |
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| Suggested by: | › Jess |
| Added: | › 30th September 2004 |
| Updated: | › 20th January, 2006 |
| Hits: | › 691 |
June 21st, 2005 at 12:47 am
Fortunately, not a tradition that’s been followed during the past century. The ideal was a foot not merely small but tiny–it was meant to resemble the foot of a dancer raised up on her toes.
It involved not only binding but also breaking a girl’s foot. First the foot was broken; then the front part was pulled toward the heel and the whole thing was bound. After that, the girl’s foot was essentially composed of her toes and heel. She would teeter along, unable to walk without support. This practice went on for about a thousand years. Once it became the standard, it was enforced–a girl could not hope to marry unless her feet had been bound. And, as in most cultures at the time, unmarried girls didn’t have much of a future. What a cycle.