When I was very young, my family shared a row of bungalows with three other families. All three of them have a grandma. All grandmas like to wash their feet outside. They all bind their feet (纏腳) so the process of washing their feet is very long. The children will gather around to watch. I had observed that the young grandma's feet are bigger, while the older grandma's feet are smaller. The oldest grandma's feet are very small, only the size of her hands, and very pointed. My little head thought that the older the woman, the smaller her feet.
When I grew up, I realized that cruel foot binding (纏腳) had made their feet smaller. The oldest grandma has the strictest binding, so her feet were the smallest. All the bones on her toes were broken, and then the toes were pressed under the soles of the feet to make the feet look smaller. Why do they do such a painful thing? The answer is easy to find, the patriarchal society forces them to do this. But why do some women break their ribs to make their waists smaller today? Why do young women cut off part of the facial bone in order to make the chin smaller? I asked myself, why do I wear high heels, some of which are more than 4 inches? Why did I wear a skirt in the very cold winter before?
Men should do this, not women. I just watched the Netflix documentary "Life in Color" and realized that in the animal kingdom, males are always colorful and beautiful. Male peacocks do that in an extreme form. Their beautiful long tails that attract females put them at a higher risk than females.
Why has that changed on humans?
