Wenjie Xu

I was inspired by an exhibition at the British Museum called Late Qing Dynasty Hundreds. In this exhibition I was very interested in a lot of clothing as well as craftsmanship during the Qing Dynasty, and what attracted me the most was a pair of three-inch golden lotus. These shoes were only seven or eight centimetres long, which means that women's feet in the Qing Dynasty were only seven or eight centimetres long. I was curious to know the reason behind this phenomenon, and through my research I found out that part of the reason was because of the dominance of male chauvinism. Women couldn't do many things if their feet were bound, they couldn't walk for long periods of time, they couldn't get out of the house, and some of them even had to be carried to do anything. In this phenomenon men are especially strong and women are very weak. Through a deeper understanding, I found that female circumcision in Africa and girdling in Europe have similar reasons.