Editing Foot binding (section)

===Other interpretations===
Some scholars such as Laurel Bossen and Hill Gates reject the notion that bound feet in China were considered more beautiful, or that it was a means of male control over women, a sign of class status, or a chance for women to marry well (in general, bound women did not improve their class position by marriage). Foot binding is believed to have spread from elite women to civilian women and there were large differences in each region. The body and labor of unmarried daughters belonged to their parents, thereby the boundaries between work and kinship for women were blurred.<ref name="fujian">{{Cite journal |last=Gates |first=Hill |date=2001 |title=Footloose in Fujian: Economic Correlates of Footbinding |journal=[[Comparative Studies in Society and History]] |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=130–148 |doi=10.1017/S0010417501003619 |doi-broken-date=2024-11-13 |jstor=2696625 |pmid=18193574 |s2cid=11299781 |issn=0010-4175 }}</ref> They argued that foot binding was an instrumental means to reserve women to handwork, and can be seen as a way by mothers to tie their daughters down, train them in handwork, and keep them close at hand.<ref name=walsh>{{cite web |url= http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/12/unraveling-a-brutal-custom/ |title=Unraveling a brutal custom |author=Colleen Walsh |work=[[Harvard Gazette]] |date=December 9, 2011 }}</ref>{{sfn|Gates|2014}} This argument has been challenged by John Shepherd in his book ''Footbinding as Fashion'', and shows there was no connection between handicraft industries and the proportion of women bound in Hebei.{{sfn|Shepherd|2018|pp=113–143}}

Foot binding was common when women could do [[light industry]], but where women were required to do heavy farm work they often did not bind their feet because it hindered physical work. These scholars argued that the coming of the mechanized industry at the end of the 19th&nbsp;century and the beginning of the 20th&nbsp;century, such as the introduction of industrial textile processes, resulted in a loss of light handwork for women, removing a reason to maintain the practice. Mechanization resulted in women who worked at home facing a crisis.<ref name="bossen brown gates" /> Coupled with changes in politics and people's consciousness, the practice of foot binding disappeared in China forever after two generations.<ref name="fujian"/><ref name=walsh /> More specifically, the 1842 [[Treaty of Nanking|Treaty of Nanjing]] (after the [[First Opium War]]) opened five cities as [[treaty ports]] where foreigners could live and trade. This led to foreign citizens residing in the area, where many proselytized as Christian missionaries. These foreigners condemned many long-standing Chinese cultural practices like foot binding as "uncivilized" — marking the beginning of the end for the centuries-long practice.{{sfn|Hershatter|2018}}

It has been argued that while the practice started out as a fashion, it persisted because it became an expression of Han identity after the [[Mongol conquest of China|Mongols invaded China]] in 1279, and later the [[Manchu conquest|Manchus' conquest]] in 1644, as it was then practised only by Han women.{{clarify|Wasn't it also practised by Hui Muslims?|date=November 2024}}<ref name="steele">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lw1_yKwk_XkC&pg=PA40 |pages=40–41 |title=China Chic: East Meets West |author1=Valerie Steele |author2=John S. Major |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-300-07931-9 }}</ref> During the Qing dynasty, attempts were made by the Manchus to ban the practice but failed, and it has been argued the attempts at banning may have in fact led to a spread of the practice among Han Chinese in the 17th and 18th&nbsp;centuries.{{sfn|Ko|2005|p=266}} John Shepherd provides a critical review of the evidence cited for the notion that foot binding was an expression of "Han identity" and rejects this interpretation.{{sfn|Shepherd|2018|pp=23–31}}