Speaker 1: Listen. We are in the heyday of the bodysuit, of
Speaker 1: the velcro wrap around the waist, and I feel like
Speaker 1: it's snuck up on us.
Speaker 2: Yes, it feels like everything and everyone wants to be
Speaker 2: shaped inside of their clothes.
Speaker 1: You know who is my favorite person that talks about shapewear? Who? Well,
Speaker 1: they make my favorite shapewear ads and they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be shaped like a Coca Cola bottle. Alonzo Arnold. Ah.
Speaker 2: I love Alonzo Arnold. They are giving you looks and
Speaker 2: they are giving you comedy, so I love it. But
Speaker 2: just like you said, Alonzo Arnold is going to put
Speaker 2: on that shapewear hon knee.
Speaker 1: And Alonzo isn't the only one. A lot of people are.
Speaker 1: And it really makes us think like has this always
Speaker 1: been going on, just in different forms, and now it's acceptable.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're one step away from the sports
Speaker 1: rap outside the shirt. This really started with the slippery
Speaker 1: slope with the compression sock. It all goes back to.
Speaker 2: That I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 3: This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
Speaker 1: pop culture, and a healthy dose of friendship. The semester
Speaker 1: is winding down and we want to have a really
Speaker 1: special semester finale featuring all of you. So make sure
Speaker 1: you give us a call and let us know your
Speaker 1: favorite episode from this semester. Yes, call us to zero
Speaker 1: two five six seven seven zero two eight, or if
Speaker 1: you're shy with your voice, email as at contact at
Speaker 1: Dope lapspodcast dot com.
Speaker 2: This week, we're talking all about shapewear specifically. We really
Speaker 2: wanted to know more about where it all started, what
Speaker 2: it's made of, and the social impacts on the people
Speaker 2: that wear it.
Speaker 1: Let's get into the recitation. What do we know?
Speaker 2: Well, we know that shapewear is everywhere. It feels like
Speaker 2: it's in everything. I just bought a pair of pants,
Speaker 2: just regular black pants, and there was like some shapewear
Speaker 2: at the top. It was really tight at the top
Speaker 2: and I wasn't even expecting it. So now it's being
Speaker 2: incorporated into just regular apparel.
Speaker 1: You know. I feel like when the Spanks Lady really
Speaker 1: made it big. Oh yeah, I knew every celebrity was
Speaker 1: going to have their shapewear aligned shapewear and like body
Speaker 1: sculpting all those. Yeah, but underwear and undergarments, it's a huge.
Speaker 2: Thing, absolutely, and we know that people use different types
Speaker 2: of different things.
Speaker 1: They have the compression stuff in the gut and they
Speaker 1: letting it loose in the butt.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have seen that. I've seen it for myself.
Speaker 2: I've seen it with my own eyes.
Speaker 1: And you know, a thing I know you know about
Speaker 1: me is that I hate shapewear. All my friends are like, girl,
Speaker 1: that dress will be so cute if you had on
Speaker 1: some spanks or you had on some friends, not all
Speaker 1: my friends, not you. You don't do that to me.
Speaker 1: I want your gut and butt loose. You let me
Speaker 1: be my real self.
Speaker 2: But it also feels like it's really taking off where
Speaker 2: celebrities are coming out with their own shapewear brands, and
Speaker 2: now it's like in every home this old has Yiddy,
Speaker 2: Kim Kardashian has skims.
Speaker 1: In Atlanta has their own brand of those like corsets
Speaker 1: and things and Tommy Buster things.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and then I see a bunch of them
Speaker 2: on Instagram, like Sweet Sweat, where it's like a waste
Speaker 2: thing like a waiste trainer. But I have a lot
Speaker 2: of questions like why is this so popular now? I
Speaker 2: know we're going back to the maiden type dresses and
Speaker 2: Victorian styles, Like are we getting course? Yes, are we
Speaker 2: getting back to that? I'm not ready.
Speaker 1: If we are, I'm not either. I'm not wearing a
Speaker 1: hoop skirt.
Speaker 2: Hey, the doorways are not wide enough anymore. I think
Speaker 2: I want to know as a material scientist, like the
Speaker 2: technology that's going into shapewear and these new age corsets,
Speaker 2: because they're not your great, great great grannies corsets. And
Speaker 2: I'm also curious about like the impact on society, particularly
Speaker 2: when we think about body image and what we normally lies.
Speaker 2: In addition to photoshop, these types of shapewear contraptions are
Speaker 2: really changing what the beauty standards are, like, oh this
Speaker 2: is normal or this is not when you go back.
Speaker 2: I was looking at some old photos and they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: this person was too thick, or they were too this
Speaker 2: person was plus size, or.
Speaker 1: They X, Y and Z. I'm like, in the nineties
Speaker 1: it was messed up, But now I'm like, have we
Speaker 1: gone the other way where we're like big booty, little leg,
Speaker 1: you know, or really flat stomach, unexpected smoothness in these
Speaker 1: different places. What does that do to our images of
Speaker 1: self for men and women when we take those things off.
Speaker 1: Is it just women wearing these shapewear? Because I think
Speaker 1: men are wearing them too.
Speaker 3: I've seen them.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into the dissection. Our guest for today's lab
Speaker 1: is doctor Wendy Burns Ardellino.
Speaker 4: I'm Wendy Burns Ardellino.
Speaker 5: I am the Dean of the College of Humanities Social
Speaker 5: Sciences at the University of Houston Downtown and I am
Speaker 5: a cultural studies practitioner and scholar.
Speaker 2: Doctor Burns Ardolino is the author of Jiggle Reshaping American Women,
Speaker 2: a book about American women in their relationship to traditional
Speaker 2: foundation garments and modern shapewear.
Speaker 1: Most of us have probably.
Speaker 2: Heard about SPANX, like we talked about already, but we
Speaker 2: wanted to learn more about what came before Spanx. How
Speaker 2: did the idea of shapewear come to be?
Speaker 1: Well, it begins with the corset.
Speaker 5: That all kind of began in the nineteenth century, and
Speaker 5: you would be hard pressed in Western society to find
Speaker 5: a woman who didn't wear a corset in that time frame.
Speaker 5: By the twentieth century, basically, corstree is on the ropes
Speaker 5: a bit.
Speaker 2: Corsets were traditional foundation garments, so garments that go under
Speaker 2: your clothes before you put your clothes on top. It
Speaker 2: was made to support a woman's torso, to hold the
Speaker 2: women's torso in and train it into a specific desired shape.
Speaker 2: They were handmade from rigid materials like wood, ivory, and whalebone.
Speaker 1: As the quote unquote.
Speaker 2: Ideal image and shape of women changed throughout time, soda corsets,
Speaker 2: so there were multiple styles of corsets throughout history.
Speaker 1: And my question is why, you know, why are women
Speaker 1: supposed to be wearing whalebones while men are walking around
Speaker 1: in free flowing pants.
Speaker 5: The arguments about the need to wear foundation garments and
Speaker 5: to wear shaping garments, and some of those include medical
Speaker 5: discourse that women's bodies will actually not hold their form.
Speaker 5: Women are not muscular enough, so they need the external
Speaker 5: garment to hold for them, otherwise their organs are going
Speaker 5: to just kind of drop out of their bodies or
Speaker 5: something like that. And I've done some work in sport
Speaker 5: discourse as well with regard to women who run. Some
Speaker 5: of the medical discourse was that their uteruses would fall
Speaker 5: out of their bodies so that there would be this
Speaker 5: collapsing of organs, this idea that if you were going
Speaker 5: to be bearing children that you needed to have a
Speaker 5: certain form for that, that you needed to care for
Speaker 5: your women parts and wearing shape.
Speaker 4: Where was a part of that.
Speaker 1: This is ridiculous. Yeah, absolutely ridiculous. Let me tell you.
Speaker 2: We've talked about science and how it can be racist, sexist,
Speaker 2: and homophobic, but you can see it specifically in this
Speaker 2: scientific talk quote unquote from back in the day, and
Speaker 2: they had it all wrong. Women weren't allowed to run
Speaker 2: in marathons for this reason. They first started allowing women
Speaker 2: to run in marathons in like the seventies because of
Speaker 2: this idea.
Speaker 1: Right, So the seventies probably for general marathons, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen eighty four when women were allowed to
Speaker 1: participate in the Olympics in the marathons. There, that's not
Speaker 1: that long ago.
Speaker 5: What's interesting about corcatry itself is really it is a
Speaker 5: locus of social control for women's bodies, and it really
Speaker 5: does emerge out of the discourses of hygiene, moral purpeitude,
Speaker 5: bound up with religion. Definitely patriarchal values, idealized images of
Speaker 5: the cult of womanhood and women's role in society.
Speaker 2: This sounds eerily familiar to women's fashion today and how
Speaker 2: lots of trends and ideals are dictated by men in
Speaker 2: the male gaze, high heels, the coke bottle figure. It
Speaker 2: seems like not a lot has changed over the past
Speaker 2: couple centuries. Yes, I'm not wearing high heels. I don't
Speaker 2: like wearing high heels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you see, I've been wearing my sneakers with my skirt. Okay,
Speaker 1: Like these nikes feel good. So doctor Burns Ardellino told
Speaker 1: us that corset use was at a high, but you know,
Speaker 1: the trends are always changing. Skinny zy and curvy's in
Speaker 1: big button, No, but big butt, but only with this shape.
Speaker 1: Like you know, you're doing all these things to emphasize
Speaker 1: and de emphasize your body according to these changing ideals.
Speaker 1: And one thing that was a major factor in the
Speaker 1: adoption of corset use was the advancement of technology for
Speaker 1: the mass production of garments in the nineteen thirties, and
Speaker 1: so this paved the way to the rise of modern.
Speaker 5: Shapewear when they become mass produced garments. In some ways,
Speaker 5: it democratizes shapewear because then more people can afford it.
Speaker 5: But I think the flip side of that is that
Speaker 5: the mass production of it enables it to be more controlled.
Speaker 5: There's more mass social control at the same time.
Speaker 1: Hmm. That's such a good point. So now it's not
Speaker 1: just ladies who lunch walking around with their stomachs crushed in,
Speaker 1: but now is everybody.
Speaker 5: And then at that point, more and more people are
Speaker 5: buying these products, right, and they might have multiple garments
Speaker 5: as opposed to like when you had a course, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe you would only have one or if you were
Speaker 5: wealthy too.
Speaker 4: At a time because they had to be handmade.
Speaker 2: Not only did mass production accelerate the growth of the
Speaker 2: shapewear industry, but new technology and innovation around fabrics and
Speaker 2: textiles also allowed the market to flourish, boom, and thrive.
Speaker 5: One of the first fabrics that was used is called
Speaker 5: last X, and with last X, the elastic was woven
Speaker 5: through the fabric to give it some stretch, right, So
Speaker 5: that's kind of like a precursor to spandex.
Speaker 1: So last text was vented in the thirties and Spandex,
Speaker 1: which we know for is elasticity, first hit the market
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight. Although we see it in a
Speaker 1: lot of things now. It was first used in bras,
Speaker 1: jockstraps and athletic wear.
Speaker 2: Now it feels like all our clothes has plastics. Yeah,
Speaker 2: every item of clothing has some type of stretch, and
Speaker 2: sometimes you'll be able to see it if your clothes
Speaker 2: are falling apart, like minar, you can see the little
Speaker 2: elastic threading that's also ran through the fabric as well,
Speaker 2: just to give it some give, so that when you're
Speaker 2: pulling on those jeans that they have some stretch.
Speaker 1: I don't want no hard jeans. Keep the span dex
Speaker 1: in mind.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what it's like to put on
Speaker 2: a pair of jeans that don't have any stretch. Nah,
Speaker 2: that's why the cowboys were walking like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, the jeans were crisped, the cardboard pants. It's not
Speaker 1: the horses, y'all. It was the jeans the whole time.
Speaker 1: A good grief.
Speaker 2: Another factor that contributed to the rise of shapewear was advertising.
Speaker 5: Advertising is occurring in magazines that women have access to,
Speaker 5: but also trade journals, writing to fashion fires, get department stores.
Speaker 4: And then a third prong of this is.
Speaker 5: That literally a lot of these companies were marketing to
Speaker 5: the salespeople who were on the floor of the department stores.
Speaker 5: They would let them try out the garments, they would
Speaker 5: solicit their feedback, they would recommend how to sell the garments.
Speaker 5: So they'd be like, you need this garment because this
Speaker 5: is your problem with your body, right, That's kind of
Speaker 5: how they sold it.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to the rise of feminism and the
Speaker 1: women's movement in the sixties and seventies. Now there's where
Speaker 1: we see a decline in shapewear use.
Speaker 5: Feminism is on the right eyes and women really say
Speaker 5: we're not going to have our bodies be objects for men.
Speaker 4: We're going to enjoy our bodies for our bodies.
Speaker 5: And culturally that's such a profound moment. And I know
Speaker 5: the lore is that women burn the bras. They didn't
Speaker 5: really burn the bras, they just took them off. But
Speaker 5: I think the important part to understand about that was
Speaker 5: it was a moment of collective cultural consciousness when women
Speaker 5: really in the seventies were like, no, we're not gonna
Speaker 5: subscribe to this anymore. And that went on for probably
Speaker 5: twenty years, but it was quickly followed up with kind
Speaker 5: of an internal girdilization where women focus so much on
Speaker 5: what their bodies looked like.
Speaker 2: So that's a really important point. Even if women weren't
Speaker 2: wearing bras or shapewear, it doesn't mean that the social
Speaker 2: conditions that led us to wear shapewear in the first
Speaker 2: place no longer existed.
Speaker 1: The girdles are in our minds.
Speaker 2: So many people struggle with healthy really relationships to eating
Speaker 2: or exercising, and a lot of that is from social
Speaker 2: pressure to look a certain way. Shapewear and external garments
Speaker 2: are just one way of affecting or controlling how our
Speaker 2: bodies are seen.
Speaker 5: Women are still trying to constrain themselves into an idealized figure,
Speaker 5: and if you're not that figure, then what you do.
Speaker 1: And these idealized images of what women should look like, well,
Speaker 1: not only are they unrealistic and sexists, but they also
Speaker 1: intersect with fat phobia and the idea that a person's
Speaker 1: weight correlates directly to their health, and that's simply not true.
Speaker 5: In my book, I actually have like hang tags from
Speaker 5: the garments themselves that shows you that they're marketing it
Speaker 5: as slimming, shaping, trimming. Everything is about weight and controlling weight.
Speaker 4: When you look back at those.
Speaker 5: Women's journals like Red Book and Women's Day, they're actually
Speaker 5: recommending how to purchase just the right shapewear, how to
Speaker 5: wear the right shape, where how to do it correctly.
Speaker 4: So it's very prescriptive, filled with dos and don'ts.
Speaker 5: And again it's like taking the control away from women
Speaker 5: of their own bodies.
Speaker 2: From the garments, to the advertising, to the reason behind
Speaker 2: it all. In the first place, shapewear seems to point
Speaker 2: back to one thing, controlling women's bodies.
Speaker 4: And then there's this weird discourse that I follow throughout these.
Speaker 5: Journal even advertisements for these garments, that basically says, wear
Speaker 5: this garment and it will set you free.
Speaker 4: It does this weird.
Speaker 5: Dichotomy where it's saying that you need to be constrained
Speaker 5: in order to be set free, and.
Speaker 4: People buy that.
Speaker 1: The math is not math.
Speaker 5: And for me, women are told by their family members,
Speaker 5: by their community, by society, by their religious leaders, by
Speaker 5: the medical community, this is what you need to do
Speaker 5: in order to be a proper and good woman. Otherwise,
Speaker 5: like this idea of a loose woman. And hence the
Speaker 5: title of my book, right jiggle because we don't want
Speaker 5: jiggly bits, right, We want to have everything kind of
Speaker 5: like elaminated in smooth surface.
Speaker 2: I had no idea that the term loose woman was
Speaker 2: about their body composition.
Speaker 1: What I didn't either, I've always heard it related to
Speaker 1: something different.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Doctor Burns Ottolino said, the term loose women started
Speaker 2: with Okay, if you have like jiggly bits, as she's
Speaker 2: saying that, it correlates to you being like promiscuous because
Speaker 2: all of your you know, how you're being held together,
Speaker 2: and the patriarchy says, oh, if you're not all held
Speaker 2: together and tight like that, then you're probably a promiscuous woman.
Speaker 2: So jigly bits equals promiscuity. And then as time change,
Speaker 2: we changed it to loose women, like you know, loose.
Speaker 1: That's why, isn't it boy? The nineteenth century still has
Speaker 1: a grip on us. Okay, let's take a break, and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll talk about how celebrities are
Speaker 1: contributing to the shapewear conversation and how social media affects
Speaker 1: the way we see our bodies. We're back next week.
Speaker 2: We're talking all about eco tourism with Sarah Stadola, the
Speaker 2: impacts of travel on the environment and local communities.
Speaker 1: But right now let's get back to the lab. We've
Speaker 1: been talking with doctor Wendy Burns Ardelino all about the
Speaker 1: history of shapewear, from corsets to spandex. Shapewears rise and
Speaker 1: fall in the seventies with the women's movement and how
Speaker 1: well basically shape where it's had a comeback.
Speaker 5: And then in the nineties again technology allows us to
Speaker 5: have these really pretty colored garments and stretch lays, and
Speaker 5: spandex is huge part of that, and then the marketability
Speaker 5: back to women.
Speaker 2: It feels like shapewear has stuck around and is here
Speaker 2: to stay. Spanx was launched in two thousand and.
Speaker 1: I can remember when Spanx was launched, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: who really needs that? We don't really need that. But
Speaker 1: I can also remember, you know what else came out
Speaker 1: that I feel like people don't talk about enough. That
Speaker 1: was borderline shapewear but make it fashion American apparel. Do
Speaker 1: you have some pants from them like that shiny shapewere
Speaker 1: it's not shapewear, but it's like spandex is just to
Speaker 1: your body. Oh yes, yes, yes, I wore those pants out.
Speaker 2: It's not shapewear. It's not shapewear, it's a brand, no,
Speaker 2: But the smooth like.
Speaker 1: Silhouette, yeah, it was all like spandex like that was
Speaker 1: the thing for a while. Yeah. So it started off
Speaker 1: as underwear.
Speaker 2: Then we transitioned to the legging, you know, wearing things
Speaker 2: that we considered underwear now on the outside. And then
Speaker 2: now we had full blown bodysuits with the gloves all
Speaker 2: the way up to the neck.
Speaker 1: Mock turtleneck. That's not my kind of turtlenick. Do you
Speaker 1: remember when people were wearing those like, hmm, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be aging myself. But like those long shirts that were
Speaker 1: kind of like tunics. Some of them were baby doll shaped,
Speaker 1: a big belt and just like tights. Yes, I am people,
Speaker 1: she was me. I never knew where the belt was
Speaker 1: supposed to go. I have a short tour, so I
Speaker 1: just felt like it was around my neck. I felt
Speaker 1: like I could not get it right, you know. And
Speaker 1: in addition to those brands, I think we've seen another
Speaker 1: wave of shapewear booming along with the athletic wear ath
Speaker 1: leisure with celebrity brands like Skims, Ivy, park Yitty, Lululemon.
Speaker 1: Lululemon has a hold on the girls, well the girls
Speaker 1: with money because it's expensive and I'm not getting Lululemon
Speaker 1: because it doesn't come in my size.
Speaker 2: Baby With Yity, the reason why it was so important
Speaker 2: and why people find their groundbreaking is because it prioritizes
Speaker 2: larger sizes, like it starts at six X, and that's
Speaker 2: not something.
Speaker 1: That you see for most apparel.
Speaker 2: For a lot of apparel, they might have larger sizes,
Speaker 2: but they'll only have a few and so those will
Speaker 2: be sold out really quickly, and so then there's an
Speaker 2: entire population of people who don't have access to some
Speaker 2: of the clothing that they would like to have access to.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a huge mass production of extra extra
Speaker 2: smalls and size zeros and things like that, but folks
Speaker 2: that are on the plus size and of the spectrum,
Speaker 2: they don't have that option even in store.
Speaker 1: You can't go into a store and find those sizes.
Speaker 2: What Lizo is doing, what Yity is doing as a brand,
Speaker 2: is keeping the focal point the focus is plus size women.
Speaker 2: And that's really important because what the manufacturers in these
Speaker 2: apparel companies are always saying is that there's no market
Speaker 2: for plus size, Like you can't make money prioritizing plus
Speaker 2: size women. And what she's saying is you're wrong, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna show you. And she has like she's been
Speaker 2: selling out and so many people are wearing YITDDI now.
Speaker 1: I mean, and we see this in general, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. If there's only a few being made,
Speaker 1: those few are selling out. You know, when you talk
Speaker 1: about scarcity for large sizes and we're talking extra large
Speaker 1: and two exl Okay, everybody deserves to have these options.
Speaker 1: I think this is something we've talked about in a
Speaker 1: couple of different places, but we're seeing it once again.
Speaker 5: I have recently come into contact with some younger women
Speaker 5: and preteen girls who are just mortified about their images
Speaker 5: in social media. And I do feel like, as someone
Speaker 5: who grew up in the eighties and nineties that I
Speaker 5: did not grow up with that pervasiveness of social media
Speaker 5: controlling my every image. But I think for women, it's
Speaker 5: always like any image of yourself that's out there in
Speaker 5: your body, really it puts you at risk.
Speaker 4: And so it's concerning.
Speaker 1: I mean really when you think about it, like if
Speaker 1: women's bodies are often under critique or being critiqued, the
Speaker 1: more opportunity to see those bodies, the more opportunity there
Speaker 1: is to critique them, and so it is some type
Speaker 1: of risk. I can remember coming across some features of
Speaker 1: me in the eighth grade. I didn't know anything about posing,
Speaker 1: none of that stuff. I was just like a teenage dirtbag,
Speaker 1: Okay is what I was looking like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And now eighth graders these days, they know their angles,
Speaker 2: they know how to find the light, they know how
Speaker 2: to smile. They're wearing a full face of makeup. Yes,
Speaker 2: I mean, things are just very different now. And social
Speaker 2: media definitely has that effect because what social media does
Speaker 2: is put you in a place where you're constantly comparing
Speaker 2: yourself to other people. And so they're looking at some
Speaker 2: of these celebrities who are absolutely photoshopping their photos and saying,
Speaker 2: I want to look like that too.
Speaker 1: It takes me back to our Edges Snatched episode where
Speaker 1: we had with doctor Rocky Harris and he talked about
Speaker 1: the digital camera and the cameras in our phones, taking
Speaker 1: pictures of yourself and constantly evaluating yourself, and then with
Speaker 1: social media, other people evaluating you. You know, and like
Speaker 1: you said, a lot of these folks are photoshopping these photos.
Speaker 1: Those photos have run through so many processors before they
Speaker 1: get to your screen. Right if you look like that,
Speaker 1: call for help and so On one hand is really
Speaker 1: interesting because celebrities are sometimes being more transparent about like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the shape where I'm using, instead of pretending
Speaker 1: that it's their natural body. True.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, and social media means that
Speaker 2: people are more likely to be scrutinizing our bodies and
Speaker 2: feel pressure to look a certain way.
Speaker 5: There's a connection there to feeding that paranoia that women
Speaker 5: need to be a certain way. We're constantly chasing, chasing,
Speaker 5: chasing this.
Speaker 4: Idealized body, this.
Speaker 5: Idealized image of femininity that we can never attain. We're
Speaker 5: basically self policing. We're in the panopticon where we're looking
Speaker 5: at ourselves through the lens of the male gaze, and
Speaker 5: we're saying, no.
Speaker 4: That's not right, and that's not right, and you have
Speaker 4: to change that, and you have to change thought.
Speaker 1: Doctor Burns. Ardelino shared an idea from feminist philosopher Iris
Speaker 1: Marian Young about how women can occupy the male gaze
Speaker 1: even when they're trying to avoid it.
Speaker 5: She's like, people will make the argument that I love
Speaker 5: this beautiful sweater or I love this beautiful.
Speaker 4: Piece of shapewear, for example.
Speaker 5: But what they love, what women are enjoying about it
Speaker 5: isn't the experience of wearing the garment right, the feel
Speaker 5: of the garment or wearing the garment. They love the
Speaker 5: way they look in the garment, which the way they
Speaker 5: look in the garment is them occupying the male gaze
Speaker 5: and looking at themselves.
Speaker 4: I really believe that that's a social norm for us.
Speaker 5: For women, it's like we're pre programmed from birth to
Speaker 5: experience our bodies as other people see us right through
Speaker 5: that social lens. It's almost impossible to see yourself without
Speaker 5: occupying the male gaze.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really important framework that doctor burns
Speaker 2: Ardolino is highlighting because I feel like a lot of
Speaker 2: folks nowadays are saying, oh, I don't drust for men,
Speaker 2: I dress for women. I like when women are complimenting me.
Speaker 2: I don't need a man to compliment me, which is true,
Speaker 2: I'm right there with you. But then you also have
Speaker 2: to think about why other women are finding what you're
Speaker 2: wearing attractive, and it's usually because of these patriarchal standards
Speaker 2: where it's like, yes, waste is snatched, honey, Yes, booty
Speaker 2: is looking right. Yes, legs and all the things like that.
Speaker 2: But these are all things that men over the centuries
Speaker 2: have programmed us to believe. Is what the definition of
Speaker 2: beauty is.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm about to start saying, yes, girl, posture is slumped,
Speaker 1: relaxation is on a thousand Yes girl looking cozy, looking comfy.
Speaker 2: That's a sleepy girl realness. That's right. I love those
Speaker 2: bags under your eyes. I can tell you've been working hard.
Speaker 1: Yes, And so that begs the question of, like, what
Speaker 1: can we do to detach our self worth and confidence
Speaker 1: from the shape of our bodies and how we look, Like,
Speaker 1: how can we pull those things apart.
Speaker 5: I'm still struggling with it, and I'm fifty four.
Speaker 4: So I would say what I have come to now,
Speaker 4: based on experience.
Speaker 5: Is that if we focus on kind of our mind,
Speaker 5: body spirit connection and what it's like to inhabit our
Speaker 5: bodies in the world and to be whole and well
Speaker 5: and whatever that means for you, because I think that's
Speaker 5: a very individualized experience. What constitutes that and how can
Speaker 5: I occupy the space of the healthiest, wellest, fittest version
Speaker 5: of myself? What is it like to inhabit this body
Speaker 5: and what joy can we find in this body? And
Speaker 5: if I focus on that experientially as what that feels
Speaker 5: like and the practice of that, I.
Speaker 4: Think it gets around a little bit the corners of
Speaker 4: what does your body look like all the time.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like we're trying to shift the perspective
Speaker 1: from what does my body look like? To what can
Speaker 1: my body do for me? Or what can I do
Speaker 1: with my body? And that feels like a really powerful approach.
Speaker 5: Having a body that can do things and finding joy
Speaker 5: in the capacity of one's body is something that's often
Speaker 5: denied women. Not all women and not always, but a
Speaker 5: lot of women never experience their bodies as a body
Speaker 5: that can do things and that can be intentional and
Speaker 5: can achieve things. I can totally imagine people being like, well,
Speaker 5: that's a very ablest attitude about women's physicality. But I
Speaker 5: think whatever your physical limitters are, and I can say
Speaker 5: this as someone who has a metal plate in tense
Speaker 5: screws in my leg, that there are still things that
Speaker 5: you can do. I have been a triathlete for ten
Speaker 5: years and I had a major injury in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 5: but I still have a very active lifestyle and applying
Speaker 5: yourselves to the things that you can do. It does
Speaker 5: bring you a certain amount of confidence and also like
Speaker 5: it puts you in relationship with your body in a
Speaker 5: different way than visa via the lens of social media
Speaker 5: or the mirror.
Speaker 1: That is such a good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So no matter what your abilities are when it
Speaker 2: comes to your body, you can still enjoy the body
Speaker 2: that you have and the things that it can do.
Speaker 4: Right, So here's my pitch.
Speaker 5: My pitch is for cultural studies and media studies education,
Speaker 5: so that our kids, our students, our women are all
Speaker 5: going into society with those media goggles on, they have
Speaker 5: the tools to discern what's happening in society.
Speaker 1: This makes me think back to Doctor Burn's Ardelino talking
Speaker 1: about being socialized for this kind of stuff from birth,
Speaker 1: you know, And it makes me think back to people
Speaker 1: in my family saying sit still or sit like a lady, right,
Speaker 1: don't wrinkle your dress, you know, don't switch your hair out,
Speaker 1: and just you know, all of these things. Don't get
Speaker 1: your clothes dirty, yes, all that stuff. You're just limiting yourself. Now,
Speaker 1: somebody had to do laundry, So I understand part of.
Speaker 2: That but but you're doing all of these things so
Speaker 2: other people see you as nice. And I think one
Speaker 2: of the things we didn't really talk about earlier in
Speaker 2: the episode, but should be considered, is that we sometimes
Speaker 2: see this in men.
Speaker 1: Like in the gym Bros. Yeah, you're trying to get
Speaker 1: that ultimate V shaped body.
Speaker 2: And going to great measures that are very unhealthy to
Speaker 2: try and get it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm like, why you want to be shaped? Like
Speaker 1: Larry the Lobster who decided that.
Speaker 2: Was in exactly and they faced some of the same
Speaker 2: societal pressures that women face.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same.
Speaker 2: It's different because men still have male privilege, but there's
Speaker 2: still a lot of men that are suffering because of
Speaker 2: social media, body image and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that just takes us right back
Speaker 1: to this thing that you kind of started touching on
Speaker 1: earlier tea about okay Mailgates, Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and pressure.
Speaker 1: But we still are existing in this society, so right,
Speaker 1: as long as we're going to exist here, there's something
Speaker 1: about being able to exist comfortably in our skin. I
Speaker 1: guess I better copyright Beyonce Buovo and my skin Cozy
Speaker 1: and shape, where in some ways can be empowering, but
Speaker 1: it can also be limiting. And from the empowering aspect,
Speaker 1: everybody should have access to it right absolutely, so that
Speaker 1: you can look the way that you want to look
Speaker 1: when you look in the mirror. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we talk about this all the time. Too much of
Speaker 1: anything can be bad. Now, if you are nipping and
Speaker 1: tucking with spandex and lycra all the time, you may
Speaker 1: forget or it may start to not like what your
Speaker 1: body looks like without those things right, and that feels
Speaker 1: very possible exactly.
Speaker 2: And we talk to Manti Oid Harris about the effects
Speaker 2: of social media and how body dysmorphia is now at
Speaker 2: an all time high. It seems like because people are
Speaker 2: using these filters and celebrities are using a lot of shapewear,
Speaker 2: a lot of filters to make their bodies look a
Speaker 2: certain way, but that's not actually what it is in reality,
Speaker 2: and it all can negatively affect our perception of ourselves
Speaker 2: because it's like, wow, how come my body doesn't look
Speaker 2: like that? When the truth is their body doesn't look
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Such a good point.
Speaker 2: They're just doing what they want to do in order
Speaker 2: to look the way that they want to look.
Speaker 1: All right, it's time for one thing. This episode focused
Speaker 1: on shapewear, and we talked about some positives and negatives
Speaker 1: for shapewear, but the reality is people are wearing it.
Speaker 2: Yes, So shapewear is a part of our everyday lives,
Speaker 2: and so we really want to support shapewear that is
Speaker 2: inclusive of everybody type, everybody's size, and of marginalized communities.
Speaker 2: So we really recommend Yiddy and we will be adding
Speaker 2: some more shapewear brands in the show notes, so check
Speaker 2: it out at Dope labspodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, that's it for Lab eighty.
Speaker 2: I want to know are y'all wearing shapewear If you are,
Speaker 2: what's your favorite kid?
Speaker 1: What do you like? What don't you like about it?
Speaker 1: Call us and tell us what you thought. Call us
Speaker 1: at two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight. Gabriella,
Speaker 1: we got your message last week. Okay, thank you, and
Speaker 1: so just know we aren't listening to those messages when
Speaker 1: you do call Now, the semester is winding down, so
Speaker 1: don't forget to call in and tell us what you
Speaker 1: want to hear about. In our final episode of the semester,
Speaker 1: which is gonna air on October twenty seven. Remember that's
Speaker 1: two zero two five six seven seven zero two.
Speaker 2: Eight, and don't forget There's so much more for you
Speaker 2: to dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat
Speaker 2: sheet for today's lab and additional links and resources in
Speaker 2: the show notes. Plus, you can sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker 2: Check it out at Dope Labs Podcast special Thanks to
Speaker 2: today's guest expert, doctor Wendy Burns Ardolino. Her book Jiggle
Speaker 2: is free on academia dot edu.
Speaker 1: You can find her on Twitter at burns Ardellino, and.
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 2: Lab Podcast.
Speaker 1: Tt is on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t
Speaker 1: s h O, and you can find Zakia at z
Speaker 1: said So. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from
Speaker 1: Mega Owned Media Group. Our producers are Jenny Radlettmass and
Speaker 1: Lydia Smith of Wave Runner Studios. Our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Caro Rolando. Editing and sound design by Rob Smerzaiak, with
Speaker 1: additional mixing and sound design by Hannes Brown. Original music
Speaker 1: composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura from
Speaker 1: Spotify Creative producer Miguel Contreras. Special thanks to Shirley Ramos,
Speaker 1: Jess Borison, Till krat Key and Brian Marquis, executive producers
Speaker 1: from Mega owned Media Group rs T T Show Dia,
Speaker 1: and Zakiah Wattley