Renowned as the "Golden Age" of China, the Song Dynasty grew along with Confucianism ideology. Although during the Tang dynasty, women were much more equal to mean, now the Song dynasty saw another rise in patriarchal society and expectations of women shifted. Simua Hang, a Song dynasty historian wrote, The boy leads the girl, the girl follows the boy; the duty of husbands to be resolute and wives to be docile begins with this." (Ways of the World pg 281) Men were seen as to be knowledgeable, pursuing the arts of calligraphy, poetry, scholarship etc. Women, on the other hand, were seen as weak and delicate. A prime example of this was foot binding that began during the Song dynasty. Thought to begin with dancers, foot binding was a common practice where young girl's feet were wrapped and usually would break bones. The process was very painful, but evolved into a trend throughout China and into a beauty statement. This reflected the delicate nature women were expected to uphold in society, when reality is it was a very painful process that supposedly "delicate women" endured. Today, we can see similar ideas of how these gender roles have shaped society, things such as the corset were meant to accent the waist of a young woman, but in the process of looking delicate the young woman suffered through extreme pain in order to meet beauty standards.
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| This diagram depicts the structure of a foot after it has been bound. |
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| A typical shoe used for foot binding in order to "accent" the foot binding. |
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