Cynthia Cheng

My great-grandmother had bound feet.  Almost every girl in China had it done in those days, a very painful procedure.  This was eventually outlawed with the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the birth of the new Republic in 1911 (though there were plenty of rural women who continued with the procedure – there are still some women, now in their nineties, who have bound feet).  Why am I telling you this?  With all the talk about banning veils in Quebec (the government thinks it’s not only impeding on women’s rights, but may pose security threats), I can’t help but wonder how people would react to foot binding if it were still around today.  Sure, they’re very different things to some – foot binding is physically damaging, while niqabs are not, but with today’s diversity and multiculturalism brigade (and sometimes to an extreme), one must ask this very question.

A woman in Yunnan province with bound feet.  There are still a small handful of women with bound feet living in China.  Most are seniors in their 90s whose families somehow didn’t get the message when the ban was put into place in 1911. 

My great-grandmother’s upbringing was vastly different from her daughters’.  While my great-grandmother had very little formal eduation and an arranged marriage, my grandmother and her sisters all finished high school (my grandmother would have gone to university if World War Two hadn’t started) and had “love marriages.”  By not having bound feet, they were able to do things that women in the previous generation were not able to do, ranging from dancing to playing sports.  They were the epitome of the “modern Chinese girl” at that time – not too different from their counterparts in the west.  Perhaps that is what some people, particularly those new to Canada are worried about.  If this is the case, they shouldn’t need to – traditions change, and one needs to change along with it.  I’m not sure whether my great-grandmother was upset at the fact that her daughters decided to date, rather than have a husband chosen for them, but she surely accepted the fact, considering that she was in speaking terms with each one of them.  I am sure unveiling will lead to the same thing - most Muslim women in Canada do not wear niqabs to begin with, so there are lots of examples to show that these ladies are perfectly typical/normal/whatever you want to call it.

Some might feel that these rules are the west imposing their culture(s) onto others.  Isn’t this no different from foot binding?  It wasn’t the Chinese who suddenly had an epiphany, realizing that footbinding was a bad thing.  The western missionaries played a very important role in this.  Sure, the general public didn’t exactly jump on the bandwagon, many educated locals, including women did.  one of the many reasonings behind the eventual ban was good marketing and PR.  In order to gain supporters, anti-footbinding organizations created messages that ”regular folks” would better understand, including how footbinding might lead to weak children to weakening the entire nation and therefore making the country as a whole lose face (having face is very important in traditional, Confucian cultures).  The blitz worked very well, considering how quickly things took place – many girls and women who already had bound feet took their bandages off and little girls didn’t go through with the procedure.  And this happened in 1911, when there was no television, radio or Internet and the literacy rate was not that high.

There are those who say that one can’t compare foot binding to niqabs – they are very different species, and foot binding and female genital mutilation (FGM) are better comparisons, since both involve physical deformities.  However, in all cases, one must also look at it from the perspective of an outsider – how are YOU viewed by other people?  Some might think that it isn’t in our best interest to get involved, since we are from a different culture.  However, once someone arrives at our doorstep, they become PART of our culture.  Sure, one might feel uncomfortable making so many changes so fast, but so were women in China – I am sure many felt that their daughters’ natural feet were HUGE.  I am also sure that it was very emotional for women who had bound feet, but took their bandages off – many saw their feet grow as much as an inch or two after the bandages came off.  Seeing that quick growth would be like gaining 20 pounds in a matter of weeks for us.  It was a “too bad, so sad, get over it” kind of situation. In addition, long veils, like foot binding, can restrict what an individual can do (just as bound feet did – my great-grandmother played no sports, because she wasn’t able to).  For example, it is rather difficult to play sports.  And before one says that these ladies probably don’t have an interest in “typical Canadian sports,” my question to you is this: How do you know? 

This piece is not meant to be anti-anything.  It is just the perspective of one person who doesn’t understand why it’s such a big deal.  I also think that the way people are handling the niqab situation isn’t correct.  One needs to, like the missionaries and local, educated Chinese women, put it in a perspective that people can understand.   That way, they won’t feel that their Charter rights are being violated.  It may be difficult, but as much as I don’t like Sarah Palin and her brigade, putting things in the perspective of Joe the Plumber is often the right way to go.  Otherwise, people will get upset.