The Great Corset Controversy
You get a corset! And you get a corset! And you get a corset!
So skinny indeed.
Most of the time, I laugh at my own comics (didn’t Robert Frost say, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader”?)
Other times I finish a comic and say to myself,
“tf did I just draw?”
And sometimes, I experience both. (Like today). Bewilderment and hilarity. I don’t always know why things are funny to me. I also know that some things are funny only to me.
Once I was playing Apples to Apples—the game where you have to match noun cards in your hand to an adjective card from the deck, and the person who’s “it” judges the best pairing. The word that came up was “Busy” and I put down Danielle Steel, the famed author of many a bodice-ripping romance. She is notoriously prolific, and the idea of her being extremely busy (and maybe the double entendre in the word “busy”? I honestly don’t know) was breathlessly hilarious to me. I STILL LAUGH AT THIS.
I AM LAUGHING RIGHT NOW.
So. I understand if you don’t understand ANY NUMBER of my comics. I’m also often surprised at what people do find funny. Sometimes I feel like I made a huge swing and miss, and those will be some of my best-performing pieces. It’s not that I don’t think they’re funny. I just sometimes I feel like the joke on the page (the writing, the expressions, the blocking, etc) doesn’t live up to the joke in my head. Often I’ll think of other, more experienced comic artists, who could have pulled it off flawlessly.
I chalk this up to growing pains, both as a person and as a creator. I have to remind myself that sometimes enough is enough.
I’m sure it is for Danielle Steel.
And speaking of bodice-rippers, today’s comic gives me the chance to talk about the Great Corset Controversy, which you probably didn’t know anything about… UNTIL TODAY. So sit back, unclasp your bra, and get ready to talk about undergarments.
As you probably know, for hundreds of years, most women wore corsets. Contrary to the anti-corset hype, most women saw corset-wearing not as a way to restrict their waistlines, but as a way to support their bodies (and bosoms) as they went about their daily lives. Corsets obviously drew attention to a woman’s curvature, but they also provided good posture, and helped women who did hard labor (farming, milking, carrying, washing, etc) lift from the legs instead of the back.
(Image from Sebastian altar of the Augustinian Canons of St. Florian by Albrecht Altdorfer, 1509-1516)
This was long before bras were invented, so the tight girdling of any part of the torso would have provided some support to the breasts as well, relieving women of back and shoulder pain.
In the 1820s, it also wasn’t incredibly uncommon for men to wear some type of corset or girdle around the midsection, too, as thin-waisted coasts were considered high fashion, and came with their own challenges for all the thick-trunked fellas.
It wasn’t until the Victorian Era that a real movement against corsetry began to take shape (lol). Previously, it was seen as a necessary undergarment—but the practice of tight lacing, or intentionally reducing the waist using smaller and smaller laced corsets—became a point of contention. Women were beginning to train their daughter’s waists younger and younger, which most girls found torturous. This is from a young girl’s diary at the time:
June 5. — Yesterday aunt told me she was going to make me wear stays [corsets]. Didn't like the idea, I have never worn even a tight-fitting dress. Aunt measured my waist and said I was “horrid clumsy.” She then laced me into a pair of stays. I shall never forget the sensation. I felt as if I was all crushed in. I could not bend, but had to sit up as stiff as a pole, and how my back ached! I longed for bed time, but that was no good. My aunt would not take them off, though I begged her to. What a night! I couldn't sleep. I tossed about, and every moment the pain seemed to increase.
June 9. — My stays hurt me worse than ever last night. I cut the laces. What a jolly night's sleep I had, but I caught it this morning. As soon as my aunt laced me up she punished me severely. I guess I'll think twice before cutting the laces again.
With such tales, the CORSET CONTROVERSY began. This was, in short, a printed, public dialogue between men and women, medical professionals and political activists—that spanned multiple publications for several decades, reaching its peak in the late 1860s, just as the Victorian Era kicked into high gear.
Of course, sitting here in my athleisure-wear-style pajamas, I’m no corset advocate, but I’m reluctant to reduce the pro-corset camp to mere brainwashed idiots. Women clearly wanted some kind of practical breast support at the time, and corsets were the best they had. It’s no wonder they came out in droves to support the very contraptions that later became such easy targets of critique.
But if you want to know why corsets eventually fell out of fashion, look no further than the reform efforts of first-wave feminists. The “rational dress movement” emerged during the Progressive Era, alongside calls for women’s education and suffrage. This was also a time when the society emphasized scrupulosity and moral purity, which people felt were at odds with the fashion industry. Reformists claimed that restrictive clothing (like the corset) was motivated, not by posture and hygiene, but by the vanity and foolishness of young women.
It’s truly interesting to me that these early attempts at feminism were so, well, misogynistic. Fashion standards were largely driven by gender inequality, keeping women in the types of clothes that kept them inert and passive. But they were blamed not on the men who perpetuated antiquated ideas about gender, but on the women who adopted whatever uniform was required of them to gain social standing.
Then, they were called vain and foolish for doing so.
Even men’s fashion came under fire for being too womanly—men who spent any effort on their appearance (by lacing up corsets, or styling and arranging their cravats) were criticized and called “dandies,” which both described a specific aesthetic, and became a type of pejorative for men who tried to look too fashionable (it was also somewhat synonymous with homosexuality, thanks in part to one incredibly fashionable homosexual, Oscar Wilde).
Of course, there was nothing worse than being compared to a foolish, vain woman in pursuit of fashion—so the rational dress movement got its legs by being both pro-women and anti-women at the same time. (Go figure).
But despite its problems with misogyny, the rational dress movement was based on reasonably sound principles. Women wanted sensible clothing that would not restrict their movement. Dress reformists felt that women’s fashions were not only uncomfortable, but that they were “the results of male conspiracy to make women subservient,” which wasn’t entirely incorrect. (That’s another story for another day).
Ambitious fashion reformists wanted to completely re-imagine what it meant to dress as women—they wanted looser, flowing clothing, while still being simple and modest enough to wear every day.
My favorite extension of this ideology was the bloomer suit—which looks a lot like parachute pants with a short dress or skirt on top. It was invented by an activist named Elizabeth Smith Miller, who was inspired by flowier Middle Eastern and Asian fashion. Even Elizabeth Cady Stanton wore one of these bad babies, once she was turned on to the idea by Miller. It’s called a “bloomer suit” because of its association with Amelia Bloomer, who was an early and enthusiastic dress reformist. Though Amelia returned to more traditional styles later in life (notably after the invention of crinoline) the word “bloomers” still bear reference to her name.
I probably shouldn’t sign off without mentioning at least something about bicycling when we’re talking about turn-of-the-century fashion. Bicycling was incredibly popular, and no one wanted to ride while wearing cumbersome skirts or restrictive corsets. This publication even called the bicycle the “great dress reformer” of the 20th century:
It’s incredible to me how fashion so easily describes the type of gendered experience we all have in the world. While some things haven’t changed at all—shapewear is still popular, given a little rebranding (thanks, ShaperMint and Skims)—other aspects of fashion have become incredibly forgiving. While perhaps not mainstream, people of all sizes genders can wear styles of clothes that they love, clothes that make them feel joyful in their bodies. And while it’s still true that clothing and fashion aren’t designed for all bodies, clothing has become more inclusive as a whole, which means that inequality itself is falling further and further out of fashion.
I know we’re not there yet. And sometimes it hurts to think how far we are from having the types of relationships and communities that will help us thrive—not just as a species, but as a great, shivering consciousness spinning through spacetime.
I’ve been watching (through my hands, like a horror movie) news unfold in the United States of both anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ education measures, measures that are causing a lot of pain for families in Texas and Florida.
Bigots and lawmakers will often try to outlaw our personhood, our queerness, our diversity, our brilliant, variegated beauty. They know that people who love themselves are harder to manipulate, harder to distract, harder to drown out.
So I take a lot of heart from the dress reform movement. In the 1890s, corsets were still worn by most women, despite being more and more uncomfortable, and despite decades of advocacy. But by the 1920s, they were just… gone. In the scheme of time, visionary change can often be as tiny as wearing the clothes you’re not “allowed” to wear, and saying the things you’re not “allowed” to say—funny or unfunny, dangerous or joyful, unpopular or bizarre. Change is nothing more than persistent selfhood in the face of so much resistance.
So wear a bra, or a corset, or a dress, or heels, or hats, or spandex, or fake nails, or body glitter, or pants with elastic, or jeans, or short shorts, or sweatpants, or bloomers. Wear clothes you made yourself, wear clothes that are old and unfashionable, wear clothes that are thrifted or hand-me-downs, wear clothes with stains and holes and patches—OR DON’T WEAR ANY OF THOSE THINGS. Dressing as yourself—fully and with total joy—can be an act of resistance. Let it be.
And when the highly gendered, fast-fashion capitalist hellscape gets you down, remember this from Ursula K. Le Guin: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
Including jokes. So go make some.
All my (unrestricted, uncorseted) love,
🖤Becca Lee, the Haunted Librarian🖤