The Chinese Mother's Lullaby

Pull in your feet, little darling,
so I can kiss your wee trotters
while I fold under a toe
and another one underneath.
I bend a little piggie.
I bend another little piggie
And look at that naughty little piggie
that is still sticking out.

Now, now, my treasure,
there is work to be done here.
Your toes like fairy thimbles,
the blossom of the foxglove.
Like a calf that is spancelled
or a hobble on a chicken,
there will be swaddlings of silk
on the feet of my dear.

That my daughter now shrieks
like a blue jay is no matter,
she will sway in the future
like a bamboo on a windy day
or like a willow sapling.
So I bend under the big toe
and another toe after
to form a foot like a lotus
about to unfold.

Poor Cliodhna has flat feet.
Maire has huge ones.
Peggy's are like spades
and Niamh's like two rakes.
Just hold still, my dearie,
while I tighten your bindings.
I'm only your mammy
doing my very best for your sake

This poem, written in Irish by 'Biddy Jenkinson' (a pseudonym), recently caught my attention. It concerns the traditional Chinese practice of foot-binding. This meant that small girls had their feet systematically crushed, with broken toes and tight bandages, to produce over the course of time, tiny, suppurating trotters that were too painful and damaged to walk upon but which could be forced into dainty little silk shoes such as these. "Each pair cost a bath of tears" the saying went. You can read the full detail of excruciating process here.

Why did this happen? The origins of the custom are lost in the mists of time but once established, bound feet became both a status symbol: these women were too crippled to do any work and had to rely upon servants, and also a sex symbol: the 'lotus foot' was deemed to be highly erotic and men insisted that their wives should possess them. Foot-binding thus became essential for daughters to be marriagable and it was imperative for mothers to ensure it was done.

The soles of the little bootees in my blip measure less that 3 inches. I've put them against a pair of my size 5 (38) boots for comparison. Foot-binding was only outlawed 100 years ago but well into the 20th century there remained elderly Chinese women who could barely hobble on their little hooves. It seems incredible that this practice could have been allowed to continue for 1000 years.

And yet. Recently we learnt that 30,000 women in France, 40,000 in Britain and thousands more in South America and other parts of the world are living with breast implants filled with industrial grade silicone that was not approved for medical use. The French firm that used it did so to cut costs and are taking no responsibility for the consequences. If the implants rupture, as maybe as many as 7% do, the untested substance leaks into the body with consequences that are as yet unclear.

Many of these implants have been inserted for reconstructive purposes following surgery but the majority have been used for cosmetic augmentation. You can argue that it's not comparable to foot-binding because the consumers were adult women who made a deliberate choice (in the belief that the materials used were safe). But anyone with an iota of feminist consciousness would recognise that social and cultural factors (the media, advertising, celebrity example etc.) still exert in their way pressures as constricting as the bandages on Chinese infant feet in times gone by.