Throughout history, societies’ perception of beauty has been tried to be shaped through women. The woman had to be beautiful, and she had to suffer for it if necessary. Strangely enough, this pressure was often exerted by the women themselves. If you think that putting on make-up, plastic surgery and wearing a corset is painful, then you haven’t met China’s thousand-year-old lotus foot tradition yet.
Lotus foot is a kind of foot binding tradition. Women whose feet were tied when they were still children, their feet curled inwards as they grew up, and according to them, a very elegant and beautiful shape emerged. This condition, which causes numerous diseases in the person, has been a popular tradition for many years, especially among the nobility. Let’s take a closer look at what lotus foot means and see the story of the emergence of this tradition.
Dance like a lotus flower:
In fact, the origin story of the lotus foot tradition is quite innocent. It is estimated that in the 10th century, Li Yu, the Southern Tang emperor of China, had a giant two-meter lotus statue made and asked his concubine, Yao Niang, to dance there. The woman, who was already a dancer, tied her feet with silk cloths to enhance her show, resulting in an even more captivating performance.
Unfortunately, this story spread by word of mouth among the nobility. Once the fascinating sight of elegant feet was engraved in everyone’s mind, women began to tie their feet in this way. In the 1100s, there are poems that talk about this form of baglama. However, when we came to the 13th century, this tradition began to be practiced by little girls, and it was even criticized by one of the scholars of the time, Che Ruoshui.
The earliest evidence of the lotus foot tradition is from the 13th century:
Stories and poems aside, the earliest archaeological finds to prove this tradition point to the 13th century. In an excavation, it was seen that the foot bones of a 17-year-old young woman estimated to have died in 1243 and a woman estimated to have died in 1274 were found to fit in pointed shoes. Since the Chinese are a nation afraid of disturbing their ancestors, even if there are such excavations, their number is not very high.
The first European name to mention this unusual tradition was an Italian missionary known as Odoric of Pordenone, who visited China in the 14th century. Other travelers, such as Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, did not mention such a tradition, even though they noticed the graceful gait of the women. But to say that all women have this kind of graceful gait is a sign that the lotus foot tradition is spreading.
Of course, there were those who wanted to abolish the lotus foot tradition:
By the 17th century, the lotus foot tradition had become an indispensable feature not only among noble women, but also among all Chinese women. In fact, for women without lotus feet, getting married was almost a dream.
While the Manchurian rulers announced the establishment of the Qing dynasty in 1636, they also worked to eliminate the lotus foot tradition. Some Han Chinese followed this order, but for the vast majority of the people this tradition was indispensable. It was therefore re-released in 1668.
There are still women with lotus feet:
When we came to the 19th century, it was estimated that all the women of the nobility and at least half of the ordinary women had lotus feet. In this period, with the influence of Christian missionaries, a great movement started against the tradition of tying feet. Even associations working on this issue were established.
When we came to the 20th century, there was no prohibition, even if the number of people who tied their feet was small. After 1911, some restrictions were introduced on the lotus foot in order not to attract the public’s reaction, and finally, it was officially banned in 1957. In 1999, the last factory producing shoes suitable for lotus feet was closed. Today, there is no longer a lotus foot tradition, but some old women with lotus feet who were exposed to this tradition are still alive.
Both archaeological findings and studies on living people show that women with lotus feet have frequent infections, can easily lose their fingers, it is almost impossible to walk, they suffer even if they walk, and the risk of bone fracture is very high as age progresses.
There may be some form of foot fetishism underlying the lotus foot tradition:
We are sure that everyone is reading this tradition inevitably ‘Why?’ he thought. To be honest, we don’t know. Because there are few historical sources that talk about such a tradition, but they do not give a definite reason. Of course, the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is the perception of social beauty. Women with small hands and small feet have always been found more beautiful. Lotus foot takes this perception one step further.
Another theory talks about a kind of foot fetishism. During the Song dynasty, men drank from a shoe-shaped cup. During the Yuan dynasty, they started drinking directly from women’s shoes. This tradition is called toasting the golden lotus. According to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, there is a connection between these two traditions and this connection points to foot fetishism.
There are also those who think that walking this way will create a tighter vagina in women. There are also those who argue that this tradition was made to isolate women from men and society. Although there are many different theories on this subject, there is one point that everyone agrees on, the purpose of this tradition, which causes women to suffer terribly by having their feet tied as a child, is to make women look more attractive to men.
So, is lotus foot a mutation or a modification?
Lotus foot is a kind of modification because the feet of girls are tied when they are very young and the foot bone tends to grow downwards due to external factors. For this to be a mutation, it would have to be ingrained in the genes and babies would have to be born that way.
Luckily we don’t do things like that anymore, do we?
Even if we say that we are destroying the society’s perception of beauty in the 21st century, take a look around you; plastic surgeries, fillers, silicones, make-up materials, clothes, gyms, Instagram filters and much more. Unfortunately, such changes are now seen even in adolescents. Okay, maybe a child’s foot is not forcibly tied as in the lotus foot tradition, but isn’t it so scary that a child who is bullied because of his appearance feels obligated to have plastic surgery?
We talked about the thousand-year-old lotus foot tradition that Chinese women have to do for the sake of beauty. How terrible it is that we have to conform to a certain perception of beauty throughout history, even though some are painful and some are less painful, and that even when we say I don’t fit, we actually feel bad inside.
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