Passage of Time: Societal Bounds

After finishing the film in class the other day, I got to thinking about just how much societal status and norms have changed for women over the past 100 years (just to take a smaller section of time). Of course, in many countries women have the vote now, unfortunately not all, but we have made so much progress. As I was reading through "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan", I saw a distinct connection between the tradition of binding feet in Asia and the tradition of wearing corsets and the United States and Europe (among other countries) in 1800s and early 1900s. Not only is there a physical similarity between the two, with the actual binding of a body part, whether it was feet or waist, but there is also a metaphorical similarity between the two. By the act of binding and constraining certain body parts of their own, the women who partook in these traditions were also putting themselves in societal bounds, controlling their feet and their freedom, to put it cleverly. Certain societal notions became extremely important to female culture, convincing themselves that in order to feel beautiful, proper, sophisticated, etc, they must make physical changes to their appearance. Unfortunately, as I sat sipping my lemon chamomile tea and contemplating change, I realized that maybe things have not changed as much I had liked to think. It is still a societal norm to make certain changes to the body in order to feel accepted by main society. These habits might include body piercings, the application of make up, and certain clothing styles. That is not to say that in order to be beautiful, women must partake in these habits, but according to main society, at least in the western world, these habits have become the norm. Politically and socially, women decidedly have much more freedom in current times than they did in the past. However, it still disturbs me that female culture feels the necessity to make physical changes to themselves in order to feel accepted.