Chinese foot binding was a especially savage process which existed mostly in rural China until recently. It was largely a cultural practice. The practice involved the very tight binding of the feet of little girls and the keeping of them bound to prevent the foot from growing. This is a painful process and led to significant deformity and incapacity. Children who were being afflicted by this practice had to wear specifically created and produced shoes. There was quite a skill to this and the shoes that these children had to use were decorated very purposely and exotically. The actual cause of the technique of Chinese foot binding is that smaller sized feet were regarded as considerably more desired in women. A much higher price is usually commanded by the family of the bride to be for the dowry. The actual practice was very common in rural China for several centuries and just recently began to die out about 100 years ago due to social pressures that were brought to bear on the practice a result of the pain and impairment it has been causing.
You can still find some older Chinese woman living right now with these disfigured feet from the foot binding when they were younger. The tragedy is because of what happened when they were children they do need to keep their feet bound as it is more comfortable than not having them bound as the deformity has become so great. There's been a lot of cultural and psychological research into the foot binding especially in the context of it being done too please the male rather than being of any advantage to the female. Of recent interest is the present practice of women using tight fitting high heel shoes has attracted resemblances with Chinese foot binding. Some of the social and psychological evaluation of that have certainly discussed the analogy between the two practices and who exactly benefits from the practice. Both of them are painful, both create foot deformity, and both are for the benefit of men.