Cerise writes:
I have recently noticed an alarming trend in our language. It is a specific form of negative body-talk. So many articles, ads, and women use very violent imagery when discussing parts of their bodies. Think about it: banish your butt, burn fat, carve off your curves, destroy your belly, slice your flab, melt your belly, dump your gut, kill your cravings, blast your thighs. Is this a nice way to talk about yourself? What would you say to a product that promises to destroy women's bodies? Doesn't sound so nice now, does it? What about slicing, cutting, burning? Why is it okay to use language like this?
I can't decide where this language comes from. Does it spring from our acceptance of violence against women in popular culture? Does it come from our habit of insulting overweight people (and, for that matter, not-so-over-weight celebrities?) Is it just an expression of the very real loathing some women feel for parts of their bodies?
Well, stop it! I don't care where it comes from. It is not okay to talk about yourself or anyone else this way. Don't buy products that promise to act out violence on your body. Don't accept this sort of language.
When I took a college course on propaganda (very cool course, by the way), we discussed the insidious impact of propaganda. Even if you are a very smart, educated person, it seeps into your thinking. Even if you know it is propaganda, if it is repeated often enough, it soaks into your head. Even if it is clumsy, stupid propaganda, if it is not contradicted, it is hard to resist. Advertising is perhaps the most pervasive form of propaganda in our society. Don't say it is trivial, it is not. Don't think you can ignore it, you cannot. But do not accept it. Do not let it go unchallenged. The best way to combat propaganda is to recognize it for what it is and to actively disagree with it.
Showing posts with label Women.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women.. Show all posts
Monday, October 21, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
Do bras prevent sagging? And who cares?
Cerise writes: Continuing my theme from last week: you should be free to go without a bra, even if you have very large breasts. (Like my 46DD’s.)
Oh, God, aren’t you uncomfortable you might ask? Only when I feel obligated to wear a
bra. My breasts are happy
breathing, jiggling, and just hanging out, thankyouverymuch. It doesn’t hurt when they bounce, I
promise. When I have to wear a
bra, they are not happy, and neither am I.
Oh,
I have tried all sorts of bras, fitted by professionals at all different sorts
of stores. I have spent over $100
on a bra. I have tried altering
bras to make them fit better. Even
if they fit perfectly, I still find them terribly uncomfortable. Maybe because I have something called
fibromyalgia, which causes me pain in my sternum, ribs, and shoulders. Yeah, pretty much all the places that a
bra presses on my body. I used to
attend a fibromyalgia support group and every single woman there said “Oh, my
God, wearing a bra is so painful!”
(Uh, why do we do it, then?)
But even if I didn’t have this condition, I don’t think I should feel
obligated to wear a bra.
What if my breasts get droopy? This is the question my mom asks, and
it makes her crazy that I go out of the house without a bra. So what? She claims I will soon be able to tuck my tits into my belt,
and then I won’t have to worry about a bra. Well, then, our disagreement will be resolved, won’t
it? Actually, I am not terribly
concerned about the threat of sagginess.
If they sag so much that it bothers me, I will then decide if I am
willing to hoist them up with a painful bra. Or I will just live with it.
In fact, dear reader, bra
salespeople may be scamming you.
Bras may not, in fact, keep your breasts from drooping. They may even make it worse. Gasp! No, really. To
summarize the study, there seems to be more sagging in the bra-ed breasts than
in the braless ones. The theory
put forward to explain the lack of sagginess in braless women is that their
muscles adapt to supporting their breasts and the muscles of bra-ed women
atrophy from lack of use. If this
sounds crazy, talk to someone who was a nurse in the 1950’s. (Like my Grandmother.) Women back then wore serious girdles all the time. Some even slept in
them. When they went into the
hospital for surgery or childbirth, they often had terrible back pain because,
for the first time in years, they weren’t wearing their girdles. Their back muscles had atrophied from
lack of practice at supporting their own torsos! It seems possible to me that the same thing could happen to
chest muscles. Use it or lose it,
baby! Okay, I admit this study
only included French women and only went up to age 35. Maybe my bralessness will come back to
bite me when I am 80. (But will I
care?)
Believe it or not, not all cultures
expect middle-aged women to have tits like a Barbie doll. Why should we want to have teenager
breasts when we are well beyond being a teenager? Isn’t there something a bit odd about an 80 year old woman
whose breasts are the same shape on top as on bottom, with no hint of drooping whatsoever? I suppose that having
perkier boobs makes you look younger.
But at some point, wouldn’t it just make you look ridiculous? Sort of like a 75 year old woman in a
neon mini-dress? Who says that a
mature woman with children should want to look like a skinny fifteen year old,
instead of like the beautiful, experienced woman she is?
Not all cultures admire perky,
youthful breasts. Some prefer a
certain softness, even sagginess, because it shows maturity and implies a level
of sexual experience that is seen as very, very sexy. Surely you have seen the pictures of bare-breasted women in
National Geographic? There they
are, braless and topless, totally unconcerned. The men are not turning into ravening beasts, raping and
humping like mad, by the sight of the breasts. Nor do they seem disturbed or disgusted by the older or
sagging breasts. And the women are
not embarrassed by their breasts, whether they are perky or saggy. The breasts are just there. Sort of like noses. Just sticking out. And it is no big deal.
If anything, hiking your breasts up
with a bra makes them stick out more.
It draws attention to them, makes them more obvious. If that’s what you want, go for it. But don’t try to tell me that a bra is
more modest than no bra. Bra
wearing is a cultural construct that bra sellers have somehow made
mainstream. It is not a universal
perception that bras hide your breasts and make them less conspicuous. In her lovely cookbook/memoire, Bitter Almonds, Maria Grammatico
recounts that the convent school girls were not allowed to wear bras because
the nuns thought it was shameless to make your breasts stick out unnaturally,
as a bra would certainly do. I
observed a similar attitude toward bras being unnatural and flashy when I was
growing up in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where the Native American population is
around 30%. My point is that bras
are not inherently more modest than bralessness, it is merely our culture (with
the help of underwear advertisements) that has decided it is so.
Oh,
dear. I had planned to discuss
breast feeding in public today.
But it seems I have ranted on long enough. Okay, breast feeding will have to wait for another day. If you have any stories or comments on
public nursing, feel free to leave them here and I will look a them before I
write my next post.
Other sources claiming that bras do not prevent sagging
breasts:
Three studies, summarized in English, with citations: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=15913.0
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