Walking Contradictions: Chinese Women Unbound at the Turn of the Century1

Although footbinding ended quickly in urban China once campaigns to eradicate the practice were launched, we cannot assume that reformers' depictions of boundfoot women mirrored women's actual capabilities or their own understandings of the custom. The turn-of-the-century anti-footbinding platforms, which characterized the practice as lewd, wasteful, and nationally humiliating, are read against evidence suggesting that women saw values of beauty, morality and productivity embodied within their bound feet.