Foot binding in Chinese culture is a practice that is said to date back to the time of Emperor Li Yu (Troy, "The History of Foot Binding in China"). He created a six-foot tall golden lotus adorned with pearls and jewels, asking his concubine to bind her feet into the shape of a lotus and dance of its points. This slowly became a widespread practice among the royal court and then the whole of China. This practice is an example of corporeal and physical representations of women in both historical and modern Asia. They are subject to processes of othering and fetishization as a result of the process of foot binding. This blog post aims to first introduce the history and culture of foot binding, its effects on Chinese women, the effects of European missionaries on the practice, and its fetishization. T H E H I S T O R Y O F F O O T B I N D I N G By the early Qing Dynasty in the 17th century, the process of foot binding became widespread throughout China- ...