Body Practices Many societies have done radical things to women’s bodies as a matter of cultural or religious practice

Chinese Foot Binding 1000 years (until 20th Century) Foot binding (Simplified Chinese: 缠足; Traditional Chinese: 纏足; pinyin: chánzú, literally "bound feet") was a custom practiced on females for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 900's and ending in the early 20th Century. In Chinese foot binding, young girls' feet, usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally; they would, instead, break and become highly deformed, not growing past 4-6 inches. The smaller the feet, the greater a girl’s chance at marriage. The foot needed to be small enough to hypothetically fit into a man’s mouth. Some scholars have claimed that the erotic effect was a function of the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. The very fact that the bound foot was concealed from men's eyes was, in and of itself, sexually suggestive. That which is concealed or taboo automatically becomes a fetish (example: breasts and buttocks in cultures that cover them).

Foot Fetishes Cameron Kippen, Curtin University of Technology, Perth WA http://podiatry.curtin.edu.au/fetish.html#good

Corsets

Corsets Girls started at age 14 tightening until waist was 18-19 inches

Padaung tribe of Burma Rings stretch out the neck; without the rings, the neck would break or woman would suffocate

Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/images/1_8.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2006/12/&h=144&w=200&sz=9&hl=en&start=17&um=1&tbnid=-dMvy4MQGitOIM:&tbnh=75&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dforced%2Bobesity%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26sa%3DN

Prestige & Early Puberty

Female Genital Mutilation

Why? Beliefs that women’s bodies are - not adequate and need to be “fixed” - threatening and must be “controlled” - not sexy enough and need to be “enhanced.” Culture intervenes to “solve” the problem.