Femininity Read Online Free PDF

“unnatural” in their thirst
     for power. Why did they do it? What made them want to subject their chest and stomach
     to such discomfort, they who negotiated treaties and plotted murder with such competent
     skill? Could it be that the singular quality their enemies whispered they did not
     have—a womanly weakness, a soft, yielding nature—might best be proved and ceremoniously
     displayed by that excessively small and breathlessly feminine bodice? The slender
     waist was not exclusively a feminine vanity. Elizabeth’s father, Henry the Eighth,
     compressed his middle in order to give his chest that extra-burly look—but King Henry
     and other men stopped short of physical pain.
    Two points must be stressed right here. The first is that no discussion of the feminine
     body in the Western world can make much sense without getting a grip on the corset,
     no matter how familiar the material may seem, for the corset has played not a supporting
     but a starring role in the body’s history. The second is that whatever sartorial devices
     men have put on to bolster their body image—codpieces, elevated shoes, padded shoulders,
     a boxy jacket—these did not constrict or cause pain. The truth is, men have barely
     tampered with their bodies at all, historically, to make themselves more appealing
     to women. The development of biceps and pectorals is an honorable byproduct of hard
     physical labor and an aid to competitive feats of sport and strength. Musclebound
     body builders, the man in the elevated shoe or the baldy who wears a toupee have been
     grist for the jokester’s mill, under the masculine theory that real men do not trick
     themselves out to be pleasing. (They have better ways to prove their worth.) A woman,
     on the other hand, is expected to depend on tricks andsuffering to prove her feminine nature, for beauty, as men have defined it for women,
     is an end in itself.
    Not only did the corset induce a regal posture and smaller, feminized motions—a lady
     could barely bend at the waist or take a deep breath, but her bosom heaved and her
     fan fluttered in her agitated efforts to get enough air—it became a necessary under-structure
     for anyone who cared about fashion. The quest for the perfect body in the perfect
     dress was contained in the quest for the perfect corset, which could uplift, augment
     or flatten the breasts, widen or narrow the hips, pinch or elongate the waist, sway
     the back, slope the shoulders and push in the stomach, in accordance with the fashion
     ideal of the times. An estimated twenty to eighty pounds of pressure might be exerted
     by the corset’s squeeze, depending on the season’s style and the determination of
     the wearer. Corseting up was a challenge that taxed her stamina and the strength of
     her maidservant, or a convenient bedpost, the laces pulled tighter as evening drew
     near. But oh, the admiring glances that fell upon the fragile waist which could be
     spanned and lifted by a pair of strong hands. And oh, the delightful charms of the
     fainting, swooning lady who so exquisitely needed masculine protection. Or so she
     has been romantically presented. Realistically, the typical corseted woman was no
     wasp-waisted Scarlett O’Hara flirting at a glittering ball. She was a solidly built
     matron who loosened her stays in private as often as she could, and who was annoyed
     to find her maidservant “putting on airs” by corseting up on the sly.
    Among its persuasions, the corset encouraged the idea that the female body was structurally
     unsound and needed to be supported by artificial contraptions at strategic points.
     A woman of the nineteenth century believed she was born with a clumsy waist, and that
     a stiff foundation would compensate for the inability of her spine and musculature
     to support the weight of her breasts and stomach. Since her muscles were miserably
     atrophied from disuse and binding, she had authentic reason to be grateful to her