I was reading the book Peony by Lisa See and it occurred to me that culture has manipulated women to mutilate their bodies for centuries. The story is set in China in 1644. Peony is an only child and her parents arranged her marriage to a man, sight unseen. I really don’t want to get into the story of the book, I just want to reflect on the part about foot binding.

Mothers and grandmothers thought that their young girls should have their feet bound starting somewhere around age 6, sometimes earlier. Their reasoning was that the daughter could not attract a wealthy marriage if her feet were big. The ideal size was at least a 3 inches foot, called gold lotuses, and no longer than 4 inches, called silver lotuses.

Small feet were seen as perfect on a women and necessary to arrange a good marriage (read: wealthy), and this marriage could not be obtained without bound feet. Small feet made a young girl more desirable. Qing Dynasty sex manuals listed 48 different ways of playing with women’s bound feet–small feet are sexual turn on for husbands.

I started to think of other body mulitations, such as female genital mutilation and I found a list of some of the reasons it is practiced:

• Preservation of virginity
• Enhancement of fertility
• Prevention of promiscuity
• Increase of matrimonial opportunities
• Pursuance of aesthetics
• Improvement of male sexual performance and pleasure
• Promotion of social and political cohesion

Female genital mutilation is regarded in many societies as a pre-requisite for honorable marriage. I can’t understand this list. As I see it, all of the above “reasons” can be accomplished without mutilating the woman’s genitals.

Then there is the neck ring worn by women in African and Asian cultures. This practice starts on a young girl at around age five. Neck rings push the collarbone and ribs down and stretch the neck muscles several inches. If the rings are removed and the head not supported, the woman can choke on her own tongue.

There are other examples of body mutilations that can be given, but these are enough examples to have a sense of what is happening to young girls. When are women going to wake up and stop sacrificing girl babies?

These images of bound feet, stretched necks and genital mutilation may seem so foreign and unreal to American and European women. Why do these African and Asian women mutilate their daughters? Wait, maybe the women of African and Asian cultures are asking why American and European women are cutting open the chests of their girl babies and stuffing in bags of silicone to make their chests bigger, so their daughters may make better marriages and be more desirable. Ok, you may say we don’t do it to girls at age 5 or 6. But the idea is planted at that age. Does the word Barbie sound familiar? Big-breasted Barbie with the big house and car and the beautiful boyfriend Ken are real to a 5-year-old. She wants to be like Barbie.

How many of us bought the idea that big breasts equate to better jobs and a better marriage? I don’t know how to stop this madness of mutilating women’s bodies with the perceived notion that the girl will be better off in life with the mutilations. What can we do to save the daughters of the world?

There is a new television series coming on TV, more propaganda for young adults to view: Without Breasts, There is No Paradise.

These are just some observations of mine. Anyone have any thoughts on any of this?