Foot-binding: The Social Construction Of Chinese Female Body

Since we were born, we were unable to cast off the mark on our body pressed by society, especially female's body which is more vulnerable to be fettered by various social standards. Based on the body theory of Foucault, Bourdieu, Giddens and others', this thesis is to analyze the social phenomenon of women's foot-binding in ancient China from the view of body sociology using text analysis method. The paper is composed of six chapters. The first chapter puts forward the main perspective: the relationship between female body and social construction as well as the social power, introducing some relative documents on body research. The second chapter focuses on the meaning and properties of body, and then summarizes the history of female foot-binding process in ancient China. Chapter Three, applying Foucault's power theory, stresses the social construction of female body. Chapter Four analyzes the internalization of body construction by female themselves. In Chapter Five, it reinforces the social standards upon female body to achieve dual construction of society and body, due to females' acceptance of construction exerted by outside world, which is explained by Giddens' theory and body capital concept. In Chapter Six, the author tries to draw a conclusion from the above discussion with reconsideration.The conclusions are as follows: in the ancient patriarchal society, the females' body was constructed by foot-binding as standard and profound social significance was endowed. As a result, women were forced to suffer this sorrow unconditionally, showing the fact that bondage was made by men and construction of female body was also controlled by men. However, female gradually accepted and internalized this kind of body construction, which turned to be a common language for women during that period. Finally, foot-binding was accepted by women initiatively. Hence the external construction was further strengthened in turn by women themselves. In the end of this paper, the author expresses her idea that even though women in modern society have got rid of foot-binding, they are still subject to social construction to some degree. There is still a long way to go for women's real liberation.