Editing Foot binding (section)

===Role of Confucianism===
[[File:A HIGH CASTE LADYS DAINTY LILY FEET.jpg|thumb|220px|A woman with her feet unwrapped]]

During the [[Song dynasty]], the status of women declined.<ref name=mackie /> A common argument is that it was the result of the revival of [[Confucianism]] as [[neo-Confucianism]] and that, in addition to promoting the seclusion of women and the [[cult of widow chastity]], it also contributed to the development of foot binding.<ref name="ebrey 2"/> According to [[Robert van Gulik]], the prominent Song Confucian scholar [[Zhu Xi]] stressed the inferiority of women as well as the need to keep men and women strictly separate.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Ibp1RTW0AoC&pg=PA46 |title= Chinese Outcasts: Discrimination and Emancipation in Late Imperial China |author= Anders Hansson |page=46 |publisher=Brill |year= 1996 |isbn= 978-9004105966 }}</ref> It was claimed by [[Lin Yutang]] among others, probably based on an oral tradition, that Zhu Xi also promoted foot binding in [[Fujian]] as a way of encouraging chastity among women; that by restricting their movement, it would help keep men and women separate.<ref name="ebrey 2">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GDPskRXfl5cC&pg=PA10 |title=Women and the Family in Chinese History |author= Patricia Buckley Ebrey |pages=10&ndash;12 |publisher=Routledge |date=19 September 2002 |isbn= 978-0415288224}}</ref> However, historian [[Patricia Buckley Ebrey|Patricia Ebrey]] suggests that this story might be fictitious,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yTvLQbaH81wC&pg=PA139 |title= Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation |author= Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee |date= April 2006 |isbn= 978-0-7914-6749-7 |page=139 |publisher= State University of New York Press }}</ref> and argued that the practice arose so as to emphasize the gender distinction during a period of societal change in the Song dynasty.<ref name=mackie /><ref>{{cite journal |title=Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet |first=Aubrey L. |last=McMahan |journal=Grand Valley Journal of History |volume= 2 |issue= 1 Article 3  |citeseerx=10.1.1.648.2278}}</ref>

Some Confucian moralists in fact disapproved of the erotic associations of foot binding, and unbound women were also praised.<ref name="Smith2008">{{cite book |author=Bonnie G. Smith |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History: 4 Volume Set |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EFI7tr9XK6EC&pg=PA358 |year=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=978-0-19-514890-9 |pages=358–}}</ref> The Neo-Confucian [[Cheng Yi (philosopher)|Cheng Yi]] was said to be against foot binding and his family and descendants did not bind their feet.<ref>{{cite book |author=丁传靖 编 |title=《宋人轶事汇编》|location=北京 |publisher=中华书局 |date=1981 |page=卷9，第2册，页455}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/foot-binding-and-ruism-confucianism_us_58c86e8fe4b01d0d473bceed |title=Foot-binding and Ruism (Confucianism) |date=16 March 2017 |author= Bin Song |work=Huffington Post }}</ref> Modern Confucian scholars such as [[Tu Weiming]] also dispute any causal link between neo-Confucianism and foot binding,<ref>{{cite book |title=Confucian thought: selfhood as creative transformation |author= Tu Wei-ming |publisher= State University of New York Press |date= 1985 }}</ref> as Confucian doctrine prohibits [[mutilation]] of the body as people should not "injure even the hair and skin of the body received from mother and father". It is argued that such injunction applies less to women, rather it is meant to emphasize the sacred link between sons and their parents. Furthermore, it is argued that Confucianism institutionalized the family system in which women are called upon to sacrifice themselves for the good of the family, a system that fostered such practice.<ref name="blake"/>

Historian [[Dorothy Y. Ko|Dorothy Ko]] proposed that foot binding may be an expression of the Confucian ideals of civility and culture in the form of correct attire or bodily adornment, and that foot binding was seen as a necessary part of being feminine as well as being civilized. Foot binding was often classified in [[Chinese encyclopedia]] as clothing or a form of bodily embellishment rather than mutilation. One from 1591, for example, placed foot binding in a section on "Female Adornments" that included hairdos, powders, and ear piercings. According to Ko, the perception of foot binding as a civilized practice may be evinced from a [[Ming dynasty]] account that mentioned a proposal to "entice [the barbarians] to civilize their customs" by encouraging foot binding among their womenfolk.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://womenshistory.osu.edu/sites/womenshistory.osu.edu/files/The%20Body%20as%20Attire.pdf |title=The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China |journal=Journal of Women's History|volume =8|number= 4 |date= 1997 |pages= 8–27 |doi= 10.1353/jowh.2010.0171 |first=Dorothy |last= Ko |s2cid=145191396 }}</ref> The practice was carried out only by women on girls, and it served to emphasize the distinction between male and female, an emphasis that began from an early age.<ref name="steele"/><ref name="Ko1994">{{cite book |author=Dorothy Ko |title=Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-century China |url=https://archive.org/details/teachersofinnerc00kodo |url-access=registration |year=1994 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-2359-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/teachersofinnerc00kodo/page/149 149]–}}</ref> Anthropologist Fred Blake argued that the practice of foot binding was a form of discipline undertaken by women themselves, and perpetuated by women on their daughters, so as to inform their daughters of their role and position in society, and to support and participate in the neo-Confucian way of being civilized.<ref name="blake">{{cite journal |url= http://anthropology.hawaii.edu/People/Faculty/Blake/pdfs/1994%20%20Foot-binding%20in%20Neo-Confucian%20China.pdf |title= Foot-Binding in Neo-Confucian China and the Appropriation of Female Labor |author= C. Fred Blake |journal=Signs |volume= 19 |number= 3 |date= 1994 |pages= 676–712|doi= 10.1086/494917 |s2cid= 40841025 |access-date= 2016-10-29 |archive-date= 2018-10-25 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181025003227/http://anthropology.hawaii.edu/People/Faculty/Blake/pdfs/1994%20%20Foot-binding%20in%20Neo-Confucian%20China.pdf |url-status= dead}}</ref>