Chinese foot binding is that barbaric practice of binding the feet of young girls to prevent them growing and kept small as they would then considered to be more desirable. The practice was outlawed in 1912 by the Republic of China government, but it took a while to be implemented and by 1950 virtually no young girls had their feet bound. There are still a few elderly Chinese women alive today who their feet bound when they were young girls.
While it is no longer done, some scholars have tried to draw parallels with the use of high heel shoes in modern society and Chinese foot binding. The purpose of the Chinese foot binding was to make the female more desirable to males. These scholars have argued that the wearing of high heel shoes in today’s society is to make the female more desirable to the males.
