Men have always found ways to control women. In both "Female Circumcision: Rite of Passage or Violation of Rights? " (Althaus) and "Footbinding " (Fairbank) the authors explain two especially gruesome methods of female mutilation that have been and still are used to dominate women. Female circumcision and Footbinding are procedures that are ultimately used for control. The practices intentionally injure women so they will rely on men, they force women into feeling that this is tradition, and without the procedures the girls are not "proper women ".
Female circumcision is an extremely dangerous procedure that is almost always performed under unsanitary conditions by an unskilled and unequipped elder village woman. If the girl survives, she is plagued by painful long-term medical complications that could eventually lead her back to death's door. Normal health problems that the girls endure are hemorrhage, infection, and shock. Althaus also explains that as the scar tissue heals, " an opening that may be as small as a matchstick for the passage of urine and menstrual blood " (224) causes these two normal female bodily functions to be agonizing. This operation is a way to control and force women to constantly rely on their husbands because they are always ill or in pain. .
Footbinding is the process of reducing the foot to a three inch size over the course of a woman's life. Like female circumcision, Footbinding is excruciating. The girls that undergo the procedure must constantly care for their toenails because "Unmanicured nails could cut into the instep, bindings could destroy circulation, blood poisoning or gangrene could result " (Fairbank 366-367). The process breaks the arch of the girl's foot and then the girl must still walk on her mutilated feet. Since the women subject these practices can hardly do much besides wobble around on their heels, they are "less useful in family work and more dependent on help from others " (Fairbank 367) and especially their husbands.
