We talked recently about practices of foot-binding for women, and how women’s freedom of movement was increasingly restricted. What is interesting is how the Mongol women seem to have had a very different experience. They were able to wear pants, ride horses, and yield weapons. This is more similar to the experience of women in the Tang Dynasty, rather than those in the Song that lived at the time that the Mongols began to expand. I wonder why the freedom of Mongol women did not influence that of the Song, and foot-binding as a practice persevered.
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