There is a historic process from rural China that involved the binding of the foot of female children to stop them from growing. It was a crude process and was debilitating and disabling to the feet. It was done as a tinier foot was thought to be a desirable characteristic in the female and a higher dowry could be demanded by the family for the bride-to-be if the feet had been bound. There was an important industry in these rural communities for the ornamental and carefully crafted footwear that these people would be required to use because of the smaller and disfigured feet. Around 100 or so years ago community pressures did start to mount to get rid of the practice and this mostly worked and it is not carried out nowadays. The foot binding had to finish as it was so disabling and painful for the girls. When they became an adult, the harm had been done and there was not much that could be done to manage the pain and disability. Having said that, you will still find many older woman alive that had their feet bound when they were young children.

You will find theoretically commonalities to this practice of chinese foot binding that may be observed nowadays. A number of experts try to associate the practice today of females which push their feet into the high heel footwear as being exactly like the foot binding. In rural China the practice was all about the female carrying out something that pleases the male, no matter the consequences in terms of pain and disability. The practice today of using tight fitting high heel shoes by females has consequences in the terms of foot deformity and foot pain. It is also purportedly done in the perspective of the female doing something which is agreeable to the eye of the male. There is some controversy if the connection between the two practices really do justify the type of exploration that they have been subjected to.