[…] ancient times, women followed practices like - Chinese foot binding, wearing golden rings to streach the neck and wearing whale bone corsets that crushed ribs to give […]

its just part of the cultural tradition, theres nothing sick about it. you know whats sick? the way the americans fucked up the Indians and didnt do shit about it. so shut the fuck up theres nothing sick about foot binding

You know whats sick? Blaming all white people for what a few did to indians when indians were known for killing lots of white people, now your going to say that we deserved it for going to “their” lands. Its well documented that vikings were some of the first natives ever to go to America, so maybe it was the indians who came afterwards and took white people land. Also my family line came in the 1860s so stop hitting everyone for what a few people did.

WTF? what the hell are you talking about? There is no one even left alive anymore who was responsible for that so no one left to blame.
You do sound like you need a brief lesson on American History. You see, Europeans did actually come over to North America and claim the land as their own, even though it was occupied at the time. And, they did systematically remove the natives. And, I bet you would wanna kill also if some fool walked onto your property one day, looked around, said I like the view, my gun is bigger than yours so your home is now mine…

One more thing clown, Vikings are NOT American Indians, nor is the US or Mexico known for the huge Viking population so the theory of Indians coming from… from? outerspace maybe, since you did not say where they came from to steal the Viking land… needs more work.

why cant anyone talk about how lots of shit is fucked up without writing of someones suffering in favor of another? oh right, cuz this is something that only happened to women, so i guess its just not important

The human foot is not supposed to look like that. It is functional and is mechanically designed for ambulation. The practice of foot binding is an abuse of the human body, particularly as it is done to the child. We have laws against child abuse. Obviusly not 1000 years ago in China. Anybody who seems to think practices such as this are acceptable should perhaps experience it for themselves before they open their ignorent mouths and voice utter unintelligent drivle.

I suggest that some of you read Lisa See’s books, ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan’ along with ‘Peony in Love’. It’ll give you lots of insight of foot binding. Not only how it enticed men, but how women were proud of this. It showed they were strong, and wealthy enough to afford it.

queeeeeeeeeeeeee horriiiiiiible lo que le hacen a esas mujeres

wow-i was wrong when i thought that a picture of an ancient well in india was the most random lead in for an arguement on who’s to blame for the world’s problems. an informative article on footbinding is.

dat is soooooooooooooooooooooooo freakin discusting man y do dey have 2 do dat……..i wud rather DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
REALLY AND TRUELY

thats fuckin NASTY!!

The thing about cultural relativism is that it overlooks the fact that there is cross-cultural value-sharing and validation. For example, many accounts of footbinding written by Western scholars contain wording that implies that women were completely to blame for doing this to “themselves”, when in fact a three-year old girl does not choose to face the ultimatum of allowing oneself to be painfully maimed vs. becoming permanently “unmarriageable” in the eyes of often much-older men. And even if the toddler in question could grasp the consequences of this ultimatum, even that miserable choice was taken from her by the forcible binding of her feet by older relatives.

This is just one example of a “custom” that erases the agency of women being twisted into a blame-the-victim paradigm and then culturally validated by Western scholars of the “curious practice”. It is in the same category as suttee (burning or burying Indian widows alive), female genital mutilation, and other culturally idiosyncratic (but still very much in keeping with cross-cultural attitudes of gynocide) “customs”.

For more on this, an excellent book is “Gyn/ecology” by Mary Daly.

Oh, and cross-cultural validation flows the other way as well. The Western scholars of the Victorian era, for example, were validating their society’s own version of footbinding when they dismissed the “discomfort” induced by the “curious Oriental custom”: corsets were known to lead to rib deformities, asphyxiation, and permanent organ malformation. Pictures at http://traumwerk.stanford.edu:3455/michaelshanks/1071 illustrate this.

i reckon foot binding was complete torture for these poor women.its definatly abusing human rights. the custom of womans feet to be samller is honestly reallly stupid and dumb. honestly y cant people have a sense of right and wrong