For almost 1,000 years, women in China were forced to bind their feet in order to represent their status and to make themselves more attractive. The practice was outlawed in 1912.
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck is a novel that highlighted this Chinese custom in an era in which women were treated as objects. The feet of O-lan, the wife of the novel’s protagonist, are not bound and she is considered plain or even ugly. She is betrayed by her husband and is categorized into an inferior socioeconomic stratum based on the condition of her feet. Consequently, she practices the same kind of oppression she receives from society toward her daughters by forcing them to undergo this harmful process in order to be “accepted” in the context of Chinese society.
We are now in the 21st century when the foot-binding of Chinese women is merely a footnote to history. However, there are harmful beauty practices nowadays which are parallel examples of women attempting to alter their appearance to satisfy society’s concept of beauty.
Certain practices, such as enhancing and reducing parts of the body that often involve painful surgical procedures, are similar in nature to the Chinese custom of foot-binding. There is no question that women absolutely have the right to overcome their insecurities and to be more confident. However, being forced by society to restructure the body’s “natural features” for the sake of being labeled “beautiful” is a problem that needs to be addressed.
According to a survey by one of the pioneering companies in the field of promoting the idea of natural beauty, “women are more than twice as likely to say that their concept of beauty is shaped by women in the public domain” and “82 percent of women who were interviewed said that they believed that social media can change prevailing standards of beauty.”
The media clearly has a significant impact on the younger generation’s standards of beauty. For marketing purposes, one-day cosmetic surgery is being promoted through social media influencers who provide their followers with a photo of the results of their new “surgical procedure” along with a promo code that encourages them to undergo physical changes at an affordable price.
There should be regulations and guidelines for social media influencers and advertisers that prohibit them from violating the law, and as guardians it is our responsibility to monitor the content teenagers are exposed to on the Internet.
Coco Chanel said “a girl must be a classy and fabulous.” I would say that a beautiful girl is a package of knowledge, education, confidence and intelligence that result in a classy charismatic lady whom no one can fail to notice. My words are dedicated to the young generation, including my daughter, who should be aware that beauty standards are constantly changing, but inner beauty is a constant elixir that will preserve youth.
Sarah Alrefaei,
Jeddah
