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Tradition

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Submitted By samouel
Words 345
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I always wonder how traditions have been rotted in people’s minds especially the unwanted ones. Of course, there are some traditions that we all adore like disrupting candies for kids on Halloween’s night, or having turkey on Thanksgiving day; however, many of them are unfaithful and were based on manipulate certain group of the society. Women known to be physically weaker than men, so they were usually their easy prey especially in masculine’s societies. In “Footbinding”, for John King Fairbank, illustrates a picture of women’s abuse of the tenth century in China. Chinese girls were subject to a process in which their feet were bent to make them small “… preferably only three inches long, by pressing the four smaller toes under the sole or ball of the foot” (279). That would allow them to socially fit and be able to get married otherwise they were subjected to disrespect and taunts of the community. That is how women was abused based on tradition was found at first by men. In “Shrouded in Contradiction”, for Gelareh Asayesh, I see another face of women’s abuse. Asayesh was born in Tehran, Iran where women have to wear “hijab”-Islamic covering, so they were forced to wear veil. In both cases I see traditions are being used to manipulate and abuse women as part of the society, which will lead to societies’ destruction as Fairbank says “the talent that one sees in Chinese women today had little chance to grow and express itself. This mad a weak foundation for a modern society.” (281). Women are essential part of any society, so controlling their free will to choose or treating them as possessions will impact society in general. In “footbinding”, it’s clear that women are being used to satisfy men’s need. The Virtual purpose behind “golden lily”, as they called small foot, was sexuality; however, basically it was perpetuating male domination. Chinese women were like properties, were expected to accept whatever is been done unto them without critic reaction. They weren’t expected to be creative and so they weren’t.

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