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Previous studies of the practice of footbinding in imperial China have theorized that it expressed ethnic identity or that it served an economic function. By analyzing the popularity of footbinding in different places and times, Footbinding as Fashion investigates the claim that early Qing (1644–1911) attempts by Manchu rulers to ban footbinding made it a symbol of anti-Manchu sentiment and Han identity and led to the spread of the practice throughout all levels of society. Detailed case studies of Taiwan, Hebei, and Liaoning provinces exploit rich bodies of previously neglected ethnographic reports, economic surveys, and rare censuses of footbinding to challenge the significance of sedentary female labor and ethnic rivalries as factors leading to the hegemony of the footbinding fashion. The study concludes that, independently of identity politics and economic factors, variations in local status hierarchies and elite culture coupled with status competition and fear of ridicule for not binding girls’ feet best explain how a culturally arbitrary fashion such as footbinding could attain hegemonic status.

Footbinding --- Women --- Binding of feet --- Foot --- Foot-binding --- Deformities, Artificial --- History. --- Employment --- Social conditions. --- Artificial deformities --- Binding --- Abnormalities --- S11/0710 --- S11/0742 --- History --- Social conditions --- China: Social sciences--Women and gender: general and before 1949 --- China: Social sciences--Footbinding

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The history of footbinding is full of contradictions and unexpected turns. The practice originated in the dance culture of China's medieval court and spread to gentry families, brothels, maid's quarters, and peasant households. Conventional views of footbinding as patriarchal oppression often neglect its complex history and the incentives of the women involved. This revisionist history, elegantly written and meticulously researched, presents a fascinating new picture of the practice from its beginnings in the tenth century to its demise in the twentieth century. Neither condemning nor defending foot-binding, Dorothy Ko debunks many myths and misconceptions about its origins, development, and eventual end, exploring in the process the entanglements of male power and female desires during the practice's thousand-year history. Cinderella's Sisters argues that rather than stemming from sexual perversion, men's desire for bound feet was connected to larger concerns such as cultural nostalgia, regional rivalries, and claims of male privilege. Nor were women hapless victims, the author contends. Ko describes how women-those who could afford it-bound their own and their daughters' feet to signal their high status and self-respect. Femininity, like the binding of feet, was associated with bodily labor and domestic work, and properly bound feet and beautifully made shoes both required exquisite skills and technical knowledge passed from generation to generation. Throughout her narrative, Ko deftly wields methods of social history, literary criticism, material culture studies, and the history of the body and fashion to illustrate how a practice that began as embodied lyricism-as a way to live as the poets imagined-ended up being an exercise in excess and folly.

S11/0710 --- S11/0742 --- China: Social sciences--Women: general and before 1949 --- China: Social sciences--Footbinding --- Footbinding --- Bandage des pieds --- History --- Pathology --- Sociology of the family. Sociology of sexuality --- Human physiology --- China --- Binding of feet --- Foot --- Foot-binding --- Deformities, Artificial --- Artificial deformities --- Binding --- Abnormalities --- Social aspects. --- Feet --- Paw --- Paws --- Leg --- age of disavowal. --- beauty. --- china. --- chinese culture. --- chinese history. --- cultural nostalgia. --- dance culture. --- embodied lyricism. --- fangzu. --- fashion and clothing. --- female body. --- female desire. --- femininity. --- footbinding. --- gender expectations. --- gender performance. --- gender studies. --- high status. --- historical. --- history. --- imaginary geography. --- male desire. --- male power. --- male privilege. --- material culture studies. --- medieval court. --- men and women. --- patriarchal oppression. --- political. --- regional rivalry. --- self respect. --- social history. --- tianzu. --- Mutilations --- Images of women --- Female body --- Book