Do Feet Matter?
Some time ago I
discovered Kate Bushnell and how she has made a difference for women in
society. When I found “Daughters of Deliverance” by Lorry Lutz, I was keen to
read more about the life of this often overlooked but astonishing woman. A
medical doctor and missionary, a speaker for the Woman’s Christian Temperance
Union, and a passionate proponent for the liberation of women from forced
prostitution, Kate Bushnell saw the appalling situation of many women. Proposed
as light summer reading, it took me back to 1879 when Katherine Bushnell felt
called to work in China as a medical doctor, but the book was by no means light
reading. Compelling, yes. Heartbreaking, definitely. Her years in China were destined
to lead Kate to find her calling, not only to heal people’s bodies but to
engage in liberating women from the cultural restrictions of patriarchy. She
wanted her life to make a difference.
I wonder if we today
realize how painful life must have been for girls and women in China, where
their feet were bound and deformed. For hundreds of years, maybe thousands, the
Chinese culture required that women’s feet should be small and fit into
beautifully embroidered slippers. Beginning at the age of six, girls were taken
to a foot binder who broke and bound their feet tightly to prevent them from growing.
Even the women thought it was perfectly normal to make their daughters suffer
so they could find a good husband. They were hardly able to walk on their
deformed feet. Every step must have been torture. We forget how important our
feet and toes are when everything is fine. I once broke my big toe and realized
how painful every step became. I am shocked at how the Chinese women must have
suffered because of their mutilated feet. They were decapacitated, made useless
and weak.
Half of the Chinese
population had to suffer because of a patriarchal tradition. According to
Confucius men were heavenly, light, and strong, and women are earthly, dark,
and weak. Women were controlled by men. They had to obey and serve their
fathers, husbands, and sons, being considered as their property and servants.
Kate Bushnell realized that even Christianity had accommodated the abuse of
women by eliminating them from the Chinese bible translation just to agree with
the patriarchal culture. The missionaries had been afraid to address things in
the Chinese culture that restricted women (like foot binding), fearing that the
children would be taken out of the Christian schools. Bible translators had also
been afraid to translate Bible texts correctly that empower women. For
Katherine Bushnell, the discovery of the eliminations and changes concerning
women in the Chinese Bible was a catalyst that would lead her to a life-long study
of all Bible texts concerning women. She wanted to help people understand how liberating
Christianity should be for all.
Despite the opposition that Kate Bushnell experienced from some of the
other missionaries who did not want to cause turmoil by criticizing the
dominant Chinese culture of their day, it was the church that was the first to
liberate Chinese women. Women were subject to the father, their feet were
bound, limiting their mobility, and they were also subjected to their husbands
in marriage. The three focal points of women's emancipation in China consisted
of the liberation of the mind, feet, and the restrictions of marriage. The
church focused on education in this regard and established schools for girls.
"The Christian Church women‘s schools produced the earliest
intellectual and professional women in China, who were the pioneers of the
women's liberation movement in China."[1]
The words “Women hold
up half of the sky” are attributed to Mao Zedong. Considering that Mao Zedong recognized that women hold up half of the sky,
it is also clear why he did not want to leave out half of the population. The
binding of feet had been abandoned by most by the time of the communist
revolution in China, but it was one of the first things to be prohibited by the
new regime. The goals for women in Communist China (from 1949 are to provide
jobs for women, education for women, and marriage freedom for women. Thus,
women in China can live self-determined lives.
In the church, women also hold up half of the
sky, if not more. Persecution has led to strong growth in the Chinese church,
but it is also due to the influence of women pastors who are in charge of the
churches and their members. Women appeal to people differently than men.
Currently, there are about 26 ordained female pastors in the Chinese
Seventh-day Adventist Church, and they are happy that the controversy over
women's ordination in the world church does not affect them and that they can
do their work regardless.
The Apostle Paul used the metaphor of the body to describe the community of believers several times. He showed how all parts of the body work together for the body to be able to function properly. Similarly, all members of the church, Christ’s body, should be treated as important parts because all are baptized by the same Spirit. “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”[2] A body cannot function when half of its organs/members are restricted or missing.
Do feet matter? We may
have forgotten the suffering caused by deformed feet, but we should learn not
to cause suffering in other areas where women’s input and effectiveness are
restricted. Feet may seem unimportant, but when they are hurting, the whole body
hurts. Let us not hurt the body of Christ by neglecting the parts that seem
unimportant.
- Women Of All Nations, page 532, MCMXI (1911) Wikipedia
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