BEAUTY is PAIN :) (WARNING: MIGHT GIVE YOU FOOT CRAMPS!)

Women have always had conflicting feelings about looks from the earliest of times. Sitting here thinking of what to blog about I came across some pictures of Chinese women and how they used to bind their feet. This sparked interest in looking at how things have changed in style and what is sexy and what an “acceptable” woman looks like.






Back in ancient China even now women were binding their feet. Chinese women were seen as upper class, stylish, and sexy women if they bound their feet.Binding of the feet was started as soon as the girl could walk. Their ultimate goal was to get their feet as small as possible, the empresses went as far as making her feet a size 2 at the age of 30. This process involved bandages about 2 inches wide and 2 feet long and the feet were wrapped so that the top of the foot made a hill and the toes and top of the foot curled under to meet he middle of the foot. According to various sources I read about this history of binding from girls to women sleep deprivation was common unless with the assistance of narcotics, this is because women wanted their feet so small as small as possible the pain was unbearable. These women though were left with painful scars and forever walking with fancy canes got to wear their “golden lilies,” (which were special shoes that were a privilege to wear), and that is all that mattered to them. The years of binding for the smallest of feet caused lack of circulation and infection that decayed and eventually when the bandages were changed some toes would just fall off. They definitely have coined the term “beauty is pain,” because in our society we think that we are the only ones so fixated on how skinny we can be, how our hair looks, how many Botox injections we can get to look younger as we ironically get older. These women back in old China prided themselves on the size of their feet not the size of their waste no matter what the cost sometimes even death. SO the question is how far would we go for perfection?

WOMEN ONLY TRIBE

Women all around the world no matter what race seek out happiness. Searching YouTube I came upon a couple short videos of an all women’s tribe in Kenya called the Samburo tribe in Umoja. This video sparked my interest because the caption for the video said, “the village were men are forbidden.” Knowing very little about the African tribe I watched a couple of the videos. These heart wrenching videos show the reason why these women live together without men. Majority are there because of the British army rapes that happened years before but still shake the lives of the women because after the rapes the women were ostrised and looked poorly upon in their home villages. Other women were tired of the polygamy and their daughters’ being raped and forced into marriage with much older men when the women were not of age to reproduce. So one women spoke and started this village of women, her name is Lolosoli. Over three dozen women live happily in this tribe in the dry grasslands and do everything that a man can do. The men are allowed in the village to have relationships with the women as well as come to eat and reproduce without the use of sexual force but consensual. The fact that the men respect the village of these women to me sounds incredible because these women were tortured and looked down upon for something so horrific. Especially living in a society where the norm is that women obey the men and live the way the men want them to. The men were told by the local government they were not to overstep their boundaries as read in the Washington Post article of this tribe, but it is amazing to see a society where men rule that they are comfortable with giving the women the respect they deserve and letting them live the way they want to. "… Women have to demand rights, and then respect will come. But if you remain silent, no one thinks you have anything to say…” Lolosilo said to the Washington Post. These women have made such an impact on their society that people went from disrespecting them to the government being on their side to help protect them. I believe everyone can learn from this because it is a perfect example of not forgetting what you have been through, not being the victim but being an inspiration and positive advocate for others like you and a voice to change not just a village but the world.