Even though my sister has already written about what I am going to write about, I'm doing it anyway, mostly because it was my idea in the first place. Since my only readers are my family and they have probably read what she wrote, I apologize for any duplication of ideas or thoughts.
This summer while I was at the beach with my family my mom, sister and I began discussing Chinese food binding. My mother was reading a book about it and we decided to learn a little bit more about this seemingly inhumane tradition. The more we learned, the more appalled we became. (See above photo)
Chinese foot binding dates back to the 10th century and was practiced until the 20th century. A woman began binding her foot when she was a young girl. The binding would cause her feet to break and then grow to be deformed and often infected. The foot usually reached a length of a mere 4-5 inches. The smaller the better. The reasons for doing this were mainly aesthetic, for the binding caused the woman to walk in a certain way which for some reason was highly attractive. This is called the lotus gait. Another thing that I found interesting was that with bound feet, the women had very limited mobility causing them to have a very limited role in society.
As I learned these facts about foot binding I couldn't not believe that a women in her right mind would allow that to happen. And then it occurred to me that we women do the same thing today just in a different forms. This idea occurred to me as I was laying out in the sun suffering from a somewhat painful sunburn. Who ever decided that baking in the sun in order to have dark skin at the risk of getting cancer was a good idea? Probably someone who thought that breaking little girls feet was also a good idea.
My point is, which I feel like I am not expressing very well, is that it is really ridiculous what our society has defined as beauty. The pursuit of beauty as the world defines it is in most cases associated with pain, discomfort, and sacrifice of one's virtue. How easily we are deceived. I am so grateful for the Gospel that teaches us what real beauty is and that we don't have to sacrifice our souls to obtain it.
1 comment:
I don't have anything to add, really, since we discussed this at length at the beach and numerous other times as you were growing up. I am awaiting the day that I become secure enough to let my hair grow out gray, stop wearing makeup and dare I say stop looking in the mirror. Well, I'll be so ugly when I do the above, that I won't WANT to look in the mirror.
"The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity".
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