Topic uncovered: How we won the right to our breasts
In how the look of the chest changed in the clothes, You can track the relationship of women with society. As an obvious secondary sex trait - the difference between a woman and a man - the breast throughout the whole modern history of mankind has remained “controlled” by social attitudes. The choice of what a bust will look like in clothes has always been and remains a question not so much of initial physical data and comfort, but a marker of subordination to the generally accepted value system. In other words, we are almost the last, who decides what kind of chest should take on after we put on our clothes.
The role of women in society almost at all times put her in a position where her breasts did not belong to herself: a child, a man, a family, an aesthetic norm, dictates fashion, the porn industry, the medical community - all of them individually and taken together claimed their right on breastfeeding. And today we have a chance to reclaim our breasts. Not to deny her to a man or her child, to ignore the existing dress codes or instructions of doctors. And in order to make any decision consciously and in harmony with our will. Including when it comes to choosing clothes.
Most prehistoric societies saw in the female breast a symbol of prosperity and fertility, and goddesses were depicted with deliberately large breasts or many-armed ones. Ideals of beauty were formed in the same vein: the more the mammary glands, the more attractive the woman. The statuette of a female figure found on the territory of modern Austria, later called Venus of Willendorf, depicts a female body with a large, hypertrophied breast. That is, perhaps, for 22-24 centuries before the appearance of men's magazines with busty beauties on the covers, girls with small breasts already had a reason to be dissatisfied with themselves. In ancient Egypt, standards of appearance were close to the modern model: tall, long neck and legs, narrow waist, medium-sized hips and small breasts.
In the era of the Ancient Kingdom in Egypt, women of all classes wore kalaziris - a narrow sundress to the toe, leaving the chest open. Later appears underwear. An analogue of the modern bra - a strip of fabric, tightly tightening and visually reducing the mammary glands - becomes an attribute of women from the upper class. At the end of the early Iron Age (6th-4th centuries BC), warrior women from the nomadic Sarmatian tribes had equal rights with men (according to another version, Sarmatians had matriarchy at all): they took an active part in social life, occupied a high social and martial law. To become real warriors and send all the vital forces in the hand holding the sword, the girls underwent the ritual of removing the right breast. It is quite possible, even then, the practical (and at present very dubious) benefits of this procedure were placed below its symbolic meaning — the truncation of the mother’s role in favor of the fighter’s role. Men and women fought the same way and dressed identically - in wide pants and leather jackets. Both experienced warriors and little girls were buried along with precious jewelery and a favorite weapon. Perhaps it was the Sarmatian women who were the prototype of the Amazons from ancient Greek mythology.
In ancient Greece, the cult of a healthy athletic body was projected onto the female body. Required pronounced muscles of the sternum and neat mammary glands. To cope with the natural size, the Greek women tied them with a dense strip of fabric or leather - strofion. In ancient Rome, the same stripes were part of a bathing suit. In the Middle Ages, nothing good happened to women or their breasts. The church saw in eroticism the root of all earthly ills and chained a woman into an iron corset that hides her forms. Teenage girls were laid to sleep in a dress with lead plates to prevent the development of the mammary glands. Early female mortality, sterility, deformation of the skeleton and internal organs - these are signs of that bleak time.
Having remained without the bullying of Christian dogmatists, the beauties of the Renaissance still did not lose heart and did not refuse the corset-murderer, freeing only his chest from his oppression - now she needed to have a rounded shape. Seductive swelling in the décolleté area was stimulated by rubbing the skin with a mixture of nettle and manganese (do not try to repeat it at home!). At the same time, the aura of “sacredness” began to scream in the chest: the biblical heroines, Madonna, as well as the ancient goddesses, were often depicted with bare nipples. The only way! Otherwise, no Louvre or Prado after a couple of centuries.
The feminist movement has criticized the corset and as a piece of clothing that is harmful to women's health.
The status of the half-naked proletarian in the Delacroix picture “Freedom leading people” has a completely different status. Often the action of the picture is mistakenly attributed to the events of the Great French Revolution. However, the work depicts the events of the July revolution of 1830, when the French people rebelled against the Bourbon monarchy and put an end to the Restoration regime. Here, a woman in a torn working dress symbolizes the defenselessness of ordinary people who have left "bare-chested" against armed soldiers. Both revolutions, among other things, designated the problem of women's rights, but the issue was hushed up following both.
The feminist movement, along with the development of medicine, criticized the corset as a garment that causes irreparable harm to women's health. Appear free from the corset dress reform and the first bras. The last few decades have gone from the symbol of a liberated woman to the object of sharp criticism of feminists. In the 1940s, a bra became an obligatory component of the official dress code, “shaping” the female breast into a shell acceptable for business relations: the natural form is hidden and fixed. Breast, as well as female sexuality, is still as obvious within the framework of business bow, but it is strictly within the limits set aside for it.
Representatives of the third wave of feminism speak against such a dictate and for the right to free breast exposure. For example, the Canadian Topfree Equal Rights Association (TERA) calls for securing the right for a woman to appear in public places topless. Against the ban on instagram on the demonstration of the female breast in the accounts made Scout Willis. While in Europe girls in one bikini are common, in Canada and some American states women’s rights to public exposure of the breast are limited by law.
Contrary to the media myth, no feminist bras actually burned. One of the most famous feminist actions took place in 1968 in Atlantic City during the Miss America competition. Several demonstrators set up a picket in front of the entrance to the building, in which a lively crowned sheep (yes, you were right, an animal) with an "Miss America" tape took an active part. The participants shouted slogans calling for the evaluation of women for their universal human qualities, and not as a piece of meat. At some point, the demonstrators threw in one pile shoes with heels, lace belts, curlers and bras and gathered to burn it all. The police opposed, as they feared a massive fire. However, for the sake of a scathing headline in the New York Post, the issuing editor called the figures in the action "bra burners". The term quickly got accustomed, and the “time to burn bras” was called a whole decade.
The heroine of the Fifth Element, Luc Besson, designed to save the earth, like medieval beauties, is exhausted, pale, red-haired and devoid of chest
At all times, women resorted to using a courageous or androgynous image that completely hides the breast in order to go beyond the limits prescribed by society in accordance with their gender. Joan of Arc wore men's armor, not only to fight effectively, but also not to attract unwanted attention from the male warriors. After the death of d'Arc was canonized. The sacredness and uniqueness of an asexual female image without a breast, dictated by the Spanish Inquisition, had a repetition in artistic images of the twentieth century. The hero of the Fifth Element of Luc Besson, who was called upon to save the earth, as well as the medieval beauties, is exhausted, deathly pale, red-haired and devoid of chest. The image of Milla Jovovich has become one of the brightest symbols of the "shrubless" androgynous fashion of the 90s.
Another force that encroaches on the sovereignty of our breasts is the porn industry. The popularity of the actress Sasha Gray does not allow to speak about the unambiguous imposition of "silicone" standards. But besides the problem of shifting the aesthetic norm from naturalness to hypertrophiedness, there is an even more serious question of the perception of the female breast - and after that the woman herself - as an object. That is why in society there is an opposition of educated girls and “busty dolls” who are attuned to the intellectual and creative self-realization. Indeed, women who build an image around their sexuality, resort to aesthetic surgery, emphasize the shape of open clothes, refuse a bra for provocative images, use different tricks up to tabs in a bra for an image with protruding nipples. The personal qualities that "independent" women define themselves in this case fade into the background. This medal has a downside. Our free choice - to give up lingerie in favor of our own comfort and to experience our nipples moment - can be considered by others as a gesture of readiness for sex.
Behind all this fuss, the first and most important function of the breast is often forgotten - to feed babies. At different times, fashion, social order, or government policy restricted women to this right (or their duties, depending on their views). To get into a fashionable corset or go to the machine on the third day after delivery, women tied up their breasts and trusted the health of their child to the wet nurse with someone else’s milk or the “system” with an artificial mixture. The wife of Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, the first of the Russian queens, fed her children herself, because of which she often could not wear clothes “on the way out”, missed winter balls and was sharply criticized by the court — putting children’s interest above personal and public was considered silly criminal.
In the 1980s, along with the proliferation of "natural parenthood" and the WHO recommendations to feed a child on demand, the popularity of clothing for feeding is growing. Most models are tailored so that the fact of feeding remains hidden, and outsiders see only the child in the mother’s arms. In addition, physiological bras, wadded, woven and silicone inlays have appeared, allowing you to actively engage in any activity and even sports, without fear that clothes will be smeared with milk. This is another step towards women's freedoms: we have the right to continue to lead an active lifestyle and fully implemented as a mother.
Well, in the end, the refusal to wear a bra despite the common aesthetic and ethical standard is often explained by a health factor. Most modern underwear - especially corrective - is tailored in a way that interferes with natural physiological processes. Such, for example, as free circulation and lymph flow. In a systemic disorder of these processes, doctors now see the cause of a large part of modern chest diseases. Due to the fact that the parameters of each breast are individual and constantly vary, 80% of women face the problem of wearing a bra that is not the size. To continue to wear underwear without compromising health, it is important to choose a well-designed model.
So, today our breasts are in our, um, hands. This is good news and a reason for optimism. At the same time, we must be aware that we cannot control the judgments of other people, impose our opinions on them and avoid their assessments. And in this regard, little has changed - coexistence with their breasts, as before, requires more effort from women than we would like.
Photo: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 via Wikipedia, Victoria and Albert Museum and Shutterstock