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Jennifer C. Park
Dr. Viet Nguyen
English 449
16 February 2001
Yellow Foot in Your Mouth
“Putting a foot in one’s mouth” takes on a double meaning when viewed from the
western perspective versus being viewed from the eastern perspective. While in American
culture, “putting your foot in your mouth” means saying something embarrassingly
inappropriate, Chinese culture would see it as a sexual image, similar to taking a hold of a
woman’s breast. The sexuality of the foot, especially the “lotus foot,” or bound foot, then,
becomes a symbol of femininity, as do the breasts. Within the context of gender hierarchy, the
practice of foot binding and the implications that it makes regarding gender roles becomes
symbols utilized in Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir, The Woman Warrior. However, the
viewpoint from which she represents foot binding demonstrates the cultural and mental rape of
the East by the West. Ironically, it is the fact that Kingston has represented all of these incidents
that allows her to fight back and resist Western rape.
The Warrior Woman shows the struggle of a Chinese American woman, trying to paste
together pieces of her identity, especially the fragments of her Chinese history and culture from
the stories her mother tells. While Kingston battles to balance her bicultural identity, she must
also attempt to separate fact from fiction. Throughout the course of her story-telling, Kingston
comes across several instances in which she must take a stand not as a woman, but a Chinese
American woman in America. However, she must first identify her role within the context of the
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histories of the women in her family. In doing so, however, she finds that “China wraps double
binds around [her] feet” (Kingston 48).
Historically, the Chinese practice of foot binding began as a marker of high social rank.
Since a female with bound feet was not able to execute much work, having females’ feet bound
made a statement that their female family members were not needed to work. Because only
families of wealth could afford to have “useless” females, foot binding marked the wealth of the
family (Ritter). Consequently, lower class females, who were needed for work, could not afford
to have their feet bound. Unfortunately, although many lower class females did bind their feet in
hopes to “marry up,” few were successful (Chinese Foot Binding).
Although foot binding first began as a mark of social class, it evolved later to serve a
more erotic function. “Though they were closely guarded by women, the feet themselves were
objects of fetishistic desire; even the stench they gave off was regarded as aphrodisiacal…agony
made erotic by its proximity to death” (Ritter). Great pleasure would be taken from kissing and
sucking on the foot (Tian). In Kathryn Harrison’s memoir, “The Kiss,” Arthur, a member of the
Foot Emancipation Society, “want[s] to take the misshapen foot in his mouth. To swallow it,
her, whole” (Bound). This perversion of the feet was not illogical. It was thought that foot
binding would strengthen the woman’s buttocks and allow the “jade gate” able to take a stronger
grip of her husband’s “jade spear” (Chinese Foot Binding). The unsteady walk, the “lotus gait,”
was thought to tighten the female’s pelvis, thereby making intercourse “like always making love
to a virgin” (Kam). By associating foot binding to more sensually pleasing intercourse, the
image of the bound foot would cause arousal for Chinese males.
This sexualization of the bound foot signifies gender dynamics as implied by Foucault,
who claims that power dynamics to construct a body as sexual (Cahill). Foot binding, then,
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would also serve as a sign of power dynamics between male and female. Because the male is the
“superior power” in the gender hierarchy, he has the ability to transform the physical Chinese act
of foot binding as an act of eroticism, rather than the initial intent of signifying social rank.
Within On the text of the female body, it is the male who imposes foot binding upon the female
body. Thus, the female is forced to be inferior, weak and subordinate to the superior and strong
male.
Kingston shows this female social subordination implication made by foot binding in
Chinese culture in “White Tigers,” in which she fantasizes herself overthrowing a baron and his
home. While she searches for people to put on trial, she comes across a room full of women who
“could not escape on their little bound feet” (Kingston 44). The physical confinement of having
bound feet implies the women’s inferiority to the males since the females were made dependent
on the male “servants who walked [them]” (Kingston 44). Having been abandoned by their
servants, the women are reduced to crawling away from the avenger. The dependency on the
males that the women are expected and forced to have even for the simple task of walking
suppresses the female rank in the gender hierarchy.
Beyond the social dynamics between the two genders marked by foot binding, other
factors also encouraged the practice to continue. During the course of Chinese cultural history,
the male role shifted from the warrior to the more sedated scholar. In order to create a contrast
between the genders, foot binding was utilized partly to create a more unmoving female, whose
inactivity would cause her to become softer and paler than her male counterpart (Chung).
Simply, man was stronger than woman; while man was rough and “hard,” woman was gentle and
soft. When man lost his “strength” and roughness, woman was forced to also lose a proportional
amount of “strength.” In this way, the balance was maintained. Thus, this bipolar description
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used to define the sexes was one factor encouraging the continuation of foot binding. “Men
liked the weak[er] female, limping on bound feet” (Tian).
Because of the cultural opposition presented by the West and the East, there cannot be a
cultural equality. As Chang Yu-I, an immigrant Chinese American, says, “bound feet and
Western dress do not go together” (Chang 122). Similarly, conflicting aspects of Eastern and
Western culture must battle until one defeats the other. Just as the female role had to shift to
compensate for the loss of the male’s masculinity, the East must also act indirectly proportional
to the West. One must dominate the other and because the East is feminized, the masculine West
will take power over the East. Kingston faces this bicultural clash between the East and the
West. However, because she was raised with Western values, she becomes accordingly biased.
Still, she is “bound” by her blurred Chinese identity and attempts to free herself from the role of
the feminine weakness implied in foot binding. As a heroine in her fantasy, Kingston slays the
baron and frees the bound footed women, who become a mercenary army of swordswomen. The
“bound” women in her Chinese fantasy are able to escape the constructs that bind them.
However, women in the West are only constricted by the binds of Chinese culture. Kingston
illustrates this in two incidents in regards to bound feet. These incidents concur with the idea of
negativity and loss. For example, in response to her feeling unloved because she is a woman, she
feels as though “China wraps double binds around [her] feet” (Kingston 48). Michelle Luc states
that Brave Orchid’s dismissal of Kingston’s achievements and her highlighting Kingston’s
negative qualities are not acts of hatred or disappointment, but rather, a manifestation of her
hopes for her daughter in a way to mislead the evil spirits. Kingston does not understand this
because she is blinded by her Western bias.
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In the story of Moon Orchid and her representation by the Empress of the East, her loss is
represented by the “little prints in the snow.” This attachment of negativity to bound feet again
shows the constraints and disadvantage that is placed upon Chinese women who reside in the
West. In attempting to avenge her husband, Moon Orchid, who is still living the traditional
Chinese life, comes to America and fails. Her own culture holds her back from reaching success.
However, much like foot binding is seen as barbaric in the eyes of Westerners because of
cultural bias, Kingston’s own representation of bound feet as negative is a result of Western
influence on her views of the Chinese culture. The masculine West has, once again, dominated
the weak East.
In “At the Western Palace,” Moon Orchid, Kingston’s aunt, is forced by Kingston’s
mother, Brave Orchid, to avenge her husband, who has abandoned her in China. In Kingston’s
interpretation of the story, she parallels Moon Orchid to the Empress of the East. In this fantasy,
the Empress of the East, Moon Orchid, must rescue the Earth’s Emperor from the spell cast by
the Empress of the West (Kingston 143). In this precursor, the East is not shown with any
marker of inferiority to the West. However, in the battle between the East and the West, the East
loses and is “sent to the Northern Palace. Her feet [sinking] little prints into the snow” (Kingston
154). After East loses to the West, the Empress of the East is reduced to “little prints in the
snow,” which are left by little feet – bound feet. By representing the defeat of the East by bound
feet, Kingston then, subordinates the East to the superior West. This cultural hierarchy in
conjunction with the gender hierarchy then creates an association between two dichotomies – the
East (feminine) in opposition to the West (masculine). The weak East, therefore, becomes
inferior to the strong West.
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In M. Butterfly, by David Henry Hwang, Song Liling states this violation of the inferior
East by the superior West. “The West has sort of an international rape mentality towards the
East” (82). While Cahill describes Foucault’s view of rape as a violent crime without the
association of sex, Cahill redirects the definition to the female’s passive experience rather than
the male’s action imposed upon her (Cahill).
With Cahill’s definition of rape in mind, the events regarding foot binding in The Warrior
Woman add up to the summation, the West rapes the East. Western values rape Moon Orchid in
the perspective that her experience of coming to America stripped her of her mind. Her sanity
has been violated to the point where she loses it. Abstractly, the author, herself, has also been
somewhat raped by the West. Her Chinese identity, though blurred by fantasy, is subjected to
the imposing Western bias that has shaped her perspectives. Kingston views foot binding as a
negative obstacle in the way of progress and equality. Therefore, she draws an inferior
representation of the East. However, her Western bias allows her to see foot binding only as the
misshapen foot, which has been broken, crushed, and molded to a size of 3 to 4 inches. The
West can only take credibility in the pain and medical problems that foot binding has caused.
However, Western equivalents to foot binding are forgotten. For example, high heels have also
bound the feet of many women, causing them back problems. Piercings, stockings, makeup, and
the spine-deforming corsets that were fashionable in Europe and America have also physically,
and therefore socially, confined women into a role complementary of that of the males. Many
times, the similar vices that one’s own culture construes are often forgotten in the light of
another culture’s practices. Kingston falls a victim to this, which allows Western ideals to cause
a violation of familial balance in the form of cultural conflicts between her mother and herself.
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In the first of the three references to foot binding, although the women with bound feet
are reduced to a degrading position of crawling away from the heroine that Kingston conjures,
they are able to get over that obstacle as they avenge others in the name of the powerless.
Women in China, although they are largely insignificant, can overcome, as did Kingston’s
mother, who became a successful doctor. However, in the references of bound feet in relation to
the West, Kingston represents it as the China that holds her back and causes the defeat of the
Empress of the East. Western ideals have, therefore, raped Moon Orchid’s sanity, but it has also
Kingston’s ability to view culturally significant events through the eyes of a truly bicultural
woman.
However, Foucault also says that for all power, there also exists a counterpart – i.e.
resistance (Cahill). Kingston becomes the resistance against the Western intent to rape by
empowering herself in the form of a writer. Just like her mother, who fights oppression by being
a female doctor, Kingston becomes a “groundbreaking model of feminism” by becoming a writer
(Nguyen). Although Kingston becomes a cultural victim of Western rape, she fights back by
slaying the Western masculine force with her pen.
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Works Cited
“Bound, Not Gagged.” The Village Voice 45.20 (23 May 2000): 1, Online. Proquest. 11 Feb
2001.
Cahill, Ann J. “Foucault, Rape, and the Construction of the Feminine Body.” Hypatia: A
Journal of Feminist Philosophy 15.1 (31 Jan. 2000): 43+.
Chang, Pang-Mei N. Bound Feet & Western Dress. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
Chinese Foot Binding. Home page. 11 Feb 2001
<http://www.angelfire.com/ca/beekeeper/foot.html>
Chung, Ruth Gim Ph.D. “Sterotypes.” Asian American Psychology Lecture Series. University
of Southern California, Los Angeles. 7 Nov 2000.
Hwang, David H. M. Butterfly. Canada: Penguin Books, 1988.
Kam, Nadine. “Golden Lilies” Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 10 Mar 1998. 11 Feb 2001.
<http://starbulletin.com/98/03/10/features/story1.html>.
Kingston, Maxine H. The Woman Warrior. New York: Vintage International, 1989.
Luc, Michelle. “RE: Shaman.” English 449 Discussion Board.
<https://learn.usc.edu/courses/engl_449_38066_011/> (22 Jan 2001).
Nguyen, Jennifer. “Shaman.” English 449 Discussion Board.
<https://learn.usc.edu/courses/engl_449_38066_011/> (21 Jan 2001).
Ritter, Peter. “Of Human Bondage” City Pages. 25 Oct 2000. 11 Feb 2001.
<http://citypages.com/databank/21/1038/article9068.asp>.
Tian, Tian. “Sex Machismo and Footbinding” Shanghai Star. 28 Nov 2000. 11 Feb 2001.
<http://www.chinadaily.com/cn/star/2000/1128/ls8-1.html>.
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Jennifer,
Terrific work! Your arguments really sent my mind racing, as you can tell from the
number and nature of my comments above. I really wanted to push your arguments and
observations, not criticize them as wrong; I felt you were definitely touching upon something
important and provocative, and by the conclusion, where you were going was clear (it should just
have been said earlier). I think the overall observation that footbinding in its western
representation serves to enforce the hierarchy of west over east by categorizing the east as
oppressive and the west as liberatory is definitely correct. In that sense, the sexual/social
dimensions of footbinding, which are constructed to enfore the power of men over women in
China, are then rearticulated in western discourse to enforce the power of the “modern” west
over the “traditional” east. The intellectual direction of the paper is exciting, because I think
your argument does something very important in establishing that representations exist within a
framework of power—someone benefits from these representations, and it’s not always clear
who. The western condemnation of footbinding seems to serve the interests of Chinese women,
but it definitely also serves the interests of the west.
Great use of outside sources. I learned from them, which is a compliment I’m paying
you. You do a good job of historicizing the practices of footbinding and showing their evolution.
Your use of Foucault within the Cahill source also allows you to then recontextualize this history
of footbinding in relationship to another history, that of the west over the east. I am a little
troubled by the argument that the west rapes the east, especially in relationship to Kingston.
There is real rape, and then there is metaphorical rape. Sometimes metaphorical rape can be
quite devastating, but can we describe Kingston’s experiences with that term? Is this a
cheapening of rape by arguing that Kingston’s experiences are equivalent? I would argue that
the use of metaphorical rape at least in this case is somewhat overstated. The M. Butterfly
quotation is in relation to “an international rape mentality” in which countries are invaded,
bombed, stripped of resources, etc., actual physical degradation and exploitation that damage and
kill millions of people. More justification there, in my opinion.
Overall, very original and great use of evidence, especially from outside sources. The
argument could use more work, could be stated more clearly at the beginning to set up the paper
and the reader; and the style occasionally lapses (I feel this is related to the flawed structure of
the argument).
Grade: B+
Professor Nguyen