Talk:Foot binding

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 February 2021 and 11 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Adamyau12, Beanta.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2020 and 22 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kristen998. Peer reviewers: Brittanyli, Phoenix 1620, SisiShen.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Baseless statistic in the introduction

An internet [1] mentioned today that the following statistic in the introduction is unfounded:

It has been estimated that by the 19th century, 40–50% of all Chinese women may have had bound feet, rising to almost 100% in upper-class Chinese women.

Indeed, the source (an NPR article) claims it based only on a book about foot fetishism. Do there exist references that confirm the statistic? Moreover, the source claims that "[s]ome estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women broke and bound their feet to attain this agonizing ideal of physical perfection" without giving any reference or at least a time period over which this value has been aggregated. It may be better to ignore the source for this Wikipedia article.Leonry (talk) 10:59, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

After some research on the author and the book, it seems that this is a general reference for foot and shoe fetishism. The author comes from the shoe industry, I didn't find any academic sound work. The claim may be altered to

William A. Rossi estimates that by the 19th century, 40–50% of all Chinese women may have had bound feet, rising to almost 100% in upper-class Chinese women.

with the reference to the NPR article as a source if the original source (i.e. the book) cannot be used.Leonry (talk) 11:29, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from now. Estimate of 50%, with an error of +/-50%, so the real figure lies between 0% to 100%. 2A00:23C5:C13C:9F01:282B:B9FA:2092:6AA6 (talk) 21:50, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

You can indeed make it clearer as to who said it, but it is sourced, so it should not be removed without good reason. We are not using the 2 billion claim (it is just a claim by some), so that is irrelevant. Hzh (talk) 11:35, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

A note also that the percentage estimates given are not unusual, in fact among women surveyed in many parts of China, the number of women who had their feet bound at some stage were 100% in the late 19th and early 20th century - [2]. Hzh (talk) 12:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Where? 2A00:23C5:C13C:9F01:282B:B9FA:2092:6AA6 (talk) 21:45, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Oh, OK. I guess I got triggered by the allegation of sinophobia that the internet claimed, so I made a fool of myself. I will stick to my topics better. Leonry (talk) 12:47, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

What a load of rubbish. These figures were made up. No one actually did a count. The real proportion was less than 5%, and probably less than 1%. Given 90% and more of the Chinese lived in poverty, their daughters were not foot-bound. 2A00:23C5:C13C:9F01:282B:B9FA:2092:6AA6 (talk) 21:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIST 4048 Women and Gender in Modern China

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 5 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Freehilh (article contribs).

Should the statistic that 10 percent of women with bound feet died of gangrene be better sourced?

This statistic comes from a book which, from looking at the google preview, makes reference in turn to another source. Unfortunately the preview doesn't allow me to view the original source. Wouldn't it be better practice to reference the original source rather than a third party book, especially with such a bold and important statistic as this? If so, could anyone who owns this book add the proper reference to this statistic. Forgive me if this is a nonissue, I'm not overly familliar with the customs on wikipedia Camholl (talk) 21:39, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

@Camholl: no, that's a valid concern, and a good call. What's the name of the original book? I'll see if I can track down a copy.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 23:00, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

The book is called Ordinary Violence: Everyday Assaults against Women Worldwide, by Mary White Stewart. ISBN 978-1-4408-2937-6. In the article, it can be found under reference nuber 83 Camholl (talk) 12:23, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

@Camholl: I've found a copy on archive.org. The citation for this 10% number is reference 29 in the book, H. Gates' "Bound Feet: How Sexy Were They?", in History of the Family 13, no. 1 (2008), page 62.

I don't have a university account, so I can't access the full text, but I can request a copy from the author. I'll see where that takes me.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 14:06, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Wow, all this over a single reference! Thank you for your effort in keeping wikipedia a reliable and trustworthy source of information!

Keep me updated if you get to the bottom of this. Camholl (talk) 20:29, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

@Camholl: will do! And thank you :) --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 22:48, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIST 4048 Women and Gender in Modern China

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2023 and 16 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Grace.liubey (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Allendq (talk) 17:31, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Harbin shoemaker was not necessarily the last "littleshoes" factory to close

This Harbin shoemaker kept her factory open not for profit but because she was committed to "keeping every last of these elderly ladies well-shod, so they can still get around as they will". Basically it was a contribution to her local community. When she got to retire her production line in Harbin, there were still lots of elderly women with bound feet outside Manchuria, but factories there were closing off nonetheless as it became less and less profitable. I've not yet found a reliable source as to if Harbin Zhiqiang was really the last one. It'd be sad if true. Even today there's inflicted elderly ladies who's only in their 70's, if you think about it.

I'm removing this sentence for now because her mission completion marked only the disappearance of this abhorrent tradition in Manchuria, and bears a sense of false optimism that would potentially make one ignore other elderly ladies' unmet needs, if there's still any. Arachnikhan (talk) 20:59, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

You should not remove the sentence until you cam provide an alternative source. Hzh (talk) 21:49, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the instruction. The ref was a popular book that only mentioned Harbin shoemaker anecdotally to ease into the main theme. I probably should have marked it with a flag like [dubious] first? Although my reason for deleting mainly was it was placed at the very end of "decline" section presumably as a closure, but it was actually anachronistic with the previous sentence.

This preceding sentence sounds pretty questionable too. The sources quoted here are two blog posts that refers to the same photographer's recent(2015) published photos & interviews of "the very last victims of foot binding after nine years of searching and travelling across China". It doesn't appear the editor who added it intended to promote anything here, but I don't think this description can be taken literally.

On a side note, is "Heavenly Foot Society" a legit translation used by people back then? There's a separate article under this exact name but was translated from Swedish. I'm thinking if there wasn't a well-established English term already maybe we should use "Natural Foot Society"? .. "heavenly foot" sounds suspiciously like what contemporary dudes would want the most given the history development.. oooor, maybe if unless "heaven" underwent similar change like "gay" did and people really did call it that back then.. in which case Heaven Eden Tengri pardon my degeneracy Arachnikhan (talk) 13:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

The book is written by an academic and a social historian, and she likely knows more than you do. So far you haven't offered anything apart from personal opinion, and Wikipedia article has no place for personal opinion. The Guardian or Slate article are not blogs, they simply gave something from a recently published book. "Heavenly" is a direct translation of "tian", more recent publication prefers "natural", which is more explanatory. Either is fine, I have no objection to anyone changing it. Hzh (talk) 14:10, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Citation Misuse of the NPR 2007 article

The claims which use this citation: the "40-50%" figure nor any other figure is ever mentioned; the talk about a handful of elderly with bound feet in 2007 - the only relevant claim is that there used to be 300 people with bound feet in one particular village; and no mention of rice fields. Gross misuse of the NPR article and I have removed all statements that cite this article. Will need a source that actually corroborates the statements, rather than having nothing to do with them.

On a side note, there seems to be many claims without citations, but that's another issue. Song12301 (talk) 19:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

From that NPR source: "According to the American author William Rossi, who wrote The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, 40 percent to 50 percent of Chinese women had bound feet in the 19th century. For the upper classes, the figure was almost 100 percent." – notwally (talk) 19:44, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

The problem arose because the website originally had two articles there, one with the 40-50% quote, one without. It seems that one was removed later (but it was still in the archived page). I've fixed the link. Hzh (talk) 20:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)