There is a old process from rural China that involved the binding of the foot of female young people to stop them from growing. It was a barbaric practice and was painful and disabling to the feet. It was done as a small foot was thought to be an attractive characteristic in the female and a greater dowry can be demanded by the family for the bride-to-be if the feet had been bound. There was a substantial market in these rural communities for the ornamental and finely crafted shoes that these people would need to wear because of the smaller and misshaped feet. Around 100 or so years ago societal pressures did start to mount to ban the practice and this largely was successful and it is not carried out nowadays. The practice needed to stop as it was so debilitating and painful for the girls. When they became a grownup, the harm had been done and there was very little that might be done to deal with the pain and disability. Having said that, you can still find many older woman alive that had their feet bound when they were young children.

There are apparently commonalities to this practice of chinese foot binding that could be seen these days. Several commentators like to link the practice these days of females who push their feet inside the high heel footwear as being the same as the practice. In rural China the technique was all about the female performing something which pleases the male, no matter the outcomes in terms of discomfort and deformity. The practice today of using tight fitting high heel shoes by females has outcomes in the terms of foot deformity and foot problems. It is also apparently done in the perspective of the female doing something which is agreeable to the eye of the male. There is some argument if the connection between the two practices really do justify the kind of exploration that they have been subjected to.