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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you from house top

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Speaker 1: works not Come hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about something

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Speaker 1: Caroline and I don't have any personal experience with directly,

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Speaker 1: although we have found ourselves accidentally being drawn to it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: maternity clothes. Yeah, we were just talking about how we've

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Speaker 1: both accidentally ended up in maternity sections. Me at Target

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Speaker 1: typically because that's I don't typically wander into maternity stores,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I'll be in the maternity section at Target

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Speaker 1: and be like, God, these dresses look so oh okay,

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Speaker 1: that's why they're so flowing. Yeah. Yeah, I usually end

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Speaker 1: up at least once every time I'm browsing a SOS,

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Speaker 1: clicking on some thing that's really cute and flowy, and

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Speaker 1: then realizing, oh, that is a maternity top. Kristen, Well,

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Speaker 1: that's the way of maternity clothes though, is that we've

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Speaker 1: We've gone from you know, ages and ages of having

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Speaker 1: maternity clothes be boxy and an attempt to hide the

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Speaker 1: pregnant woman's body or bump to now being like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: pregnancy is just another phase of life. You might as

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Speaker 1: well look cute for it. Do you remember, well, obviously

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Speaker 1: you don't remember what your mom wore when you were

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Speaker 1: pregnant with you. When I was pregnant with me, yes,

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Speaker 1: do you have you seen photos? Are you aware of

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Speaker 1: I should say, perhaps through photographic evidence or retellings of

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Speaker 1: what your mom wore when she was pregnant with you? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I think I've only seen like one picture of

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Speaker 1: pregnant Sally, and she was wearing, uh, things that had

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Speaker 1: big bows on them and big collars, multiple things. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just a dress made out of bows. That's it's. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's like the prom dress and pretty and pink, horrifying. Um.

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Speaker 1: She also had those like boxy smock tops, and then

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Speaker 1: she had like the dress version of the boxy smock tops,

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Speaker 1: so the top that just became a dress with bows,

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Speaker 1: the classic Princess Die pregnant look. Yeah, basically yeah, her

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Speaker 1: and like every other pregnant woman in the eighties. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The photo of my mom pregnant that I remember the

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Speaker 1: most was from when she was pregnant with one of

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Speaker 1: my older siblings, said, was taken in the seventies, and

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Speaker 1: she looks amazing by the way, uh, and Nancy knows, um,

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Speaker 1: but she was wearing this very much like a shirt

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Speaker 1: you would see a pregnant woman wearing today. It was

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Speaker 1: form fitting T shirt over her second trime uster bump

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Speaker 1: that just said baby with an arrow pointing down and

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Speaker 1: then jeans, and I remember her mentioning that at that

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Speaker 1: time the shirt was considered a little bit scandalous. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: from everything that you and I have read, Kristen about

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Speaker 1: maternity fashion, like that was just not a thing. I'm

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Speaker 1: really surprised to hear that. So was your mom like

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Speaker 1: she was a hip lady. Well. I think one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons why that photo does stand out to me

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Speaker 1: is because growing up she was always so conservative minded

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Speaker 1: in how my sisters and I would dress. She was always,

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Speaker 1: you know, very um insistent on modesty, and of course,

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Speaker 1: seeing that photo, she was completely clothed, so I didn't

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Speaker 1: think of it as im modest, you know. But I

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Speaker 1: guess maybe in the seventies my mom was a bit wilder,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, Nancy, although I think that that

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Speaker 1: T shirt was kind of the extent of her wildness.

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Speaker 1: But she was always one though, who really loved her body.

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Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, she always took pride in

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Speaker 1: the fact that she had great gams and a slender waist.

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Speaker 1: I think that says a lot. I don't think Sally

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Speaker 1: has traditionally been one to have a lot of body

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Speaker 1: pride or body shape pride, or or a positive body image.

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Speaker 1: And so there you have it. The picture of mom

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Speaker 1: and her big flowing Princess Diana maternity dress. I don't

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Speaker 1: think this picture. I don't think she was smiling well.

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Speaker 1: And think of the contrast to to tabloids today and

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Speaker 1: just going to the beach today where you see pregnant women,

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Speaker 1: fully pregnant women in bikinis that would have been unheard

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Speaker 1: of probably back in our mom's pregnant days. Absolutely, So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about how maternity wear came to be, because

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Speaker 1: for a long time it wasn't actually a thing. I mean,

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Speaker 1: maternity clothes are a relatively new invention, yeah, so what

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Speaker 1: were women wearing before that? If if maternity clothes are

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Speaker 1: a relatively new invention as we think of them today,

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Speaker 1: were women just wandering around in blankets? Yes, basically, or

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Speaker 1: those dresses made of bows like your weird Yeah exactly. Um,

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Speaker 1: this is coming from Lindsay Mannering, who uh is a

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Speaker 1: clothing expert. He was writing over red HuffPo um. Basically, early, early, early,

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Speaker 1: we're talking Middle Ages. Maternity wear so to speak, just

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Speaker 1: involved modifying clothes you already had, or relying on lots

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Speaker 1: and lots of flowing fabric. Yeah, so a seamstress or

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Speaker 1: yourself might just let out your seams to give you

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Speaker 1: a little more room. Or I loved this. If you

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Speaker 1: couldn't close your dress or your smock or whatever you

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Speaker 1: were wearing at the time, just put an apron on it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: A brinds were the belly bands of the Middle Ages. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because pregnancy was just a thing. It was fine. It's like, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have lots of children and you're gonna be

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Speaker 1: big in your clothes are gonna have to grow with

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Speaker 1: you and if they can't, just cover that little open space.

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Speaker 1: And it's not like you're probably out in public all

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Speaker 1: the time being seen, so you just hang out wearing

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Speaker 1: an apron. You're like all right, fine. Um. Well, as

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Speaker 1: we move into the Baroque period in the seventeenth century,

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Speaker 1: we get the first maternity dress on record, called the

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Speaker 1: Adrian It basically involved lots of fabric and folds that

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Speaker 1: would grow with your belly and women also would wear

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Speaker 1: men's style coats with adjustable laces in the back. So

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Speaker 1: it's all about just like wearing what you normally wear,

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Speaker 1: but just making it looser. And then in the eighteenth

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Speaker 1: century everything is still very flowy. You have lots of

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Speaker 1: fabric folds in it to accommodate that growing belly. But

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Speaker 1: then we have the innovation of a bib for easier

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Speaker 1: breastfeeding after that baby is born. Because as we have

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Speaker 1: mentioned on stuff, mom never told you once you have

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Speaker 1: your baby, that doesn't mean that your stomach magically shrinks

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Speaker 1: back to its prenatal size. That's right. And isn't this

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Speaker 1: all also, if we're referring back to our topless feminism

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Speaker 1: and free the nipple episodes, isn't this also the raw

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Speaker 1: when like nips were cool? Yeah, well cooler, yeah, because

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Speaker 1: they were you know, more associated with with purity or

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Speaker 1: in this case, more of that that maternal life force. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: so bibs were all the rage. Just just unbutton your

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Speaker 1: little top and babies happy, flop it open. There's something

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Speaker 1: strange about the word flopped to me. But anyway, and

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Speaker 1: this is when it really starts to be divided by class.

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Speaker 1: We see wealthier women showing out money for custom made clothes,

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Speaker 1: and less well off women continuing to just alter the

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Speaker 1: clothes they already had. And so during this time, wealthier

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Speaker 1: women could wear dressing gowns at home stay comfy, but outside,

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Speaker 1: when they emerged from their homes, they could wear this

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Speaker 1: button up, jacket style bodice that served to both hide

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Speaker 1: the waistline but also confirmed like, yes, as you can

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Speaker 1: see from this very specific fashion, I am indeed pregnant,

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Speaker 1: but just don't look at my tummy. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to talk about it. And this is also when we

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Speaker 1: do see that more cultural shift to a pregnant belly

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Speaker 1: being improper to be seen out in public, When when

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Speaker 1: that association between pregnancy and sex really starts to make

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Speaker 1: a lot of prudish people nervous. Yeah, exactly. And so

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Speaker 1: there was this idea that kind of continued for quite

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Speaker 1: a while, uh that pregnant women, maybe you shouldn't go outside,

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Speaker 1: or if you have to go outside, can you please

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Speaker 1: just cover it up. It's so gross. We don't want

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Speaker 1: to think about you being pregnant. And this is something

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Speaker 1: that continues for a long time, as we'll talk about.

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Speaker 1: But by the turn of the twentieth century, we do

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Speaker 1: have quote unquote official maternity where being invented Lithuanian lingerie

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Speaker 1: seemstress Lane Bryant. That name should sound familiar. Her real

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Speaker 1: name was Lena Himmelstein Bryant. The Lane came about when

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Speaker 1: the bank misspelled her name. Uh. She creates the first

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Speaker 1: maternity where because one of her customers was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I need to go outside, but I don't want to

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Speaker 1: look inappropriate. Yeah. So we learned about this in Randy

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Speaker 1: Hutter Epstein's book Get Me Out, A History of Childbirth

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Speaker 1: from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank um

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Speaker 1: and Epstein talks about how when Bryant was a young

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Speaker 1: widow and a new mom, she'd been sewing lingerie for

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Speaker 1: new brides and expectant mothers out of her home to

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Speaker 1: support herself. And so then she gets that request us

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Speaker 1: like you mentioned Caroline, from a client who wants something

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Speaker 1: comfortable but appropriate for being pregnant in public. So she

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Speaker 1: makes this accordion pleat dress and other women saw it

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Speaker 1: and like I've got to have one of those things. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: demand quickly grew. Epstein writes that Bryant's stretch waist skirts

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Speaker 1: offered a comfortable alternative to the corsets that some women

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Speaker 1: wore well into pregnancy. The belly pinching gear allowed pregnant

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Speaker 1: women to get out of the home and walk about

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Speaker 1: without showing. And this, of course is blowing my mind.

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Speaker 1: We've read about course, it's being used in all sorts

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Speaker 1: of facets of life and phases of life. But but

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Speaker 1: somehow I just keep forgetting that women were still wearing

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Speaker 1: corsets during pregnancy to minimize the appearance of like just

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Speaker 1: visibly being with child, although it seems like they would

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Speaker 1: not be wearing those corsets while they were at home.

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Speaker 1: Was that something mostly reserved for and they left the house? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: at home, it was all about the dressing gown. And

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Speaker 1: just to clarify, pregnancy coursets at the time would not

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Speaker 1: have been tight laced, but would be more comparable to

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Speaker 1: things like medical coursets that provide back support today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it was a combo of maintaining that abdominal and

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Speaker 1: back muscle support while at the same time smoothing and

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Speaker 1: minimizing the whole tummy issue. But doctors were super excited

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Speaker 1: at the prospect of these maternity accordion plee looser dresses

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Speaker 1: because they were saying, oh, finally, stop crushing your fetuses

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Speaker 1: with your pregnancy corsets. This is also a time the

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Speaker 1: doctors were claiming that well fed women didn't get morning sickness.

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Speaker 1: Keep in mind this was pre Waify Flapper era. Um

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Speaker 1: Bryant's clothes worked really well for the thicker curve or

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Speaker 1: more athletic woman. And this was a woman that Lena

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Speaker 1: and her second husband Al at Malls in We're really

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Speaker 1: targeting with their clothes. With Lena's clothes, they had conducted

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Speaker 1: their own survey of women's sizes and proportions through insurance

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Speaker 1: company data and measuring more than four thousand of her

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Speaker 1: own customers, and she found that quote unquote, women of

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Speaker 1: ample figure made up more than half of the surveyed population.

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Speaker 1: So here's her niche. She can make clothes for the

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Speaker 1: woman who just doesn't want to try to suck it

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Speaker 1: in or minimize the pregnancy. Yeah, and this is happening

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Speaker 1: to in the era before the rise of ready made

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Speaker 1: consumer goods too, which is notable to think about how

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Speaker 1: she really was kicking a lot of this off. And

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Speaker 1: we're gonna come back to Lane Bryant and her advertising

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Speaker 1: later on in the show. But if we move now

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Speaker 1: into the nineteen twenties, think about that wafy flapper style.

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Speaker 1: You did have lots of belts that could be adjusted

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Speaker 1: during pregnants, and it was a good thing that drop

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Speaker 1: waste and slip dresses were in fashion. They were a

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Speaker 1: lot more accommodating for those growing bellies. Yeah, we've got

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Speaker 1: a picture here in front of us of this woman

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Speaker 1: in the es wearing a fantastic It looks like a satiny,

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Speaker 1: silky slip dress with the belt tied under her tummy,

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Speaker 1: and she looks fantastic. And when you move into the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, there's a whole question of how do we

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Speaker 1: disguise still disguising pregnant bellies when fashion is calling for

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Speaker 1: defined wastes and high waistlines. Well, you get a cape,

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Speaker 1: or you get a ballero jacket, or or here's the

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Speaker 1: advent of giant bows and wrap dresses and coat dresses,

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Speaker 1: anything that would allow you to still be that fashionable

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Speaker 1: woman wearing structured fashion. Um, but still, you know, minimizing

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Speaker 1: your your tummy that was the most mind boggling, you know,

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Speaker 1: decade or two even into the forties to read about

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Speaker 1: just like seeing these advertisements for maternity clothes with these

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Speaker 1: women wearing, like you said, these waste defining garments that

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Speaker 1: would have hidden buttons inside that you could let it

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Speaker 1: out gradually as you know, your your stomach got bigger. Um.

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Speaker 1: But you can't tell really at all in the ads

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Speaker 1: that these women are even a hint of pregnant. I think, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I am. We're looking at an ad from the

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Speaker 1: thirties showing these caped dresses and these wrap dresses, and

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Speaker 1: they have big bows and big collars, and I would

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Speaker 1: imagine that the models and these ads are not themselves pregnant.

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Speaker 1: It's more of like early pinterest, like aspirational images of like,

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Speaker 1: are you concerned about getting larger when you're pregnant? Well, don't,

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Speaker 1: but you can look like as women who weren't pregnant

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Speaker 1: at all. Well, And I wonder if that has to

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Speaker 1: do with lingering discomfort over seeing pregnant women in public,

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Speaker 1: because in the nineteen thirties this is still the early

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Speaker 1: days of advertising as well, And when we hit nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty eight, we're getting to the tipping point of most

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Speaker 1: women starting to buy ready made clothes, and along come

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Speaker 1: three sisters from Dallas, Texas, and not Elsie and Louise

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Speaker 1: Frankfurt who create the Page Boy maternity line. And not

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Speaker 1: surprising because I wasn't pregnant in nineteen fifty, I had

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Speaker 1: never heard of Page Boy clothes, although I wanted to

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Speaker 1: ask my mom about this because I have a feeling

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Speaker 1: that NaNs and Sally we're probably familiar with with Pageboy clothes. Um,

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Speaker 1: but they really elevated this whole maternity wear concept. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So their key design was Elsie's patented skirt that fits

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Speaker 1: snugly around the hips without hiking up in front. And

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Speaker 1: they managed to achieve that because there was a quote

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Speaker 1: unquote window that allowed room for your tummy to expand,

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Speaker 1: and it came with panels that you could so over

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Speaker 1: that window. Once you gave birth in your stomach started

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Speaker 1: to shrink back down. Now, of course, you're not walking

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Speaker 1: around in some like Lady Gaga outfit with like a

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Speaker 1: short crop top and your belly sticking out of some

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Speaker 1: hole in your skirt. This of course came with those longer,

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Speaker 1: boxier tops that would extend down over the stomach. And

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Speaker 1: as we learn from k. Goldman's book Dressing Modern Maternity,

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Speaker 1: which is a history of the Frankfort sisters and their

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Speaker 1: page Boy line. Celebrity clients loved these clothes. I mean

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Speaker 1: you had women like Debbie Reynolds, Lucille Ball, and Judy

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Speaker 1: Garland all sporting page Boy designs during their pregnancies. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Goldman points out that this is the first time

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Speaker 1: that we really get Hollywood and celebrities and maternity where

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Speaker 1: sort of coming together in a pop culture moment. Finally,

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Speaker 1: celebrities are like, oh wait, I can still look fashionable

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Speaker 1: and still wear what to be a slim fitting skirt. Great,

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Speaker 1: I can still maintain my fashion. Yeah. And during this

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Speaker 1: time we are seeing more wrap dresses, which are still

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Speaker 1: very commonly worn as maternity clothes, and also those boxy

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Speaker 1: smock tops which you mentioned, and my favorite pant playsuits.

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Speaker 1: Yeah literally literally that's what they were called. Suit for

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Speaker 1: grown women, Caroline, I can't say anything as I am

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Speaker 1: talking into this microphone. I'm a grown woman wearing overalls.

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Speaker 1: So well, but I there's something that just bugs me

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Speaker 1: about calling an outfit for an adult a play suit

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Speaker 1: preceded by the singular pant. Stacy London would be so proud, um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, so this is the forties, and let's describe.

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Speaker 1: So the pant playsuit is very much like, she's got

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Speaker 1: these really wide leg pants with a severe uh pleat

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Speaker 1: down the front or fold down the front in a

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Speaker 1: matching boxy button up shirt with a very smart collar.

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Speaker 1: So she's she's very sort of like rectangular shaped in

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Speaker 1: in all of this fashion. Um. But if we move

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Speaker 1: into the nineteen fifties, we see a continuation of those separates,

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Speaker 1: the boxy uh pleaded button down shirt like you saw

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Speaker 1: on I Love Lucy, which was, of course the first

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Speaker 1: show to feature a pregnant woman. Oh my god, mind blown.

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Speaker 1: But I think they right. They still couldn't use the

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Speaker 1: word pregnant. They had to continue to use euphemisms exactly.

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Speaker 1: The network said that it was que scandalous to describe

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Speaker 1: Lucy as pregnant, but it was okay for them to

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Speaker 1: refer to her as expecting. Ah yeah, so here we

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Speaker 1: are in the fifties. You don't have to have a

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Speaker 1: waistline like you did in the thirties. Uh sure, we

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Speaker 1: guess you can be outside and your third trimester, so

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Speaker 1: we have looser clothes. More of those separates still have

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Speaker 1: adjustable wrap around skirts, and those pleaded button downs. But

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Speaker 1: when you move into the sixties, we start to see

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Speaker 1: more slim fitting, super fashionable chic options for pregnant women.

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Speaker 1: We get fewer grow with you options, so there's more

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Speaker 1: of a push to like, Okay, I have to spend

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Speaker 1: a lot of money on maternity where as I grow,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm no longer a medieval woman where I can

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Speaker 1: just wear blanket dresses all the time. On that apron, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can't wear my expandable wrap dress from the thirties

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Speaker 1: and forties. I have to continue buying more clothes as

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Speaker 1: I get bigger. On the flip side, though, this is

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Speaker 1: the same time period when those trendy tent dresses were

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Speaker 1: in fashion, and those could definitely double as maternity where

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Speaker 1: because basically it's just like a crew neck and then

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Speaker 1: armholes and then it just like blossoms out and hopping

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Speaker 1: over the seventies to the eighties, when you do see

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Speaker 1: a lot of women entering into the workforce, there is

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Speaker 1: concurrently a big demand for professional maternity wear. Welcome back

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Speaker 1: to the era of the big bows, right, But women

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Speaker 1: don't just want maternity brands, So this is when you

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Speaker 1: see guest jenes creating a maternity line, a Page Boy

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Speaker 1: stages a comeback with a personal shopping service trendy styles,

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Speaker 1: and I love this. This was not new in the eighties.

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Speaker 1: This is something that they've been preaching for decades by now.

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Speaker 1: But they were always emphasizing that pregnant women should show

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Speaker 1: off their legs, because while you can't completely erase the

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Speaker 1: fact that a woman is pregnant, you can at least

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Speaker 1: detract from it. So show off them. Gam Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: might be bigger in the middle, but you've still got

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Speaker 1: great legs. Which reading that not to keep coming back

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Speaker 1: to my mother in this episode, but I do remember

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Speaker 1: her saying something along those lines in terms of dressing

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Speaker 1: for pregnancy, how it as an excuse to show her

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Speaker 1: legs more than she normally would. Well, yeah, Goldman. Goldman

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Speaker 1: says that it was Page Boy who pioneered, so to speak,

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Speaker 1: this whole show off your legs idea that other maternity

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Speaker 1: where designers were not focused on that. As we see

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Speaker 1: with the pant playsuit, everything's very covered, very a sexual,

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Speaker 1: very rictangular. Meanwhile, Page Boy was like eyes down here,

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Speaker 1: like way down here. Yeah. And of course, though we

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Speaker 1: can't separate maternity fashion in the eighties from you know

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Speaker 1: it being the eighties, you have lots of big sleeves,

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Speaker 1: big bows, big ruffles, billowing fabric, just google fair listeners.

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Speaker 1: Princess Diana and her sister in law, Sarah Ferguson both

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Speaker 1: pregnant in the eighties. I mean, though, that is some billowing,

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Speaker 1: That's really the only word for it. And I was

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Speaker 1: wondering whether that was just a product of the maternity

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Speaker 1: style of the because Princess Dies, maternity clothes, especially when

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Speaker 1: she was pregnant with Prince William, were so maternity I

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Speaker 1: mean massive tent like clothes, and I wonder if it

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Speaker 1: was that or if it was it all fueled over

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Speaker 1: just the publicity surrounding her pregnancy too, of how people

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Speaker 1: were on edge wondering when she would get pregnant, would

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Speaker 1: it be a boy, would there be an air well.

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Speaker 1: There was an ad that I saw from this same

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Speaker 1: time period, and it was of some I think she

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Speaker 1: was a soap opera star and she's modeling the same

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Speaker 1: kind of dress that Diana was photographed in. She's on

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Speaker 1: the balcony with Prince Charles. She's wearing a smart hat

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Speaker 1: at a jaunty angle, and she's wearing this bluey tent

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Speaker 1: like forest green dress. And in this ad, this this

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Speaker 1: um soap opera star is wearing the same kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: It's just like a champagne color. So I think that

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Speaker 1: that was just I don't know, someone right in and

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Speaker 1: correct us if we're off the mark here, But I

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Speaker 1: think that was the fashion of the day, not needing

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Speaker 1: to emphasize it's it's loose and roomy, so you're not

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00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:12,840
Speaker 1: constricting the stomach or the fetus. But it's also modest

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Speaker 1: because you're not having any tight, constricted clothes that could

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Speaker 1: show off the very shape of the bump. That's true.

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Speaker 1: I mean all of those dresses that she wears are

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Speaker 1: high necked and come down to mid calf or ankle. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: pretty pretty modest except for that, except for that ankle.

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Speaker 1: So when we get into the nineteen nineties, designers have

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Speaker 1: finally come around two pregnant women needing to go outside

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Speaker 1: and move from time to time, and there is a

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Speaker 1: huge innovation when Liz Lang introduces highly successful Fitted maternity line.

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Speaker 1: Wait what I know? Fitted? Oh my god, here we

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Speaker 1: are talking about like fancy tent dresses on princesses, yards

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Speaker 1: and yards, silk all the billows, and now we get

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Speaker 1: Nike and Target asking Liz Lang to create lines for them, like, oh, well, women,

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Speaker 1: so I guess I guess they're going to be outside

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Speaker 1: and like walking and moving, maybe picking something up like

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Speaker 1: at the grocery store. So we should perhaps continue this

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Speaker 1: whole fitted trend. Yeah, I can imagine that while those

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00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: tent dresses were super comfortable, so easy to get snagged

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00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 1: on things, you know, Yeah, you don't want to get

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00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 1: caught in a in a billowy day going through a

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00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 1: turnstyle like a subway turnstyle on one of those, I

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00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: would be a mess. I'd be late all the time,

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00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 1: deff breeze, like, who knows what will happen? But the

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00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: question is, O, Caroline, why did it take until the

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00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:49,719
Speaker 1: nineties nineties for us to start being more okay with

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00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: pregnant women wearing fitted clothes. Well, people were generally skeewed

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Speaker 1: out by by pregnancy, by the outward manifestation of swapping fluids.

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Speaker 1: Basically um, And of course we need to kick off

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00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: this conversation with another Lane Bryant anecdote like Kristin tis

389
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: too earlier, So Lena and Albert back, We're going back

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00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 1: to the turn of the twentieth century. They had tried

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00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 1: to advertise her now popular maternity clothes in newspapers once

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Speaker 1: they realize that there was such a demand out there,

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00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 1: but no one would print the words maternity clothes. Finally,

394
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, they convinced the New York Harold to

395
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: run a single small ad and Bryant sells out of

396
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Speaker 1: her inventory the same day, and she's like, Okay, I

397
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,719
Speaker 1: think there's something to this maternity where and if you

398
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: guys in the newspaper business are not going to take

399
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: my ad money, I'm going to do this on my own.

400
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: And so she starts her own mail order catalog because

401
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:56,120
Speaker 1: why not. She ends up expanding her business from pregnant

402
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 1: women to then outfitting women with larger frames in general,

403
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Speaker 1: and by nineteenth venteene her revenue was topping one million dollars.

404
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: And it seems like now we need to circle back

405
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: and do an entire podcast on Lena slash Lane, because

406
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 1: hers was the first company to mass produce clothes for

407
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 1: those two markets. Talk about a fashion innovator, Yeah, I

408
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 1: mean here she is answering a need that just about

409
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: every pregnant woman has to. Oh hey, go outside and

410
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 1: not be viewed as gross and feel comfortable and feel

411
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: good in my own skin, feel good in my own clothes.

412
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: And it's just funny that, like, it seems like there

413
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: were these cultural hangups on pregnancy and pregnant bodies and

414
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:40,479
Speaker 1: women's sexuality or lack thereof that we're preventing I guess

415
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: other people from cashing in on this, and that wasn't

416
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: going to stop Lena. She was like, no, people need this.

417
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: I've been pregnant, I've had babies. Women need to have clothes. Well,

418
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: And it wasn't always that way either. If we go

419
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 1: pre nineteenth century, pregnancy was kind of just pregnancy, all right,

420
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: exchange some fluids, you're getting ready to reproduce again. What

421
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:05,919
Speaker 1: do you want a whole closet full of maternity clothes

422
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: or something. I mean this was when, of course, as

423
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: we talked about, you were wearing your clothes as you

424
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: always did and would either let out those seams as

425
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: needed or throw an apron over it. But as for

426
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century itself, these descriptions of quote unquote confinement

427
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: might be a little exaggerated. I mean, women weren't just

428
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: sitting in like a pregnancy hut for nine months awaiting

429
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: the baby to come. They still went about their lives,

430
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: they did their chores, they were social as before. And

431
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: especially to that we have to consider the class implications.

432
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: I mean, working class women would still be working. But

433
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: this also gets to the distinction between women being personally

434
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: self conscious about their bodies and this more cultural imperative

435
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: of confinement, of sheltering the public from pregnancy. Yeah, I mean,

436
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: one woman who expressed a degree of self consciousness was

437
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 1: Sarah Churchill, who's the Duchess of Marlborough back in seventeen

438
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:18,919
Speaker 1: thirty five. So she writes a letter to her granddaughter

439
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: explaining her own pregnancy situation, and she says, I remember

440
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: when I was within three months of my reckoning, I

441
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: could never endure any bodice at all, but wore a

442
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: warm waistcoat wrapped around me like a man's and tied

443
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: my petticoats on top of it, and from that time

444
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: and never went abroad but with a long black scarf

445
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: to hide me. I was so prodigious big. So what

446
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 1: I like about that is here's someone in the eighteenth century,

447
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: kind of early eighteenth century who's saying the same thing

448
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: that women now say of, like, listen, it's not that

449
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: it was so awful. It's just that, like I felt

450
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: so big, and I like none of my clothes fit

451
00:28:57,440 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: like I wanted them to fit. I just had to

452
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: wrap a scarf around me or like a men's style

453
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: jacket around me to even have clothes to wear. And so, yeah,

454
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: there were these cultural ideas that had been floating around

455
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: for centuries about you know, women's sexuality being scary, the

456
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: womb being the site of a sacred event versus a monstrosity,

457
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 1: depending on how you viewed the body and bodily functions.

458
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: But there was simply also the issue of like I

459
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: feel big, I feel tired, I feel really self conscious

460
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,959
Speaker 1: because my body doesn't look like it used to, and

461
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: I kind of just want to have a lie down.

462
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: And then, though, you take that layer of self consciousness,

463
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: which is completely understandable, and you add some cultural pressure

464
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: to it, and you get by the mid nineteenth century

465
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: norms and doctor's orders dictating that visibly pregnant women, especially

466
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: the ones who could afford it, because that's you know,

467
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: those are the ones probably having doctor's pavid. It's anyway

468
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: them stay inside. Again, they might be wearing some sort

469
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 1: of maternity course that if they had to go outside

470
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: for the back and abdominal support, but also to minimize

471
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: that appearance of pregnancy because it was considered a private matter.

472
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: This was something that you and your husband did in

473
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: the privacy of your own drawing room if you were

474
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: really wild. That's right, And this is a different time

475
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: from so you know, looking back at like the sixteenth

476
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: or seventeenth centuries, when a woman's pregnancy was sort of

477
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: her own thing, like a woman's pregnancy wasn't thought of

478
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: as real until the quickening, so to speak, which is

479
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: basically the woman feeling the baby move inside of her um. Now,

480
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: as you're moving into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, suddenly

481
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: you've got more medical intervention, the baby and the pregnancy

482
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: is more out there. So whereas it used to be

483
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: a private mother only kind of situation that was hidden

484
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: under those apron now more people have a say in

485
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: an opinion and what's going on in your body. And

486
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: even though they have a say in an opinion, they

487
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: also don't want to even be faced with it. Yeah,

488
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: So if you look at novels and advice books of

489
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: that time, they're not directly referring to pregnancy. It's all euphemisms,

490
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: as was still the case when I Love Lucy was

491
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: on the air. Yeah, And in terms of evolving style

492
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: once the course, it comes off as doctors from the

493
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: seventeenth to the twentieth centuries were advising women to do, uh,

494
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: clothes get looser. Women, pregnant women start to adapt and

495
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: wear looser clothes. Laura Tropp, writing in A Womb with

496
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: a View America's growing public interest in pregnancy rights, that

497
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 1: women in the nineteenth century had to be persuaded to

498
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: wear loose clothing, not because they wanted to show up

499
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: their bellies, but because they did not want to indicate

500
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: in public that they were pregnant at all. And so

501
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: then I mean nineteenth century wearing those buttoned up bodices

502
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: with their dresses. Forward to the early twentieth century, with

503
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: Lane Bryant being like, oh, hey, here's like an accordion

504
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 1: plete looser dress. We start to see people being like, oh,

505
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: I can kind of let it out. This is great.

506
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: So what does the maternity fashion landscape look like today?

507
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that, and we come right back from

508
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: a quick break. So what does a maternity fashion landscape

509
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: look like today. Well, things were pretty healthy going into

510
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: the one century. TRP notes that maternity fashion sales jumped

511
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: from two thousand to two thousand five. Yeah, and that

512
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 1: really picks up where our timeline left off in the nineties.

513
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: We were talking then about how fitted maternity wear was

514
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: coming in and women were clamoring for stuff that wasn't

515
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 1: just maternity specific brands. That was like, hey, no, I

516
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: I'm just a woman who wants to continue wearing cool clothes,

517
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: like make me awesome clothes. And they began to really

518
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge their pregnancies and their baby bumps and

519
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: stay fashionable. It's like your mom Kristen with her T

520
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: shirt that you know it's pointing with an arrow to baby.

521
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: A lot of that kind of stuff got really popular

522
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: in the nineties and early two thousand's. You've got more

523
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: pregnant bodies on display more often thanks to celebrity culture

524
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: and the paparazzi and you know, tabloid magazines featuring pregnant women,

525
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: but also women simply remaining at work longer and just

526
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: being outside, not feeling like they have to be constrained

527
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: by these old notions of hiding away when they're pregnant.

528
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: You also get a lot of celebrity maternity clothing lines,

529
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: people like Heidi Klum coming out with big ticket items

530
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: and then more affordable items for pregnant women. And along

531
00:33:58,160 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: the same lines, you've got a lot of the fast

532
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: fashion brands like a Sis Top Shop and get churning

533
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: out maternity where so that they don't lose their customers

534
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: once they get pregnant. But maternity where is still very

535
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:15,720
Speaker 1: much a socio economic issue because clearly moms with more

536
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: disposable income can indulge in lots more maternity wear and

537
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 1: custom or otherwise well made maternity war that might transition

538
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: after baby, because that is something that we do see

539
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: really starting in the nineteen sixties that we mentioned that

540
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: no longer is it this skirt or dress that has

541
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: the buttons that you can expand throughout your trimesters, but

542
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 1: more of a profit hungry model where it's like, oh, well,

543
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 1: here's your first trimester wardrobe. Now here's your second trimester.

544
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,799
Speaker 1: Bye bye, bye bye bye, get all of these clothes.

545
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: But now that we are in the teens, is that

546
00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: what you call them now? The ot teens um most

547
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: recently the maternity where trend has been no maternity where Yeah,

548
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: so maternity specific stuff seems to be cycling out just

549
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 1: in terms of fashion, not not in general, not all

550
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:17,399
Speaker 1: of it. Um. But Women's Where Daily read about this

551
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: back in May and said that fewer department and specialty

552
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 1: stores were offering maternity specific clothes. Why because you have

553
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: more women shopping their closets, and like they've done throughout history,

554
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen adapting the clothes they already have. So

555
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: one great example of this was Kate Middleton, who had

556
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 1: such a public pregnancy and everyone's eyes were glued on

557
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: her fashion choices during her pregnancy too, because she notably

558
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: wore very few actual maternity clothes. She wore a lot

559
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 1: of the same kind of stuff, but she was wearing beforehand. Um.

560
00:35:56,840 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 1: And it was a similar pattern that we saw with

561
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,840
Speaker 1: their celebrities. And she might have a couple of maternity

562
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: pieces that she would then just pair with non maternity clothes. Yeah.

563
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,280
Speaker 1: And and the magazine also talked to a designer, Georgina Chapman,

564
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: who said that she sees a lot of her clients

565
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: just buying a size or two up and then altering

566
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: the clothes to fit. While others shell out bunches of

567
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: money to have things custom made, and I'm just thinking, like, oh,

568
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 1: that must be nice, because not everybody can afford the

569
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: whole like custom maternity where thing, and wait what not

570
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: everyone can afford that? But who's your seem stress? This

571
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: I mean talking about harkening bag. This goes directly back

572
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: to what we talked about near the top of the

573
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: podcast when we mentioned women in the mid nineteenth century,

574
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: the upper class women wearing the custom made button nut

575
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: fitted bodice to indicate, yes, I'm pregnant. Yes, this is

576
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: kind of maternity where but don't look at me, my

577
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 1: my bumps being hidden, versus the less well off women

578
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: who were still just adapting their regular wardrobe, which is

579
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:06,720
Speaker 1: more the fashion today. I mean, this is coming from

580
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,720
Speaker 1: a fashion director at Bloomingdale's who said they've stopped carrying

581
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: maternity wear because women again are are still shopping kind

582
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: of their own closets and also just shopping regular Bloomingdale's

583
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: and buying things like wrap dresses, leggings, long t shirts,

584
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: structured blazers, and just wearing their husband or boyfriend's jeans adorable,

585
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: which I mean, I'm like that. I think I have

586
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 1: a maternity wardrobe right now, perfect Your overalls will fit

587
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: perfectly in with that. It's true, I'm planning for some future.

588
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: I don't know who's Thanksgiving. Maybe it's fine. Um. They

589
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: also cite Herod's, which has a couple of maternity brands,

590
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 1: specific brands that have done really well, but they were

591
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: mostly talking just pregnancy appropriate, non maternity wear. Herod's also

592
00:37:59,880 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: was offering a service where you can get your designer

593
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: genes customized with your own belly band. So still just

594
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: lots and lots of expensive custom stuff. And this reflects

595
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: changes in fashion, but also two changes in how we

596
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:19,240
Speaker 1: are approaching pregnancy. Um. The whole eating for to model

597
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: has fallen by the wayside. Exercise is not as off

598
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: limits as it used to be UM, And pregnancy is

599
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:32,359
Speaker 1: seen more as another phase of life. Yeah. And so

600
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 1: it makes sense that so much of your image that

601
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 1: you project to the world while you're pregnant has a

602
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: lot to do with your identity, whether it's maintaining it

603
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: or forming a new one. Uh. Georgina Chapman, the designer

604
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: we cited, said, I think it's important to stay true

605
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 1: to your personal style even while your body is changing

606
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 1: and this is this is an attitude that you hear

607
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: a lot nowadays, especially in any sort of maternity where

608
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 1: article it's fast and is all about identity these days,

609
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: and pregnancy where is no different and styles today really

610
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 1: do reflect that attitude of pregnancy being just another normal

611
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 1: phase of a woman's life. And this is something that

612
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: that author Randy Hutterer Epstein wrote about in her book.

613
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 1: She said, you can go on being yourself, which includes

614
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 1: maintaining your fashion sense, whatever it is, while you have

615
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,720
Speaker 1: your baby. It doesn't mean striving to fit into skinny

616
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: jeans for six months, but maintaining your identity as we

617
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: all know. She says, fashion is a way to express

618
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: your identity and sense of self, and that is something

619
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: that research on how pregnant women dress themselves and feel

620
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: about their maternity wardrobe reflect. So there was a study

621
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: from two thousand fourteen in the journal Clothing and Textiles

622
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: Research that emphasized how for a lot of women today,

623
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:57,760
Speaker 1: it's not about camouflage. It's trying to match that inward

624
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: self and style with your outward pregnant self. Um and

625
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: the researchers interviewed women and their second and third trimesters

626
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: about their body shape and satisfaction, and they found that

627
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: women war maternity clothes mainly for comfort and assurance. Not surprisingly,

628
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 1: it wasn't a thing of trying to pretend that they

629
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: weren't pregnant. I was just like, no, I think I

630
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: really want to feel comfortable in my clothes. Yeah. And

631
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: the authors wrote that pregnant women are likely to be

632
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: satisfied with their pregnant body, and their body image is

633
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 1: a determinant of how they end up managing their physical

634
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:37,240
Speaker 1: appearance and self presentation. So how does maternity wear shape

635
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 1: self image and identity during pregnancy? This is a question

636
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 1: that researchers in the Journal of Consumer Culture looked at

637
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. They studied consumption among women who were

638
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: in that transitional phase of pregnancy and looked at their

639
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: experiences of bodily controlled changing and affecting identity, and they

640
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:01,879
Speaker 1: found that three themes emerge. One of those was that

641
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:06,920
Speaker 1: maternity clothes, both the buying and the wearing, disrupt the

642
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: woman I am most of the time, identity or narrative.

643
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:15,800
Speaker 1: That wearing these clothes basically changes women's usual way of

644
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: how they satisfactorily express who they are through their clothes.

645
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 1: And there were three layers to that. They kind of

646
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:29,760
Speaker 1: disrupted that woman I am most of the time identity,

647
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: and it was thrifty nous the image of what pregnancy

648
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: looks like because of the clothes that you're wearing or

649
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: having to wear, and also your body shape, which you

650
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: don't really have a ton of control over during that time,

651
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: and that led to a lot of frustration and ambivalence

652
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: for a lot of these women. And that thriftiness angle

653
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: jumped out to me because it seemed to capture more

654
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: of a real world experience of maternity clothes versus the

655
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: Bloomingdale's fashioned or rector who is dealing, you know, with

656
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:03,479
Speaker 1: women who can just go and buy some J brand

657
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: leggings and call it a day. Um. But in these interviews,

658
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: they were talking to women who didn't have a lot

659
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: of money to go and buy a lot of new

660
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: clothes for themselves, and would get maternity hand me downs

661
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:17,720
Speaker 1: from family members or friends and sometimes just felt stuck

662
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 1: wearing the clothes that they were given the only things

663
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,439
Speaker 1: that they could really afford. And there was one woman

664
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:27,840
Speaker 1: they were talking to who was saying that there was

665
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: some orange floral dress that she had been given and

666
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: she wore it out one day and just made her

667
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: feel awful because it was nothing she would ever pick

668
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: out for herself. But it's not like she could go

669
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: and have some kind of, you know, maternity magical makeover either,

670
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: And I could. I could totally. I mean I can't

671
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 1: directly relate to it, but I can understand how it's

672
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:58,319
Speaker 1: layers of feeling out of control of the image you're

673
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 1: presenting to the world old and also to having your

674
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: brain flooded with pregnancy hormones while this is going on. Yeah,

675
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: and so that ties into that other layer that you

676
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: were talking about of how the image of what pregnancy

677
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 1: looks like has changed thanks to seeing a lot of celebrities.

678
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 1: Because on the one hand, oh, well, I have more

679
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: options now I don't have to hide my bump. I

680
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: can dress it and and not be afraid of being

681
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: cute or sexy or really feminine or whatever. Um. But

682
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 1: on the other hand, like, oh god, I have to

683
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: look cute or sexy or super feminine. Like there's there's

684
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:36,959
Speaker 1: a lot of pressures from both sides when it comes

685
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: to like, oh, fashion during pregnancy is like a big thing.

686
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: Now I really have to focus on it and spend

687
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: money on it, just like getting dressed every day for

688
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: a lot of women. Yeah. Yeah, well, so another thing

689
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: that the researchers found in terms of maternity where is

690
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 1: that buying and wearing these clothes affirms the identity of

691
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: pregnant and a spectant mother. And this is something we

692
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: heard about from listeners after our Baby Weight Loss Race episode.

693
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: It's the idea that once women start showing, they can

694
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: finally and they've told people that they're pregnant, they can

695
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: finally confirm through their clothes that yes, I am pregnant.

696
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 1: This is not just a burrito. Uh. And it's related

697
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: to those fears of being perceived as fat and out

698
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,760
Speaker 1: of control that no, I'm embracing the bump. I'm really pregnant.

699
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 1: Please don't think I'm ugly and fat and out of

700
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 1: control of my body. So it's and we did have

701
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: at least a couple of listeners right in and say like,

702
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: I was so relieved to finally confirm my pregnancy and

703
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 1: wear maternity clothes, so people weren't looking at me like

704
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 1: I was just a tired slobed. Oh that's so so

705
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 1: much about our culture. Yeah, there is even a pressure

706
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: valve that can be released in this regard um. And

707
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: then finally we have the women who use pregnancy fashion

708
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: to maintain their woman I am most of the time,

709
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: I identity, and these are women who exert effort to

710
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: present a consistent image and sense of self, whether that's fashion,

711
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:12,760
Speaker 1: sex appeal, or youth. And for this group of women,

712
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:17,440
Speaker 1: they were more of the old school de emphasizing the

713
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: pregnancy hey look at my legs instead uh, line of

714
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: thinking yeah. They were experiencing all these mixed feelings about

715
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 1: so many things. Changing your body is changing, your relationship

716
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: with your partners, probably about to change your freedom, and

717
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 1: like what you do with your time is changing, And

718
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:37,399
Speaker 1: so they're buying clothes that are like, oh, well, this

719
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: is this is purely a continuation I wore leggings before,

720
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: or I wore stretchy jeans before, I'm just going to

721
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 1: continue doing this, where I wore all black before, I'm

722
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: going to keep doing that. And this was particularly important

723
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: when it came to the professional arena. Not surprisingly, a

724
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: lot of women that were interviewed in the study, we're

725
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,840
Speaker 1: trying to counteract people noticing the belly before they noticed

726
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: anything else and just stay wearing at it in meetings,

727
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: and one woman said, which totally hearkens back to history.

728
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 1: Being pregnant is like the adult Hicky. It's the ultimate

729
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 1: stamp of we've been having sex. And it's funny that

730
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:17,799
Speaker 1: that's the case, because to me, pregnancy is not the

731
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: ultimate stamp of we've been having sex, but rather, oh,

732
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: someone went off birth control, which is I guess, oh

733
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: so millennial of me. But it's not like, as far

734
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: as we've come in terms of our acceptance of pregnancy

735
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: and public of celebrities being proud of their baby bumps,

736
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 1: non celebrities being proud of their baby bumps, that we

737
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: live now in a society where women aren't still judged

738
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: for their maternity fashion choices. If anything, it's there's even

739
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: more pressure or at least more opportunity for people to

740
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: express their displeasure at what you're wearing via social media.

741
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: That's gonna I was gonna say, are you talking about

742
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,720
Speaker 1: the internet. Yeah, well yeah. We saw back in April

743
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: Canadian meteorologist Christie Gordon receiving hate male for wearing a

744
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 1: form fitting dress while pregnant. People wrote in to tell

745
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: her mainly the following three things. One stop showing off,

746
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:25,799
Speaker 1: which are you kidding me? Two buy decent clothes, and

747
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 1: three have respect for your unborn child. Oh Caroline. These

748
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 1: stories of local newscasters and meteorologists being almost pregnancy shamed,

749
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: uh for you know, appearing pregnant and dressed with clothes

750
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:49,319
Speaker 1: on on camera pop up like every six weeks. It's constant.

751
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: It's crazy making um because in a in a society

752
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: that is so pro natal and so pro family, I

753
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: don't under stand the yelling at at women for just

754
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: being out of the house in public while pregnant. I mean,

755
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,239
Speaker 1: this is something. This is the contradictory message that goes

756
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: back to the freaking seventeenth century when it's like, we

757
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: want women to be fruitful and reproduce and carry a

758
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 1: child in their womb, but the womb is a site

759
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: of disease and dirtiness and filth and possible like monstrous

760
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: reproductions of whatever superstition they had. And now we see

761
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:31,799
Speaker 1: we're in the twenty first century and people are still like,

762
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: you are a woman, so you need to go home

763
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,399
Speaker 1: and have a baby, But we're yelling at women who

764
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: are having babies just while being out in public. Yeah,

765
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: this all reflects that fine line that that maternal public presentation,

766
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: uh presents that we talked about a lot in our

767
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 1: celebrity baby Bump two part or earlier this year, in

768
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 1: people simultaneously wanting you to stay a pretty lady but

769
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: also stay modest, and I mean, there's there's just very

770
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: little room to deviate from what the so called appropriate

771
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: maternity look is because on the one hand, you do

772
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: have tabloids praising celebrities who are very fit and they're

773
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: very pregnant and they're in bikinis. But then on the

774
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:27,439
Speaker 1: other hand, you have you know, Joe Schmo emailing meteorologist

775
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:31,240
Speaker 1: Christie Gordon and calling her a whale who's showing off

776
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 1: showing off what I'm not entirely sure, but there definitely

777
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 1: does not seem to be any kind of consensus on

778
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: what is okay for women to look like across the board,

779
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:46,880
Speaker 1: because everybody has an opinion. Everyone does have an opinion.

780
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: I mean, if anything, I personally, speaking of opinions, I

781
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 1: got a little opinion. I think that it's it's great

782
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: that women have more freedom and flexibility than ever before

783
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 1: to shop their own closets and have their personal style

784
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 1: still reflected throughout their pregnancy. Um if they also have

785
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: the financial resources to do that too. Um, but it's

786
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:18,759
Speaker 1: not a one size fits all issue, Caroline, Oh No.

787
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 1: And it seems like over the course of the history

788
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:24,760
Speaker 1: that we've just covered, it's been nothing but a push

789
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:30,319
Speaker 1: and pull between that like modest mother who stays at

790
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,800
Speaker 1: home and is nurturing in a sexual and like the

791
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 1: the expectation, like you said, of still remaining pretty and

792
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 1: sexy and feminine with your choice of clothes, because you

793
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 1: would think that for that nine month window, pregnant people

794
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: could get a break, but that is not the case.

795
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: Now we're still we're still looking at uh pregnancy as

796
00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 1: a time when it's okay to tell people what to

797
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:04,360
Speaker 1: do with their bodies. And I'm also really curious to

798
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: hear from listeners who have been pregnant and had to

799
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 1: do the whole what am I going to wear from

800
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 1: my maternity look thing about the the experience of dressing yourself,

801
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 1: because anecdotally, I know that looking cute on the outside

802
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: is a pregnant person isn't necessarily what it feels like

803
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:27,879
Speaker 1: on the inside. That you might be wearing a really

804
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: cute outfit but still feel detached from your body and

805
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: from your non pregnant sense of style. Yes, doesn't help

806
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 1: that you've got like the entire world looking at you

807
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:42,839
Speaker 1: and forming opinions on you based on what you look.

808
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:45,799
Speaker 1: Well in your body just feeling different than it ever

809
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:51,240
Speaker 1: has before. Thanks a lot, baby, So with that though,

810
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: so curious to hear everyone's thoughts and experiences with this

811
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: mom stuff at house stuffworks dot Com is the place

812
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 1: you can send all your maternity where letters. You can

813
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:07,280
Speaker 1: also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook.

814
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: And we've got a couple of messages to share with

815
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:17,840
Speaker 1: you right now. I have a letter here from Laura

816
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 1: about our anthropology episodes. She says, I'm a student at

817
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:26,320
Speaker 1: Columbia University studying biological anthropology. I found the discussions of

818
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 1: anthropology often do not include biological anthropology and their discussions

819
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 1: in part, I think because it has a very different

820
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 1: feel to it compared to cultural or historical anthropology and

821
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: even archaeology. Columbia University takes a lot of pride in

822
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: its famous cultural anthropologists, particularly Margaret Meade herself, so I'm

823
00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 1: unsure if this distinct separation of biological anthropology from the

824
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 1: others is a result of Columbia's own bent or also

825
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 1: from this tonal difference. However, biological anthropology is filled with

826
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 1: its own well known women, including paleo anthropologist Mary Leaky,

827
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:02,879
Speaker 1: famed prime pathologist Jane Goodall, and Diane Fossey, and even

828
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 1: the Hamdan Fossil Lucy. My major does consist mostly of women,

829
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: but also I've noticed that there are quite a few

830
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 1: gay men as well. In fact, a friend of mine

831
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: often jokes that there's no one in my major who

832
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:16,800
Speaker 1: isn't attracted to men. Gay men may be attracted to

833
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 1: anthropology because there isn't a lot of masculine posturing, and

834
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: because the feminist aspects of anthropology also touch upon queerness

835
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 1: across cultures and history. I love the podcast. It's definitely

836
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 1: kept me saying on my long commute and during my

837
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: busy work this summer, and I always jump at the

838
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: chance to listen to your new episodes. Well, thank you, Laura,

839
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 1: We're glad to have you, and I have a feminist

840
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:41,799
Speaker 1: anthropology letter to read from Jennifer, who writes, I love

841
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: your podcast, and I was so excited for the Anthropology podcast.

842
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:48,439
Speaker 1: I was especially pleased that you brought up a net

843
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:52,160
Speaker 1: Wiener's research on the troe Brianders, the importance of women

844
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 1: and women's soft wealth, the yam gardens and banana leaf skirts,

845
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: and what is considered a patriarchal society was one of

846
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: my favorite things I studied in anthropology classes. I had

847
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 1: to laugh though, because of the joking you were doing

848
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 1: about it all being tied to menstruation, because the importance

849
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: of women and their matrilineal lines in the Trobriand culture

850
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: is tied to that lovely crimson wave. According to their

851
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 1: cultural beliefs, women become pregnant when the spirit of her

852
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Speaker 1: ancestors enters her and mixes with her menstrual blood. Men

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Speaker 1: merely help open the pathway into her. So see, it

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