Binding women: Ethnology, skeletal deformations, and violence against women

Control over women in different cultures has taken its form in many ways. Examination of direct forms of control in the bioarchaeological record have been limited to physical violence identified as traumatic bodily injury, and seen on the skeleton as healed defensive fracturing, cut marks, blunt force trauma, and in some cases burial position. But there are other forms of direct violence that reflect indirect modes of control and present as skeletal deformation yet they occur over long periods of time, and are not often included in the suite of bioarchaeological indicators of violence, or discussed as a transcription of the legacy of subornation of women in communities across time. This paper explores the “chronic” violence that is perpetrated against women and is revealed in skeletal deformation. To do this the “binding of women” in the forms of foot-binding, neck rings, and tight-lacing will be used to explore how ethnology and skeletal markers may reveal something about how the complexity of indirect cultural violence can be seen directly on the bodies of women.

► Chronic violence against women in the past is often invisible.
► The absence of direct evidence of violence does not means there is an absence of violence.
► Women can be the perpetrators as well as the victims of violent behavior.
► The female body needs to be understood in larger cultural contexts, which are often missing in the archaeological record.