In April of 1895, a group of Western women founded the Natural Feet Society in Shanghai. The Society condemned Chinese footbinding as a cruel and injurious practice and called for funds and friends to assist their movement and create public sentiment against footbinding. These elite women, or “memsahibs,” whose husbands were diplomats, merchants, and other influential foreigners in late-Qing treaty-port communities, developed a secular anti-footbinding discourse which diverged from missionary discourses of the time. In so doing, these women created a social space for themselves through which they could participate in public life even far away from their homelands. However, unlike missionaries and indigenous reformers whose anti-footbinding movements were initiated and backed by previously established organizational bases and networks, the Society (led by Alicia Little, wife of British merchant Archibald Little) encountered difficulties when mobilizing material and cultural resources and had to find its own niche in developing a secular and female-oriented discourse. This article analyzes the strategies the Society used to compete and cooperate with local churches and the connections it employed to obtain influential support from both Western and Chinese male political and cultural elites. The convergence of and crossover between members of the Society and Chinese female reformers of the time is also discussed in the article.
Natural Feet Society, Alicia Little (Mrs. Archibald Little), footbinding, anti-footbinding movements, “memsahibs” in late-Qing China
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