Reform-minded Chinese intellectuals began to consider footbinding to be an aspect of their culture that needed to be eliminated. In 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. The anti-footbinding movement, however, stressed pragmatic and patriotic reasons rather than feminist ones, arguing that abolition of footbinding would lead to better health and more efficient labour. Reformers such as Liang Qichao, influenced by Social Darwinism, also argued that it weakened the nation, since enfeebled women supposedly produced weak sons. At the turn of the 20th century, early feminists, such as Qiu Jin, called for the end of foot binding. Many members of anti-footbinding groups pledged to not bind their daughters' feet nor to allow their sons to marry women with bound feet. In 1902, Empress Dowager Cixi issued an anti-foot binding edict, but it was soon rescinded.