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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told

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Speaker 1: you from House top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Molly. We

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Speaker 1: have discussed many aspects of fashion and fashion history, that's

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Speaker 1: true on our podcast. Those are some of my favorite episodes.

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Speaker 1: Very fun to find out, history of high heels, braziers, pantyhose, pantyhose. Yeah, great,

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Speaker 1: great fun. But today we're gonna get controversial. This has

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Speaker 1: been called the most controversial fashion item in the entire

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Speaker 1: fashion history of fashion. I know if there was ever

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Speaker 1: a loaded fashion item here, it is courses. It was

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Speaker 1: like a simultaneous fail. It's so controversial. Kristen, we can't

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Speaker 1: even say it in unison because its power might overwhelmness.

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Speaker 1: It really might. And we talked about corsets in our

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Speaker 1: episode on foot binding, because time and again, whenever you

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Speaker 1: read about foot bind at some point they bring up

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Speaker 1: what a lot of people consider the Western equivalent of

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Speaker 1: footbinding to be course, in terms of it being sort

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Speaker 1: of oppressive things, something that women did because men told

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Speaker 1: them too, and men wanted them to look like this

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Speaker 1: and fit these certain ideals. And I remember after we

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Speaker 1: did that Footbinding Um podcast, we heard from a few

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Speaker 1: women who are like, no, of course, it's are awesome.

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Speaker 1: You guys need to re examine the corset. And that

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Speaker 1: is sort of the argument that is going on about

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Speaker 1: corsets right now. There are a ton of people who

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Speaker 1: are saying this is oppressive and probably the worst thing ever,

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Speaker 1: and there are a ton of people saying, hey, now, no,

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Speaker 1: of course it's a pretty cool You're misinterpreting a lot

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Speaker 1: of history. And we're going to try and and and

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Speaker 1: sludge through these arguments today and figure out what exactly

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Speaker 1: is going on with this one piece of clothing. So

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Speaker 1: I think a good place to start digging through all

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Speaker 1: of this this corset unlacing the schools in history would

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Speaker 1: be with Valerie steels book on the Cultural History of

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Speaker 1: the courset. And Valerie Steel is a good person to

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Speaker 1: talk to about this because she is the head of

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Speaker 1: the Fashion Institute of Technology, so she she knows what

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Speaker 1: she's talking about. In fact, the course it is what

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Speaker 1: inspired her to go into fashion because reading about these

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Speaker 1: social and cultural arguments about the course, that kind of

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Speaker 1: showed her the importance of fashion through time. So it's

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Speaker 1: it's something that her name is associated with over and

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Speaker 1: over again. And I would say that she probably has

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Speaker 1: the most middle of the road approach to corsets. She

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Speaker 1: has traced the history and she kind of traces the

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Speaker 1: feelings the women at the time had about course it's

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Speaker 1: as opposed to what women of our time are projecting

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Speaker 1: on those women, right, And I think this from her

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Speaker 1: book sums it up pretty nicely. She says, corse of

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Speaker 1: tree was not one monolithic, unchanging experience that all unfortunate

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Speaker 1: women experienced before being liberated by feminism. It was a

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Speaker 1: situated practice that meant different things to different people at

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Speaker 1: different times. And so she goes back to the history

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Speaker 1: of the corset and the word course it and what

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Speaker 1: we typically think of as a corset really doesn't come

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Speaker 1: into being until the eighteen hundreds Victorian era. That's when

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Speaker 1: we most associate course it's, but there is evidence from

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Speaker 1: very early on that women and men were wearing tightly

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Speaker 1: laced undergarments who hold themselves in to be fashionable, to uh,

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Speaker 1: to look to look pretty swell. So the point of

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Speaker 1: course it's and the cloth bodices that were the predecessors

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Speaker 1: to course, It's was to lend shape, to provide some

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Speaker 1: kind of silhouette to the fashions of the times. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily meant to create the wasp waste, those incredibly tiny, tiny,

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Speaker 1: unnaturally tiny waists that we often hear about, right, It

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Speaker 1: was just I mean, it was just if regular is underwear.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't something that women thought of as confining. They

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Speaker 1: may not have been the most comfortable things in the world,

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Speaker 1: but it was just like christ and said, to lend shape,

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Speaker 1: and it was the kind of thing that reading about course,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of reminded me of our legs shaving podcast,

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Speaker 1: where the fashion sort of started at the top and

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Speaker 1: worked its way down where there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: queens associated with wearing corsets to make their beautiful fabrics

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Speaker 1: fall more gracefully on their bodies, and the aristocracy could

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Speaker 1: then forward a corset, so they were mimicking the royalty,

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Speaker 1: as we tend to do, and it just kind of

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Speaker 1: worked its way down through the masses. As as of course,

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Speaker 1: it's became more easily made, more people would would buy them,

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Speaker 1: and so to not where a course at the time

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Speaker 1: would be seen as the poorest of the poor, you know,

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Speaker 1: just unclassy. But critics of the corset would probably respond

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Speaker 1: to that with, well, what about iron corsets that date

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Speaker 1: back to medieval times. I mean, if that's not an

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Speaker 1: instrument of torture for women, I don't know what is.

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Speaker 1: It's not an instrument of torture, Kristen, right the record, Molly,

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Speaker 1: tell me what it is. It was actually a back brace.

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Speaker 1: And you know, there are still tales of women today

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Speaker 1: who wear a corset's simply because it makes them stand

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Speaker 1: up straight and have really good posture. But sometimes you'll

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Speaker 1: see these um iron metal corsets and museums and go,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, I would never wear that, no matter

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Speaker 1: how how much I slumped. But these very early prototypes

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Speaker 1: that have been drugged dug up as examples of women's oppression,

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Speaker 1: they were actually back braces that were often used during wartimes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There are some accounts of army doctors writing reports saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, the soldier had a back problem, I put

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Speaker 1: him in this iron brace. You know, that's what that was.

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Speaker 1: So um, that's one of the things that people bring

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Speaker 1: up as a symbol of oppression, like Kristen said, the

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Speaker 1: really tiny waist um sinching your corsets so tight that

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Speaker 1: would get to like, you know, a sixteen inch waist

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Speaker 1: or something like that. According to Valerie Steele, who went

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Speaker 1: and studied bodies from this time, that was not very common,

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Speaker 1: that was a very small element was practicing extreme tight

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Speaker 1: lacing and didn't that have a fetish aspect to it

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Speaker 1: as well? Right, there were all these ladies magazines. There

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Speaker 1: would be a letter from someone who was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I tightened by corset so that it was six I

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Speaker 1: had a sixteen inch waist and I couldn't breathe and

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Speaker 1: the Waisteel looks at these letters becomes clear that sometimes

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Speaker 1: the men are writing them because they seem really turned

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Speaker 1: on by the fact that these women have really small waists.

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Speaker 1: And the fact that, you know, the way that the

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Speaker 1: language is repeated has let Steal in other scholars to say,

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Speaker 1: these letters were made up and it was very rare,

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Speaker 1: And it was because it was so rare, you know,

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Speaker 1: the rare things that are shocking. Those are the things

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Speaker 1: that make headlines, the things that are so out of

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Speaker 1: the norm. And it's just that history remembers that about course,

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Speaker 1: it's and not necessarily the women who were just wearing

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Speaker 1: them as an undergarment the way we might wear uh

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Speaker 1: inanks today. Right. I mean, they're certainly meant to to

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Speaker 1: keep the tummy and the hips all all tucked in.

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Speaker 1: But if you look at Corse, it's from colonial Williamsburg.

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Speaker 1: The smallest waist size you would have would be twenty

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Speaker 1: four inches, and the largest would be thirty inches. Granted,

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Speaker 1: twenty four inches is a very petite waste, but that's

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Speaker 1: certainly a far cry from a sixteen inch wasp boys right,

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Speaker 1: and one scholar actually looked at all the waist to

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Speaker 1: hip ratios of those like twenty four inch waists, and consistently,

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Speaker 1: no matter how small the waist was, the waist to

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Speaker 1: hip ratio was point seven two, which is considered normal.

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Speaker 1: So it's not like women, like we said, the majority

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Speaker 1: of women are not wearing corsets simply to get you know,

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Speaker 1: a broomstick waiste. That just wasn't the norm. It was

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Speaker 1: more about making sure that your dress fell correctly. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't you know. They admit it wasn't necessarily the most

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Speaker 1: comfortable thing, but I don't think many of us would

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Speaker 1: say that high heels are the most comfortable thing, or

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Speaker 1: that what else is not really that comfortable? I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, there are some things where we're hesitant

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Speaker 1: to say, well, that was just the fashion of the time, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, and then there's other things where it's like, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know, we like wearing many skirts and we don't

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Speaker 1: care if men like them because we like them and

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Speaker 1: it's empowering to wear them. And still makes the argument

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Speaker 1: that women at the time would have felt empowered to

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Speaker 1: wear a course, because yes, it did draw a man's eye. Um,

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Speaker 1: but if you're coming out of the Victorian area where

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Speaker 1: sex was just kept behind closed doors, is it not

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Speaker 1: empowering to wear a corset in the same way that

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Speaker 1: you know, choosing to wear whatever kind of top you

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Speaker 1: want to wear is empowering today. Well, and I think

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Speaker 1: that a lot of the demonizing, of course it's is

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Speaker 1: looking at it from the wrong perspective, because like when

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Speaker 1: we were talking about legs shaving, it was surprising to

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Speaker 1: both of us to find that it was actually women

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Speaker 1: leading the new trend to remove all the hair off

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Speaker 1: their legs. And then by and large, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, two thousand eleven and we're having to

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Speaker 1: go through this almost daily routine. But it wasn't something

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Speaker 1: that men dictated that we do. And you know, even

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Speaker 1: though a lot of women, when things like the suffrage

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Speaker 1: movement we're going on, there were a lot of women saying,

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Speaker 1: fellow women, take off your corsets, be free, don't don't

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Speaker 1: subject yourself to this pain. But just as many men

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Speaker 1: were saying that as women, Uh, there were always these

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Speaker 1: articles in medical journals about how bad corsets were for

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Speaker 1: your health, and scholars like still have gone back and

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Speaker 1: reevaluated them and say that, you know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: this is bunk. Like it just these problems that when

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Speaker 1: we were having, we're probably because they were not eating

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Speaker 1: a nutritious diet, and you know, there weren't there's no

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Speaker 1: knowledge of you know, vitamins and things to keep up

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Speaker 1: your health on a daily basis um. But just as

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Speaker 1: many men were saying take off your course, as women

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Speaker 1: were saying, you know, we're keeping the corset on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And making courses was also a source of income for

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Speaker 1: a lot of women of Valerie Steele says that by

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, the majority of small and medium sized

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Speaker 1: corset manufacturers were women and it ballooned into a two

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Speaker 1: billion dollar in today's terms, two billion dollar industry. I

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Speaker 1: think one really interesting point I learned about in reading

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Speaker 1: about corsets is the link between corsets and maternity, because

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Speaker 1: a lot of those doctors who were saying take off

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Speaker 1: your corsets tended to say them when birthrates fail fell,

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Speaker 1: and so there was this link between corsets and miscarriage

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Speaker 1: and um trouble pregnancies and stillborn births. And so sometimes

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Speaker 1: the doctors who were saying take off your corsets were saying,

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Speaker 1: oh my gosh, we need to keep these women at

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Speaker 1: home having children, not out fighting for suffrage. And sometimes

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Speaker 1: the letters of the women seemed to indicate that this

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Speaker 1: is the very reason they liked the corset. It was

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Speaker 1: a bit of a type of a birth control. But

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Speaker 1: as we know, in the twentieth century, fashions began to change,

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Speaker 1: garments got a lot looser. We have Paul poire Um

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Speaker 1: outlawing the corset in favor of these very dreight, looser

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Speaker 1: fitting clothes, and also we have the rise of the tango. Yes,

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Speaker 1: apparently when women are given the choice between fashion and dance,

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Speaker 1: they will always choose dance. Now, at the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the twenty century, there was, um, you know, a greater

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Speaker 1: focus on athleticism where when we're getting to play sports,

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Speaker 1: and according to Slate, you know, you'd walk into a

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Speaker 1: clubhouse after a tennis match and they'll just be bloody

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Speaker 1: corsets from whale bones jutting into women's bodies as they

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Speaker 1: were playing tennis. That is extreme. It was pretty extreme.

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Speaker 1: But when when the tango rose in popularity, this was

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Speaker 1: the one sort of athletic activity where women were like,

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Speaker 1: I'm willing to give up this high fashion for for

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Speaker 1: a tango. At first there were a tango corsets, which

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Speaker 1: were a little bit looser and made for dancing, but

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Speaker 1: eventually the popular of the tango may have been the

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Speaker 1: downfall of the corset as a regular item of clothing,

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Speaker 1: because when they were trying to outlaw corsets, women just

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Speaker 1: saw that was the most classless thing that ever seen.

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Speaker 1: How how uncouth to wear anything less than a corset.

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Speaker 1: But when you give them a tango matango, they don't

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Speaker 1: want they don't want bloody corsets on their hands, you know.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, if I ever started goth band Molly,

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Speaker 1: first of all, I will ask you to join. And

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Speaker 1: second of all, it will be called the bloody corset.

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Speaker 1: But you know, as you said, fashions change and through time,

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Speaker 1: through the past century, the corset has been brought back

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Speaker 1: up into vogue and then put back down. And it's

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Speaker 1: I think it's through those kind of lenses that we

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Speaker 1: might judge it. Of course, the name most associated with

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Speaker 1: corsets is Madonna when she wore that corset, and people

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Speaker 1: were saying, this is when the corset turned from the

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Speaker 1: symbol of oppression to the symbol of female sexual empowerment.

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Speaker 1: But you know, like we said, according to some scholars

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Speaker 1: like Steel, women of the eighteen hundreds would have seen

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Speaker 1: it just as much a tool of sexual empowerment as

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Speaker 1: Madonna did. They you know, they may not have been

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Speaker 1: able to breathe, but they certainly didn't think they were

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Speaker 1: oppressed by the male gaze. They didn't think they were

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Speaker 1: oppressed this piece of clothing. It was simply what was

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Speaker 1: done and following fashion. And um, you know, so I

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Speaker 1: don't think that they would uh fall at Madonna's legs

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Speaker 1: and say, oh, yes, you were the one who who

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Speaker 1: truly revolutionized the course that they would say it was

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Speaker 1: this way all along and that uh, you know, that's

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Speaker 1: why to compare it to foot binding is so troubling

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Speaker 1: for the aficionados of the course. Yes, so I have

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Speaker 1: a feeling that at least a few people listening are

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Speaker 1: probably surprised that we did not just rip. Course it's

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Speaker 1: a new one, and we could have the researches out there,

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Speaker 1: we could have done at people people writing about heteronormative

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Speaker 1: societies and course it's a diamond dozen't. So Yeah, let

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Speaker 1: us know your thoughts on on corsets, and if you

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Speaker 1: want to do that, you can send us in an

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Speaker 1: email moms Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Or

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Speaker 1: you can also hit us up on Facebook and Twitter.

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Speaker 1: But in the meantime, let's read an email at you,

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Speaker 1: all right, I have an email here from patre and

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Speaker 1: it's about the Orgasmic childbirth episode, and she writes, I

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Speaker 1: thought that episode was great. I don't exactly understand why

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Speaker 1: people feel so icky about the subject, considering we all

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Speaker 1: talk about biograph and other men's issues with half a qualm.

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Speaker 1: My mother claims that she had orgasms in the hospital

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Speaker 1: with all five of her children, including me, her first child.

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Speaker 1: When she told me about her orgasms, I have to

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Speaker 1: be honest, I was a little grossed out the thought

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Speaker 1: that my head traveling down her birth canal caused her

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Speaker 1: to climax. It probably gross out other people as well,

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Speaker 1: now that I've had a few years to think about it, though,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad she had that experience rather than the pain

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Speaker 1: and fear a lot of other women have. Hearing the

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Speaker 1: horror stories from parents who are treated callously by doctors

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Speaker 1: or had complications kind of terrifies me. And it's good

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Speaker 1: to know birth does not have to be a sterile,

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Speaker 1: scary experience. I plan on becoming a mother someday, and

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Speaker 1: I consider myself like you'd have a mother who has

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Speaker 1: experienced and has a positive attitude about pregnancy and childbirth.

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Speaker 1: Well on the opposite end of the spectrum, I got

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Speaker 1: an email here on our child Free podcast, and this

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Speaker 1: is for um Katie, and she said, I'm a woman

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Speaker 1: with type one diabetes who has made the choice to

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Speaker 1: adopt instead of give birth to a child that would

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Speaker 1: share my genes. Diabetes can be passed on genetically, although

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Speaker 1: there is no guarantee or even necessarily a higher risk

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Speaker 1: that I would pass my condition on to any children.

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Speaker 1: Pregnancy is also high risk for type one diabetics, but

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Speaker 1: many diabetic women sometimes successfully give birth to healthy children.

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Speaker 1: I'm only able to live a healthy, normal life because

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Speaker 1: of the benefits of modern medicine. Had I been born

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Speaker 1: in an earlier time, I would not have lived to

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Speaker 1: a reproductive age. I would much rather adopt the child

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Speaker 1: who needs a family than run the risk of a

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Speaker 1: high risk pregnancy and the continuation of my genes. I

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Speaker 1: understand that too many people having a child with whom

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Speaker 1: they share a genetic tie is important, but for me,

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Speaker 1: it's not the genes, but the bond between parent and

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Speaker 1: child it's important. I don't be The choice to be

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Speaker 1: child free is selfish in any way. Only those who

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Speaker 1: feel like they're fit to and want to parents should

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Speaker 1: Adoption is a factor in that decision. So thank you

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Speaker 1: Katie for that email, and for everyone else who emails

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Speaker 1: us as well. And again, you can also hit us

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Speaker 1: up on Facebook and Twitter, and you can read our

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Speaker 1: blog during the week Stuff Mom Never Told You, and

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Speaker 1: it's how stuff works dot com. For more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, goog on the podcast

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Speaker 1: icon in the upper right corner of our homepage, The

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today

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Speaker 1: on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand

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