Foot Binding: When Tiny Feet Were Worth a Lifetime of Pain

For over a thousand years in China, mothers intentionally broke their daughters' feet and bound them into 3-inch "lotus feet" - considered the ultimate standard of beauty and femininity. The process began when girls were as young as 4-6 years old. Their toes were broken and folded under the sole, the arch was snapped, and their feet were wrapped tightly in cloth bindings that were never removed. Over years, the feet would reshape into tiny pointed stumps that fit into shoes barely larger than a child's fist. The pain was excruciating, the smell from rotting flesh was unbearable, and walking became a lifelong struggle - yet millions of mothers did this to their daughters because unbound feet meant unmarriageability and poverty.

The process was methodical tortur ...