Chinese footbinding was a long-standing cultural practice that emerged during the Song dynasty and persisted for nearly a thousand years. Young girls, often between the ages of four and nine, had their feet tightly bound with cloth to prevent growth and to reshape them into the idealized “three-inch lotus.” Small feet became a powerful symbol of beauty, femininity, and social status, signaling that a woman came from a family wealthy enough that she did not need to perform physical labor. Despite