The Binding of Women's Feet in China

I'm half-Chinese, but, all of me is filled with horror at what I am going to revisit here.

The tradition of foot binding was a part of Chinese culture for most of the last millennium (1000-1900's).

I cannot believe that parents could bring themselves to wrapping bands around their little daughter's feet so tightly that they would break their bones, and would hear their daughters crying in pain for years afterwards...
Why?
Why this degree of cruelty?
Are human beings just monsters?

...no.
I believe Human Beings are naturally loving, and, even our most horrifying acts are done out of a form of love (albeit skewed and perverted).

A Matter of Prestige and Advancement

Foot binding was such an all pervasive part of Chinese culture, that to not bind a girl's feet was to doom her to a life of social ostracization.

So thoroughly ingrained was the belief in the Chinese consciousness.

The Pursuit of Beauty

sigh...I so wholly empathize with the desire to be attractive.

I have always been drawn by attractive girls (naturally) but have rarely felt attractive enough myself to approach them.
I personally consider myself nice looking, but, not sufficiently so to impose myself, and my "pleasant enough" appearance on the truly stellar members of the fair sex.

I understand the desire to be attractive completely.
I'm obsessed with it, how should it be any different throughout the course of our human history.

Genuinely and Truthfully, Chinese people were raised to believe a woman was made far more attractive by having small feet.
Crazy?
What about our obsession with tanned skin today?
Women are giving themselves skin cancer in tanning salons because they believe that dark, olive colored skin IS so much more desirable.

sniff. : ' (
we poor human beings.
we want so badly to be loved and appreciated and wanted.
we're willing to mutilate ourselves to achieve it.

Why can't we just love ourselves the way we are?
Because as a species we have never expressed all the pain we feel,
and,
we have never forgiven ourselves for the pain we caused.

"Human Tears are like Water. They clean Human Wounds."

Feel Profoundly

Causing pain, is not something Human Beings do without suffering great pain themselves.

I believe, we need to feel our pain, and express it.

It took people who felt the pain of all those women, all those little girls, to finally say,
"That's enough. This isn't right."

I believe, anyone who suffers can help stop the pain of others.