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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You From how Supports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline and Caroline. Today we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about one word that grosses a lot of people out. Okay, panties.

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Speaker 1: I prefer underpants, under pan underpants is my favorite word,

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite words in general, and definitely my

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Speaker 1: favorite way to refer to undergarments. I like going old

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Speaker 1: school with pantaloons. I like that too. I like pantaloons too,

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Speaker 1: but for every day where Kristen, Yeah, yeah, I don't

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Speaker 1: wear my pantaloons to the office. Pantaloons us are just

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Speaker 1: for for weekends lounging around. That just makes me think

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Speaker 1: that they're like super puffy, like the kind of little

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Speaker 1: panties that you put on dolls, like baby dolls. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: with with extra elastic key waist bands so much, and

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Speaker 1: really high waist that's right up right right under your boobs,

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Speaker 1: and possibly with like little strawberries on them. Yes, yes, Well,

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Speaker 1: before we start reading too detailed about our pantaloons. This

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Speaker 1: week on the podcast, we're talking about the evolution of

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Speaker 1: women's underwear, talking specifically about pantaloons, knickers, panties, whatever you

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Speaker 1: want to call them, not so much on bras and

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Speaker 1: course it's although of course that plays a role in

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Speaker 1: all of this. So today on the podcast we're going

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Speaker 1: to focus on some history of unmentionables, and then next

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Speaker 1: time we're actually talking to an underpants entrepreneur, the founder

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Speaker 1: of dear Kate Underwear, and as we'll talk about in

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Speaker 1: that episode some more, there's some really impressive underwear technology

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Speaker 1: going on. Um, but we have to back way up, way,

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Speaker 1: way way, like French Revolution up. Before we can talk

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Speaker 1: about amazing modern underwear technology, we have to talk about

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Speaker 1: the origins of women even downing underpants in the first place. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we can. We can talk about loin

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Speaker 1: Claus for a while. We're gonna hop skip over loin

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Speaker 1: Claws and head into the eighteenth century when before we

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Speaker 1: talk about underwear, let's let's slay the foundation of the

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Speaker 1: fact that personal hygiene a little bit dicey. In those days.

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Speaker 1: You have to worry about things like fleas, lice, crabs.

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Speaker 1: People weren't showering regularly, people weren't watching their clothes regularly.

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Speaker 1: There was no indoor heating or cooling or electricity. And also,

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Speaker 1: and partially because of all of that lack of technology,

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Speaker 1: most ladies went commando. That's right. Um, there was also

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Speaker 1: the idea around hygiene that women definitely should air out

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Speaker 1: their lady bits because otherwise is they could start to

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Speaker 1: smell rotten. And in my mind reading that, I'm like, no,

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Speaker 1: that just means that you should have gone to a doctor. Although,

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Speaker 1: of course, when we're talking about eighteenth century like what

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Speaker 1: what are you going to do? Exactly leeches, Like, I mean,

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Speaker 1: they were doing the best they could. They were doing

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Speaker 1: the best they could, and in their minds airing things

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Speaker 1: out down there was proper hygiene, and so that involved

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Speaker 1: not putting anything over it to restrict air flow. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and on top of that, in order to stay warm

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Speaker 1: and also to be properly dressed, that involved lots of overclothes.

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Speaker 1: And also since skirts and dresses reached all the way

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Speaker 1: down to the floor, there was no risk of accidentally

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Speaker 1: up skirt flashing everyone. But of course what came along

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Speaker 1: with that not having any type of underpants and just

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Speaker 1: wearing lots of skirts and petticoats and chamis is Kristen,

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Speaker 1: is that is that a correct pronouncing chemisemi kemmys is

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Speaker 1: it really heard? Seat okay? Um? Well? I mean there

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Speaker 1: was also the fact that there were no period panties

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Speaker 1: for sure in the eighteenth century, and so also the

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Speaker 1: kind of upside of wearing all those layers is that

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Speaker 1: it would absorb all of the things that needed absorbing.

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Speaker 1: That's right. The euphemism, the period euphemism of being on

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Speaker 1: the rag comes from the that pre maxi pad in

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Speaker 1: pre underwear days, when women would literally have to sit

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Speaker 1: on a pile of rags and let aunt flow do

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Speaker 1: her thing. That's right. And so by the late seventeen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: there were a couple advancements in terms of lighter fabrics

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Speaker 1: coming into fashion, and this prompted additional covering needed to

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Speaker 1: keep our crotches warm in the wintertime. Yeah, and just

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Speaker 1: as a side note, a lot of this timeline was

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Speaker 1: put together from Pauline West and Thomas's fantastic website Fashion

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Speaker 1: Era as well as History Undressed. So our crotches are

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Speaker 1: getting a little older as dress fabrics start to lighten up.

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Speaker 1: But then once we move into the nineteenth century, Empire

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Speaker 1: fashions did away largely with stays and women's undergarments. Yes,

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Speaker 1: we start wearing more undergarments, but we borrow from men's pantaloons. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we started wearing like short pants basically, but they weren't pants.

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Speaker 1: They were pantaloons, and they attached at the waist and

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Speaker 1: also at the knee um. But they definitely were still

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Speaker 1: open crotched, because God forbid women where or appropriate anything

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Speaker 1: that could be considered masculine, and pants were definitely considered

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Speaker 1: to be men's clothing only. Yeah, and a note on knickers,

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Speaker 1: especially for our British listeners. In eighteen o nine, Washington

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Speaker 1: Irving wrote the History of New York all about this

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Speaker 1: breaches wearing character, Dietrich Knickerbocker, and that's where the word

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Speaker 1: knickers eventually comes from, and knickers and drawers would become interchangeable,

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Speaker 1: but knickers wouldn't become a widespread term for underwear until

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Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties. So funnily enough, knickers, the British term

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Speaker 1: for panties what we would call panties in the US,

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Speaker 1: actually originated in the US. But we should also say

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Speaker 1: that where drawers came from, and that's literally the drawing

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Speaker 1: down of of pants of underpants, and also helpful too,

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Speaker 1: that you might store them in a drawer, true, which

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Speaker 1: would also be called a drawer because they're drawing it

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Speaker 1: towards you. I just like to put ours and things.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of said drawers, by eighteen thirty, most women

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Speaker 1: were wearing them, although there were some differences, they weren't

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Speaker 1: all the same. Women had choice even back in the

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Speaker 1: day when their undergarments were cumbersome, so the upper class

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Speaker 1: ladies typically wore shorter drawers, but there were also pantaloons

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Speaker 1: which were ankle length, and pantalets which had a lot

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Speaker 1: of decorative lace and embroyer mat Are you going on

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Speaker 1: with them? Yeah? I mean if you were super poor,

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Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't be wearing any underwear at all, but

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Speaker 1: definitely by this point undergarments were happening, but these undis

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Speaker 1: were cratchless because going to the bathroom would have otherwise

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Speaker 1: required completely undressing due to the fact that with your

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Speaker 1: drawers you were also wearing a corset. And for anyone

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Speaker 1: who has put a corset on or can imagine what

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Speaker 1: wearing a corset would feel like, you don't have lots

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Speaker 1: of mobility, and also considering that you have all of

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Speaker 1: these skirts and petticoats as well, that you have to manage.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot easier to pull your drawers to the

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Speaker 1: side and go that way rather than having to drop them.

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Speaker 1: Drop your drawers right you kind of you kind of

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Speaker 1: just hike the skirts up and squat. There's no pulling anything,

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Speaker 1: there's no drawing anything down. And I think too that

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Speaker 1: you would put on your pantalets or drawers or pantaloons

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Speaker 1: or whatever you would like to call them first, and

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Speaker 1: then the course that would go over it to create

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Speaker 1: a smoother silhouette. Also, if there are any costume historians listening,

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Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to hearing from you in case

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Speaker 1: you have other things to add or corrections to make,

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Speaker 1: because the history of undergarments is pretty overwhelming, to be honest,

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Speaker 1: just because there are all these different names in different styles,

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Speaker 1: but they're all sort of the same thing. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: and also the fact that there's so much more information

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Speaker 1: out there about bras, for instance, than underwear underpants. Um,

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Speaker 1: but writing about this whole crotch less underwear phenomenon in

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Speaker 1: her book Erotic Modesty Addressing Female Sexuality and Propriety and

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Speaker 1: Open Closed Drawers from eighteen hundred to nineteen thirty, Jill

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Speaker 1: Fields rights that this whole crotchless underwear thing was really

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Speaker 1: part of a larger gender differentiation that was going on.

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Speaker 1: During this time. Women's clothes were becoming more and more

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Speaker 1: frilly in feminine. Uh, men's clothes were, you know, pants still. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this would have been on the heels of what was

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Speaker 1: called the Great Masculine Renunciation, when men who were previously

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Speaker 1: wearing makeup rouge sometimes those puffy, powdered wigs, were starting

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Speaker 1: to just wear more masculine clothes in the way that

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Speaker 1: we would think of it today. And so you have

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Speaker 1: the gender differences in wardrobe really emerged at this time,

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Speaker 1: all the way down to the crotches in our underwear, right,

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Speaker 1: because women's clothes were always non divided skirts, there's no division,

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Speaker 1: they're going up into the dangerous crotch region, whereas men's

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Speaker 1: clothes were always divided, they had pants that covered their crotch.

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Speaker 1: And so women donning things items of clothing under their

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Speaker 1: non divided clothes. The fact that there was some division

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Speaker 1: going on now was very sort of socially. It was

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Speaker 1: it was a new thing socially to have something divided

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Speaker 1: under women's clothes, and so by virtue of the fact

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Speaker 1: that this these underwear, these new items of underwear did

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Speaker 1: not have a crotch. They were open and they really

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Speaker 1: just fastened at the waist and at the name. That

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Speaker 1: that sort of reduced some of the controversy, and so

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Speaker 1: fields rights about this quote. The apparently functional aspects of

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Speaker 1: open drawers underscore these meanings by referencing women's biological difference,

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Speaker 1: thus constructing women's bodies as different on a daily basis.

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Speaker 1: And I also wonder too if there was, in addition

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Speaker 1: to the concern over women wearing this divided garment, also

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Speaker 1: a concern with covering the crotch, because that would have

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Speaker 1: been fabric so close to the volva, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: considering the time, and how terrified we were of anything,

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Speaker 1: you know, coming in contact with that that wasn't a

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Speaker 1: husband who wanted to make a baby. I can only imagine.

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Speaker 1: I can't only imagine, um, okay, And so for that

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Speaker 1: reason too, you know, a lot of us have probably

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Speaker 1: seen those famous photos of Queen Victoria's large crotch less

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Speaker 1: drawers that she would wear, right, but they were not

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Speaker 1: the sexy they weren't. They did not have the same

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Speaker 1: connotation that we think of today when we think of

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Speaker 1: crotchles panties. But we'll get into that later. So by

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Speaker 1: the time we hit eighteen seventies six, the crotch of

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Speaker 1: our drawers closed and was replaced by buttons at the hip.

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Speaker 1: That does not mean that crotchless underwear disappeared by any means.

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Speaker 1: It definitely still continued for decades. But at this time

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Speaker 1: you had knickers made of silk, a flannel of alpacable

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine. And then they as the century progressed,

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Speaker 1: they become wider and frillier. They would help fill out

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Speaker 1: the wider petticoats of the time that ended up becoming fashionable,

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Speaker 1: and you might even wear your fancy woolen I'll pack

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Speaker 1: a wool knickers over these things called combinations, which was

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Speaker 1: basically what like it was. It was almost a romper, right, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was like a camusle bodice attached to knickers, eliminating

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Speaker 1: the need for a comiss um. And remember though these

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Speaker 1: kinds of fabrics, that a lot of this stuff was

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Speaker 1: being made up, particularly for wealthier women at the time,

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Speaker 1: things like I'll pack a wool, which we could I

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Speaker 1: would not imagine wearing I mean, we have woolen underwear

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Speaker 1: like the Long John's today, but thinking of paying a

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Speaker 1: pack of woolen hand ties steams very unhygienic. But the sweat,

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Speaker 1: so much sweat trapping, so much heat. But we didn't

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Speaker 1: have the kind of lightweight cotton fabric at an affordable

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Speaker 1: existing period, but also cotton at an affordable rate at

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Speaker 1: the time anyway, So there's technological aspect to this as well.

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Speaker 1: But there were also a number of more liberal women

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Speaker 1: who were rather tired of the fact that they were

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Speaker 1: wearing so many garments. And we've talked about these women

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Speaker 1: before a number of times on the podcast the Dress

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Speaker 1: Reformers of the nineteenth century. Yeah, these are women who

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Speaker 1: were like, hey, we actually want to leave the house

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Speaker 1: and be able to take deep breaths and not faint

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Speaker 1: on our fainting couches all the time and just move around.

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Speaker 1: Maybe ride a bicycle. Maybe ride a bicycle. Um. But

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Speaker 1: so this is coming from Reforming Women's Fashion eighteen fifty ninety, Politics,

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Speaker 1: Health and Art by Patricia A. Cunningham, and she writes

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Speaker 1: about how the dress reformers garments were designed on four

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Speaker 1: basic principles no ligature, uniform temperature, lightness of weight, and

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Speaker 1: suspension from the shoulders, basically freeing women from the constrictions

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Speaker 1: of the corset, but also from all of those bulky

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Speaker 1: heavy layers. Yeah, and so we have women like Amelia Bloomer,

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Speaker 1: whom we've mentioned a number of times. She debuted her

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Speaker 1: eponymous Bloomer suit in eighteen fifty one, which it was

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Speaker 1: sort of like an ankle calf or ankle length puffy

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Speaker 1: trousers and over which you would wear a dress or

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Speaker 1: a skirt that would only come down mid calf and

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Speaker 1: even though you're still covered from head to toe, it

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Speaker 1: lends more mobility, sure, but it was also still considered

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Speaker 1: quite scandalous. So scandalous people were so afraid of what

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Speaker 1: this meant for the social order of the day. Women

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Speaker 1: wearing pants, I mean, they were all we've talked on

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Speaker 1: the podcast before about what suffrage the suffrage movement did

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Speaker 1: for like cartooning, for instance, that everyone drew these cartoons

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Speaker 1: of these sad men abandoned at home by their suffragists wives.

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Speaker 1: And it was kind of the same thing because of

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Speaker 1: bloomers and and pants and women wanting to wear regular

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Speaker 1: clothes that allowed them to move freely and actually leave

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Speaker 1: the house and ride a bicycle. People were so afraid

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Speaker 1: that suddenly, like men would have to start wearing dresses,

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Speaker 1: because surely if women wear pants, then men can't wear

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Speaker 1: pants too. Well, the echoes back to to what you

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Speaker 1: were saying earlier, Caroline, of how women wore skirts, bifurcated

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Speaker 1: clothes i e. Pants, breeches where for men, Yeah, men

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Speaker 1: wore the pants. So for the liberal women who were

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Speaker 1: interested in dress reform but weren't entirely comfortable with the

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Speaker 1: notion of a bloomers suit or wearing trousers, underwear reform

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Speaker 1: was seen as a more subtle and acceptable kind of

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Speaker 1: fashion revolution. So you have things like the Emancipation Union

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Speaker 1: under flannel, which was patented in eighteen sixty eight. And

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Speaker 1: this really looks a lot like just a union suit

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Speaker 1: that you might even see still today, sort of like um,

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Speaker 1: like a long sleeve shirt and pants all in sort

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Speaker 1: of a onesie, like a giant one's like as I

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Speaker 1: have wednesie. I like the term underflannel. Oh, it's just

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Speaker 1: my underflannel if those are your winter under underpants, my

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Speaker 1: underflannels punching up and one person who I think that

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Speaker 1: we should devote entire podcast to at some point because

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Speaker 1: she's fascinating, who adopted the dress reform undersuit was Dr

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Speaker 1: Mary Walker, who was a doctor during the Civil War

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Speaker 1: and actually the first woman to receive a Medal of Honor.

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Speaker 1: And she was very liberal and address reformer to the

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Speaker 1: degree that she was arrested a number of times because

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Speaker 1: she would wear men's suits in public because she was like, listen,

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Speaker 1: I'm not wearing all of this corsetry and skirts and

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Speaker 1: petticoats and all this stuff. This is ridiculous. Nobody got

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Speaker 1: time for that. But yeah, she'd she'd wear the frock

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Speaker 1: coat and the trousers, and she was convinced that the

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Speaker 1: dress reform undersuit that she helped design would prevent rape

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Speaker 1: and seduction. Yeah. That was another interesting thing about these

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Speaker 1: union these union suits, these emancipation suits, was how intentionally

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Speaker 1: unsexy they were. Right under flannel, there's nothing sexy about

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Speaker 1: under flannel. Oh, but so warm, so perfect for snuggling,

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Speaker 1: that's right, just like a snuggy Okay. And then in

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five, just for another example of how there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of interest in this kind of underwear reform.

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Speaker 1: Susan Taylor Converse of Woburn, Massachusetts, debuted her Emancipation suit,

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Speaker 1: which was a corset and corset cover all in one,

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Speaker 1: but you could separate it into two pieces by buttons

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Speaker 1: at the hips. So there was sort of a spectrum

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Speaker 1: of this kind of dress reform where you see things

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Speaker 1: like this, where it's like, well, we don't want to

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Speaker 1: abandon female undergarments entirely, maybe we can just transition it

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Speaker 1: into something a little more manageable. Yeah, it's it's funny

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Speaker 1: to think of all the effort that that was going

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Speaker 1: into underwear at the time when we just go to

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Speaker 1: the department store or Target or something and pick up

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Speaker 1: panties of our own today. Yeah, it's funny to think

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Speaker 1: of under flannels being patented. Yeah, exactly, so much underwear effort. Um.

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Speaker 1: But so we're gonna take a quick break and when

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Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to move into the twentieth

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Speaker 1: century underwear gets a little bit more modern. And now

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Speaker 1: back to the show. So in the first half of

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we briefly mentioned Queen Victoria and her massive

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Speaker 1: crotchless undergarments, and it really is in large part thanks

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Speaker 1: to Queen Victoria's massive fashion influence that by the time

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Speaker 1: we get into the nineteen hundreds, obviously we've moved out

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Speaker 1: of Victorian era through the Edwardian we're now into the

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Speaker 1: progressive era that all but the poorest women because a

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Speaker 1: lot of our history so far has really only been

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Speaker 1: focused on women who could a four undergarments. But all

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Speaker 1: but the poorest women were wearing some sort of undergarment.

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Speaker 1: And it might be crotchless, it might not be croutchless, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it is regardless. It is interesting to watch as

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Speaker 1: fashion has evolved since the nineteenth century, since even the

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century. It's interesting to watch as fashion evolved and

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Speaker 1: the silhouettes evolve, the underwear silhouettes and bulk and size

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Speaker 1: and crotches all evolve with it. Yeah. So in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen tens and twenties, there was an undergarment revolution of

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Speaker 1: foot because this is the time, of course, when corsets

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Speaker 1: in full floor length skirts were going away in favor

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Speaker 1: of the slimmer silhouettes. You have people like Caress Crosby

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Speaker 1: inventing these revolutionary things called bras, and women being like,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I'm a new woman. I don't think

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Speaker 1: I have to wear this corset anymore. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: think of, for instance, something that I'm obsessed with, which

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Speaker 1: is down Navvy. Think of the period costumes that they

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Speaker 1: wear on that show, and that they have very slim

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Speaker 1: silhouettes and they're not going to be wearing bulky under

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Speaker 1: flannel under those lovely silk dresses. Yeah. And World War

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Speaker 1: One plays a big role in this as well, because,

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Speaker 1: as we talked about a lot when it comes to

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Speaker 1: World War Two, during World War One, there were lots

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Speaker 1: of women who ended up working in the factories to

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Speaker 1: take over the jobs that the men left behind. And

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Speaker 1: one thing that sort of helped society get used to

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Speaker 1: this notion of women doing men's work. In quotes, some

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Speaker 1: would wear what were termed woman alls, which were essentially

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Speaker 1: kind of like a mesh between overalls and coveralls. Um,

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Speaker 1: but a little bit cuter to be honest, or maybe

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Speaker 1: it was just the hairstyles. Well they were poofi are. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were a little puffy. They look they remind me

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Speaker 1: because bloomers also were very puffy because they still had

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Speaker 1: to sort of resemble skirts so that if people wouldn't

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Speaker 1: freak out, but they did anyway, And so these women

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Speaker 1: alls definitely were like a puffy or softer, more feminine version,

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Speaker 1: and that was definitely on on purpose. I mean, there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of anxiety around women wearing pants, to

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Speaker 1: the point where they obviously had to rename them woman

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Speaker 1: alls instead of overalls or coveralls, because again, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's just another interesting illustration of the anxiety around women

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Speaker 1: adopting or appropriating anything that had been considered masculine or

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Speaker 1: just for men. Well, and probably the only reason that

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Speaker 1: this happened, and women wouldn't be wearing pants and mass

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Speaker 1: immediately after World War One. It would still take time,

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Speaker 1: but the only reason that the tide started to change

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Speaker 1: was because wearing skirts in a factory setting was a liability,

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Speaker 1: it was an actual safety hazard, so they had to

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Speaker 1: wear woman alls or trousers. But once you start wearing

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Speaker 1: these closer fitting, bifurcated garments, guess what your underwear has

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Speaker 1: to change as well. And this is what leads to

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Speaker 1: our underwear crotches closing up for good. And so now

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Speaker 1: we're moving into the flapper era, and your silhouettes are slimmer,

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Speaker 1: your dress heamlines are definitely shorter, and so a lot

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Speaker 1: of new underwear technology basically had to be developed to

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Speaker 1: accompany the fashion of the day. Yeah, there were things

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Speaker 1: called tango knickers. There were kemmy knickers, which was a

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Speaker 1: combination between underskirts and camisas, and there were also flappers,

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Speaker 1: cammy knickers, and cammy bockers. Now, the differences between these

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Speaker 1: individual kinds of undergarments are not huge. They're all sort

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Speaker 1: of either combinations of uh bodices and knickers or are

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Speaker 1: just different different kinds of shorts. I mean, because we aren't.

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Speaker 1: We aren't to the point where they're high cut, our

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Speaker 1: full thighs are not exposed. We're still wearing, if anything,

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Speaker 1: shorts because the hemlines have risen with the Flapper era. Um,

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Speaker 1: but there are definitely more options and sexier options too,

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Speaker 1: because it's also during the Flapper era that women's sexuality

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Speaker 1: in conjunction too with the development of the movie industry

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Speaker 1: and pop culture. In that sense, women's sexuality starts to

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Speaker 1: come a little bit more to the forefront. And so

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Speaker 1: you know, ineligible Dame is going to have some sexy

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Speaker 1: flappers cammy knickers. And so even before women get cammy knickers,

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Speaker 1: a bunch of retailers and manufacturers are starting to get

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Speaker 1: in on this changing underwear technology game, and they're actually

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Speaker 1: starting to both advertised and mass produced underpants. For instance,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, the Saturday Evening Post publishes the first

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Speaker 1: print ad underwear. Granted it was for men, but it

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Speaker 1: was called the Kenosha Closed Crotch. And I assure you

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Speaker 1: it's all spelled with k's all caves, the closed Crotch.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why. I don't know why other than

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Speaker 1: maybe it looked good in the print ad. Well. I

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Speaker 1: also like that their tagline was the classiest garment made. Hey,

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Speaker 1: gentlemen want to be classic, that's right. And right around

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Speaker 1: this time too, you start having print advertisements for women's underwear.

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Speaker 1: But it's understandable that the men's underwear is going to

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Speaker 1: get the first ad too, because that's well scandalous seeing

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Speaker 1: a lady in her undergarments. Um. But once we're in

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Speaker 1: the early twenties, we have all these different kinds of

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Speaker 1: nickers for sale, the length of them again is going

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Speaker 1: to fluctuate in accordance with hemlines. And this is also

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Speaker 1: when we have the emergence of that loathed by many

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Speaker 1: word panty panty. It is a very diminutive word. Um.

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Speaker 1: But in sears and Roebuck cells, possibly the first period panties,

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Speaker 1: and they were solely for nighttime use. Yeah, probably because

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Speaker 1: they were higher cut and would be deemed inappropriate for

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Speaker 1: every day where. But Caroline, you mentioned just a second

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Speaker 1: ago that that panti is a very diminutive sounding word,

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Speaker 1: which is probably where a lot of the creep factor

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Speaker 1: comes from a grown woman wearing panties. It just doesn't

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Speaker 1: really mesh well and etymologically it is pretty diminutive because

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Speaker 1: before the turn of the century, children were making so

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Speaker 1: called panties for their dollies, which panties was just as

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Speaker 1: shortened formed of pantal leet and panty though might have

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Speaker 1: originated as a derogatory term for men's underwear because you know,

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Speaker 1: they were the original pantaloon wearers. And then if you

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Speaker 1: moved to nineteen ten, before we have the emergence of

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Speaker 1: panties for women, panty waste became an insult for weak

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Speaker 1: or cowardly manned the opposite of only man who wears

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Speaker 1: the pants, which was an expression that came out in

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Speaker 1: one I Love. I don't encourage the use of words

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Speaker 1: to diminish people in general. However, I did, like I

402
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Speaker 1: giggled out loud when I read panty waist, because that

403
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Speaker 1: is such like an old school, antiquated insult. I just

404
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Speaker 1: picture like the man you know in the striped leotard,

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Speaker 1: like with his barbells and his handlebar mustache, being like, hey,

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Speaker 1: your penny waste putting up his dukes, up his dukes. Well,

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Speaker 1: by the time those men start wearing the pants, so

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Speaker 1: to speak, in the early nineteen thirties, women start to

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Speaker 1: wear for the very first time, the kinds of close

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Speaker 1: fitting underwear similar to highwaist lady briefs that we see today.

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Speaker 1: And funnily enough, they looked a lot like those period

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Speaker 1: panties soul By Sears and Roebuck. Yeah, and it's around

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Speaker 1: this time that we're developing those close fitting panties like

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Speaker 1: what we think of today, because up until now, the

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Speaker 1: crotches were lower, possibly like you mentioned earlier, to avoid

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Speaker 1: that dangerous contact with the dangerous lady crotch. Yeah, I

417
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Speaker 1: think that that had a lot to do with it,

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Speaker 1: because if you do look at underwear up until this time,

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Speaker 1: it's all kind of drop waste in a way, while

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Speaker 1: leaving a lot of room. But I wonder too if

421
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: it has to do with fabric technology, because there was

422
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 1: still always through all of this the concern of the

423
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: vaginal canal getting enough air to it and enough circulation

424
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: so that you don't get the rotten crotch. I said it, Caroline,

425
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: but let's be honest, that's that's what they were trying

426
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: to avoid. Well, we all know that our vagina's breathe.

427
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: They have their own respiratory system and pendant from our

428
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: own lung, so it's good to keep air flowing. But

429
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's it's not like under garments of

430
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: the time. We're stretchy. It's not like you could just

431
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: pull them up and snap them, snap them into place.

432
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: So I I get it, but it's there are some

433
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,920
Speaker 1: there are some interesting issues to examine there about why

434
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: people didn't want fabric up close to their libya. Well,

435
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:25,439
Speaker 1: even this closer fitting underwear in the nineteen thirties wasn't

436
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: necessarily the kind that we would see, you know, in

437
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: a store today, like a pack of Haynes cotton underwear

438
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: that's super easy to take care of. Because we didn't

439
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: have things like washers and dryers in the home, and

440
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: because of fabric technology. At the time, women's underwear still

441
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: required a lot of maintenance, a lot of hand washing, ironing.

442
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: They still had lots of buttons. Yeah, you shook your hand,

443
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: we said ironing. Women had to iron their underwear, launder,

444
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 1: not even iron my shirt. I surely would not iron

445
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: my underwear. But then around World War two, women is

446
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: underwear definitely becomes a little more simplified, and this is

447
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: attributed partly to Else's kept Really, she is credited with

448
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: putting in elastic waste bands into underwear, and this is great, right,

449
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: except the whole reason that she did it is because

450
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: of famine related to World War Two and shrinking waistlines,

451
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: because with buttons and things, your underwear might just fall

452
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: right off of you if you started losing a lot

453
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: of weight. Yeah. And she also made them out of

454
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: drip dry materials so they were easier to care for

455
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: as well. And she was motivated to uh not only

456
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: to facilitate better fit, but also to allow women to

457
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: ride yet again bicycles around. So much of these spurts

458
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: of development that we see in women's underwear is largely

459
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: motivated by mobility. And we have these times when it's

460
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: it's World War One, when we finally close up the

461
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: crotches because oh, women are working in all it's World

462
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: War two and women are working again and needing to

463
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: move around and get from place to place. Same thing.

464
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: Going back to the thirties with address reformers. Um, it's

465
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: really interesting to see those kinds of parallels. So after

466
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: World War Two, we're wearing underwear similar to what we're

467
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: wearing today. We're wearing bras and panties or knickers. But

468
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties, particularly with the return to domesticity,

469
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: you have, it's kind of the leave it to Beaver era,

470
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: the Madmen era. Women are also wearing lots of foundation garments. Yeah,

471
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: so we've got the pointy, nuclear shaped bras, the petticoats, girdles,

472
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: garter belts become a thing, and stockings. Yeah, because it's

473
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: all about creating the ideal lady shape, the small waste

474
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: of pointy boobs and then the poofy skirt. Well, I mean,

475
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: but that's that's not a new thing. I mean, women

476
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: were wearing bustles, women wearing corsets. This is just it's

477
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: like another courset, except it's a pointy brawl and you

478
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: can actually take a deep breath in it. But isn't

479
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: it interesting though, that when we have that return to domesticity,

480
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: we put more undergarments back on Caroline. But yeah, starting

481
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: around the nineties, seventies and all the way through today

482
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: are underwear starts to get smaller and smaller and less

483
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: and less. Yeah. By the time we reach the mid nineties,

484
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: that's when we have, for instance, the arrival and mass

485
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: of the thong. Yeah, and then the g string, which

486
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: I think and we did a whole episode on uh,

487
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: the thong and the invention of the thong and all

488
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: of that. So go to stuff I've never told you

489
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: dot com and starts thong and you can listen to it. Um.

490
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: But I would say, and we talked about this in

491
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: that episode, I think thongs are out for the most part.

492
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: They're functional, but I don't think they're fashionable anymore now, man,

493
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: I have said it before in the podcast person and

494
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: I will say it again. Just laser cut boy short

495
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: through the way to go, no panty lines and also

496
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: no wedgeees. But what about under flannels? Under flannels that

497
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: might be good for sleeping, Yeah, rainy Sunday afternoons, the

498
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: under flannels, yes, listening to podcast all day long. But

499
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: we've mentioned along the way how technology has facilitated this

500
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: development of underwear. We just want to briefly focus a

501
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: little bit more on that. And this is coming from

502
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: a paper in The Journal of Popular Culture by Janet

503
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: and Peter Philip called History from Below Women's Underwear and

504
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: the Rise of Women's Sport, which is really fascinating it

505
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: It obviously focuses a lot on sport, and we're not

506
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: going to talk about sports so much, um, but it

507
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: talked about how these fabric innovations and also the arrival

508
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 1: of elastic really did so much for us. It meant

509
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:52,719
Speaker 1: that we could wear the underwear that we are wearing

510
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: or not wearing today. And then alongside elastic, which in

511
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century was slowly began to replace things

512
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: like draw strings and buttons in under pants, we get

513
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: the affordability of breathable cotton fabric finally breathable cotton. And

514
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: so this was coming about thanks to spreading prosperity and

515
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: shrinking poverty, which kind of gave rise to the use

516
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: of cotton dresses in addition to cotton underwear, especially as

517
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: our environments that we were living and existing in were

518
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: better heated. Yeah, and all of us is contributing to

519
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: better hygiene at home. I mean, we also have better

520
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: understanding of hygiene UM and things like running water and

521
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: electricity which would eventually facilitate washers and dryers, all of

522
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: which contributes to the kind of underwear that we were

523
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: able to wear. Um. But then during the World wars eras,

524
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: you also have the development of synthetic fibers, which were

525
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: both a blessing and a curse for women's crotches because

526
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: in the twenties and thirties, for instance, on was all

527
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 1: the rage, and then in World War Two, nylon was

528
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 1: a big deal, and polyester as well, and so it

529
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: allowed these for these new and lighter kinds of underwear

530
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: for women in those different kinds of shapes that we

531
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,399
Speaker 1: had talked about, but it took a while for them

532
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 1: to figure out, especially after we got to the sixties

533
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:25,359
Speaker 1: with lycra and spandex, that while that's all fine well

534
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: and good, but you probably need to have cotton in

535
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:32,319
Speaker 1: the crotch for that breathe ability factor because of the

536
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: vagina's respiratory system, it's gotta breathe. You gotta let that

537
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: lady breathe. Really, you just don't want sweat too much

538
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: down there, no uh no more under flannel um and

539
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: so yeah, and that's when in the nineteen seventies you

540
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: get those cotton gussets that help improve underwear hygiene. And

541
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: Caroline for a possibly t M I side note on

542
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: something my mom did tell me. I remember when I

543
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: was hitting puberty and she was talking to me more

544
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: about my sweet lady bud. She emphasized the importance of

545
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: the cotton crotch and underwear. You know. She was like, Kristen,

546
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:15,839
Speaker 1: don't you need to do that? You need to let

547
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: her breathe. So I'm really just like parenting my mother

548
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: because she was emphatic about it for the prevention of

549
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: things like yeast infections and all of those other things

550
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 1: that can happen. And it has stuck in my brain,

551
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: Caroline ever since. So thanks mom. Yeah, I don't I don't.

552
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: I feel like my mother and I had an underwear conversation,

553
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:39,840
Speaker 1: but I can't remember it, and that's probably like mentally

554
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: on purpose. Well, it's probably a big deal for my

555
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: mom and women of our mom's ages because it was

556
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies that those cotton gussets the crotches

557
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: were brought along, like became more standard in underwear to

558
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: improve underwear hygiene, because there was I think it was

559
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: and maybe the late nineteen sixties or early seventies where

560
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: there was sort of an outbreak of infections that women

561
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: were getting from panties made with certain synthetic fibers that

562
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: were not good for your vaginal ecosystem. Right, Well, your

563
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: body is natural, and your underwear should be natural, that's right,

564
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 1: just all made of gluten free uh no, partially hydrogenated oil,

565
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: sugar free underwear. But one thing that we haven't really

566
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: talked about in this timeline we've been going through is

567
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:43,959
Speaker 1: the increased sexualization of underwear because it really did start

568
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 1: out as this utilitarian kind of thing. I mean, if

569
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: you look back in in art, for in like the

570
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, of course there are eroticized images of women

571
00:36:55,280 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: just in their corsets and petticoats, but it's so different

572
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 1: from today where you have Victoria's Secret and it's it's

573
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: very it's all about sexiness or cute. You need to

574
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: be sexy cute. Yeah, Well, the impression that I got

575
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: reading Jill fields paper erotic modesty, which I mean she

576
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: goes she goes in depth on underwear and clothing and

577
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,240
Speaker 1: just sort of the political implications of all of these things.

578
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: And some of the things she talks about are the

579
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 1: fact that you know, underwear is a functional thing and

580
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: and women do need it for various reasons, have needed

581
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: it for various reasons, and have needed it to perform

582
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,800
Speaker 1: various functions. But going all the way back to people

583
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: being scared of women wearing bifurcated garments, up to today,

584
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: there's been that fear of women being too masculine, and

585
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: so in the Night she talks about how in the

586
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and and really any time that underwear veers

587
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: too close to being too masculine or too functional, that

588
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: there's always the a push that accompanies this to make

589
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: it very pretty. Also, so as soon as women start

590
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:10,280
Speaker 1: wearing semi bifurcated underwear, uh, let's make them panti lets

591
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 1: and attach lace on the bottom of the knee. Or

592
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 1: as soon as women are wearing more panty style underwear,

593
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: oh well, let's make them sexy and have a garter

594
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: belt and have more of a wink wink, nudge nudge

595
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: sexuality to it, because while it's bad and dangerous and

596
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: scary to think of a woman's crotch of her sexuality,

597
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: of course people associated underwear with eroticism and being sexy. Yeah,

598
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: she actually talks about the relationship between those things. In

599
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: going back to the open crotched era, she said, wearing

600
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: these drawers marked a female body is conforming to the

601
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 1: dictates of respectable femininity, including the unspoken provision of sexual

602
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: accessibility via that open crotch. But then as a cross

603
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:04,240
Speaker 1: closes up and women attain things like the right to vote,

604
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: and then more of us atret going to work. She says,

605
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, open crush garments were signified as

606
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: primarily erotic, and that the transition from open to close

607
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 1: doors reveals not only the power of clothing as a

608
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: medium of signification, but how women struggles for autonomy interact

609
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 1: with resistant social forces to reconfigure gender distinctions. Because this

610
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 1: is one thing that popped out in a few sources,

611
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 1: how in the nineteen eighties you have the woman in

612
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: the power suit. She's going to work, and she's got

613
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: the big shoulder pads and she's trying to make her

614
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: way and outwardly, she's wearing clothes that really mimic men's clothes.

615
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 1: You know, you have the ladies suits, women wearing the

616
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 1: floppy bow ties. But underneath this is the era of

617
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: the sexy teddy's, right. Yeah. I think of Sigourney Weaver

618
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: and Working Girl, which is one of my all time

619
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: favorite movies. But Sigourney Weaver being like the tough, ball

620
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: busting boss. But when she breaks her leg and she's

621
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: at home, or I think even when she's in the

622
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 1: hospital too, with her leg like up in a cast,

623
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: she's wearing a sexy, silky neglige because you can't have

624
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 1: a woman just being too masculine or too powerful. Yeah,

625
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 1: and and now it seems like a lot of our

626
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: concern has shifted interestingly, uh to the age that someone

627
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,399
Speaker 1: is wearing sexy underwear. We get concerned about a nice

628
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: When I say we, I mean like culturally, the conversations

629
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: that crop up when say, you know there are too

630
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: sexy of underwear in the girls section at Target. Well, yeah,

631
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,320
Speaker 1: I mean, but there have been There have been eight

632
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,439
Speaker 1: things around underwear and age forever. Because Fields writes about

633
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: I think it's in the nineteenth century. If I'm not

634
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,359
Speaker 1: mistaken early nineteenth century, when you know, boys and girls

635
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: would basically be dressed the same up until they're about five,

636
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: but that girls, young girls would wear panties or pantaloons

637
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: or you know what. The basically the underwear that you

638
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: and I were joking out at the top of the podcast,

639
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 1: the puffy panda lands that would allow girls active play.

640
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: It would allow them to be rough and tumble, allow

641
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: them to get a lot of activity. It wasn't until

642
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: they hit puberty or hit like sexual maturity or marrying

643
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: age that it was like, Okay, well, now you put

644
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: on the course that restricts your movement. Now you put

645
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 1: on the all of the petticoats and undergarments and other

646
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: things that restrict your movement, because now you're a sexually

647
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 1: mature adult woman who was just expected to sit there. Well,

648
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: and that ties into one thing we didn't have a

649
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 1: chance to talk about, which was the development of the trousseau,

650
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: of the tradition of uh woman of a marrying age

651
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: being sort of storing up her her sexy petticoats that

652
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: she would wear for her husband. And that's where the

653
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: wink wink, nudge nudge thing comes in because underwear is

654
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: not supposed to be sexy. It's just functional, but it's

655
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: supposed to be seck that it's supposed to be sexy. Yeah.

656
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: But one final note though, Caroline, before we sign off,

657
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: is that when it comes to women's underwear, movie away

658
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 1: from the age thing, but just women's underwear. I feel

659
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:05,839
Speaker 1: like today we don't even talk about underwear so much

660
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: because we have so many styles to choose from. People

661
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: have kind of gotten over the whole thong horror and

662
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: now we're just focused on talking about what's underneath our

663
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 1: boy shorts, thongs, laser cut briefs, whatever it might be.

664
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: Now we're just like it's all pupe talk, which says

665
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: a lot about how we culturally have evolved in terms

666
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 1: of women's sexuality, but still have lots of hang ups

667
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: in terms of our bodies. So with this really curious

668
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: to hear from people about your thoughts on underwear. I

669
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: want to know if other people are grossed out by

670
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:45,720
Speaker 1: the word panty and why If we have costume historians listening,

671
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have lots to contribute to this conversation

672
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: as well. And wondering from men whether we need to

673
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 1: do a podcast on Boxers versus Briefs or the closed

674
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:01,879
Speaker 1: crotch with the k no Sha Cloths crotch. You can

675
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: email us mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is

676
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: our email address. You can also tweet us at mom

677
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook. And we've got a

678
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 1: couple of messages to share with you when we come

679
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: right back from a quick break and now back to

680
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 1: the show. So I've got a couple of letters here

681
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: from our episode about Taylor Swift, and this one is

682
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: from Madison, subject line Teeth Swifty and her feminism. She

683
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: writes as one of the many people who just now

684
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: started recognizing Taylor Swift after that ridiculously catchy song of hers,

685
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: shake It Off, came out, and becoming more impressed of

686
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: the feminist impact she's having on young girls. Coming from

687
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 1: a small, mostly country town, I grew up under the

688
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,800
Speaker 1: notion that feminism was a bunch of angry lesbians yelping

689
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 1: about how much they hate men. It never made sense

690
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: to me until I started listening to your podcast and

691
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: it clicked. These girls that are listening to Taylor's music

692
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: and seeing her self confidence need a fulfillment at this

693
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: time where they happen to be insecure while trying to

694
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: discover who they are. They see her as this woman

695
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 1: who knows what she wants and deserves, who isn't afraid

696
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 1: to stand up for something she should have rights to.

697
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: She has that girl next door essence it's easy to

698
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,160
Speaker 1: relate to. Therefore, she can easily be that good influence

699
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: for girls while showing them how to be feminist powerhouses

700
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: all through songs. It really goes to show the music

701
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 1: is a powerful thing. This was such a well worded podcast,

702
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: another wonderful outstanding job. Well done, ladies, So thank you

703
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: Madison Well. I have a letter here from Aaron. She says,

704
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to your Taylor Swift episode and

705
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: absolutely loved it. It's impossible not to respect her after

706
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 1: that light you shed. I'm obsessed, just as my boyfriend

707
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 1: who's forced a jam to in the car with me.

708
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: I haven't always been a swift ee though, like many others,

709
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: I used to think she was just a pretty face

710
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: manipulated by the biz and a little bit of auto tune.

711
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: One summer, my friend had an extra ticket for her

712
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:57,720
Speaker 1: Speak Now concert and I reluctantly went. I was blown

713
00:44:57,760 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 1: away by her stage presence and the fact that she

714
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: play guitar, piano, ukulele, and banjo. There was no denying

715
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: she had talent. It wasn't until I learned more about

716
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: her completely boss ownership of her brand, her embracing feminism,

717
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: and her switch to a genre that was more at

718
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:14,799
Speaker 1: my alley, that I absolutely adored her. But that isn't

719
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,399
Speaker 1: why I'm writing. The number one reason why I put

720
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift on a golden pedestal is that she's a

721
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 1: role model for young girls to pick up music. For

722
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:24,280
Speaker 1: two years, I worked at a mom and pop music

723
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 1: store that catered to introducing kids to music, providing them

724
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: with their first instruments, and offering a great lessons program.

725
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: Seeing students glow when they played their first few notes

726
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,839
Speaker 1: was my favorite part of my job. Unfortunately, only one

727
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 1: out of four students were girls. The endless supply of

728
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: dudes holding guitars and the media has made instruments a

729
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: boy thing. Yes, that is what a young customer told

730
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: his little sister. T Swift challenges this extremely ridiculous notion.

731
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: I have seen first hand how she inspires young girls

732
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 1: to learn music When we show them all the easy

733
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 1: sheet music from red in nineteen nine that they can

734
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:02,320
Speaker 1: play there, immediately begging their parents to buy them a guitar.

735
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: We put on an optional semi monthly concert, but it's

736
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: usually only the boys signing up. That is, until we

737
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 1: had an exclusively Taylor Swift concert. It was our greatest

738
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:16,720
Speaker 1: attendance ever. No other musician inspire such a love of music,

739
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:19,719
Speaker 1: and I can't possibly put into words how important that is.

740
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Aaron. I love that story,

741
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who's written into us Mom stuff

742
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is our email address

743
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: and to find links all of our social media as

744
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: well as all of our videos, blogs and podcasts with

745
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: our sources. So you can follow along with us, head

746
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: on over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com