ABSTRACT
Hair as well as feet symbolised past and present. Bound feet and long hair were both considered decadent - symbols of oppressive custom. Modernity was represented by freed feet and short (bobbed) hair. For the Chinese, hair was irrevocably associated with revolution4S and the Party made much of natural feet and cut hair. It was at pains to label them as fundamental manifestations of an escape from physical oppression. It had carefully chosen its limited emancipatory targets and its means of distraction from the more extreme and unacceptable emancipatory aims favoured by radical feminists.
