Can I read Aching for beauty : footbinding in China on EtoBox?

Aching for beauty : footbinding in China by Ping Wang, Wang Ping is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Aching for beauty : footbinding in China about?

Asian Studies/Women's Studies A fascinating and haunting exploration of the bound foot in Chinese culture. Why did so many Chinese women over a thousand-year period bind their feet, enduring rotting flesh, throbbing pain, and hampered mobility throughout their lives? What compelled mothers to bind the feet of their young daughters, forcing the girls to walk about on their doubled-over limbs to achieve the breakage of bones requisite for three-inch feet? Why did Chinese men find women's "golden lotuses"-stench and all-so arousing, inspiring beauty contests for feet, thousands of poems, and erotica in which bound, silk-slippered feet were fetishized and lusted after? As a child growing up during the Cultural Revolution, Wang Ping fantasized about binding her own feet and tried to restrict their growth by wrapping them in elastic bandages. Even though footbinding was not practiced by every woman in late Imperial China, the aesthetic, financial, and erotic advantages of footbinding permeated all aspects of language, ranging from erotic poetry, novels, and performances to food writing, myths, folk songs and ditties, and secret women's writing, some of it hidden in embroidery.

Who reads Aching for beauty : footbinding in China?

Author

Ping Wang, Wang Ping

Publisher

University of Minnesota Press

Published

2000

Language

EN

ISBN

9780816691722

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

History, Sociology, Health & Fitness

Rating

3.54 / 5 (110 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-13