Reform-minded Chinese intellectuals began to consider footbinding to be an aspect of their culture that needed to be eliminated.[36] In the 1883, Kang Youwei founded the Anti-Footbinding Society near Canton to combat the practice, and anti-footbinding societies sprang up across the country, with membership for the movement claimed to reach 300,000.[37] The anti-footbinding movement however stressed pragmatic and patriotic reasons rather than feminist ones, that abolition of footbinding would lead to better health and more efficient labour.[33] Reformers such as Liang Qichao, influenced by Social Darwinism, also argued that it weakened the nation, since enfeebled women supposedly produced weak sons.[38] At the turn of the 20th century, early feminists, such as Qiu Jin, called for the end of foot-binding.[39][40] In 1902, the Empress Dowager Cixi issued an anti-foot binding edict, but it was soon rescinded.[41]