Today’s prompt is my last one for June’s 30/30 challenge. It’s based on activities from the workshops at the WLM@40 conference and the Feminism in London Midsummer Feminist Party.
The images here, from a range of real-world and online library collections, show corsets, which were used “to help the girl grow as she should grow” (from the advert for Martha Washington Missees’ Corset Waist for Girls, bottom left). However, in order to create the tiny waist, the body rearranged its internal organs, as illustrated in the image on the bottom right. One of the causes behind the trope of the quick-to-faint ladies in Victorian literature is the very real lack of lung capacity caused by the cramped chest area caused by corsets. Nowadays, corsets are often worn as sexy underwear and can be fetish items of great beauty (mages in the centre).
This shaping and control of the female body is the root of the urge of 1970s feminists to burn their bra. Our complex relationship with our undergarments led Brenda Jiménez to carry out her art project ‘A bra does not make the woman’ in Mexico. She photographed young women wearing their bras over their tops and asked them to speak about what it meant to them. She later posted the project to the International Museum of Women’s Imaining Ourselves online exhibition.
Todays prompt is to look at the images here and at Jiminéz’s work and to think about the question:
How do our clothes shape us and how do we shape our clothes?
Today’s prompt is my last one for June’s 30/30 challenge. It’s based on activities from the workshops at the WLM@40 conference and the Feminism in London Midsummer Feminist Party.
The images here, from a range of real-world and online library collections, show corsets, which were used “to help the girl grow as she should grow” (from the advert for Martha Washington Missees’ Corset Waist for Girls, bottom left). However, in order to create the tiny waist, the body rearranged its internal organs, as illustrated in the image on the bottom right. One of the causes behind the trope of the quick-to-faint ladies in Victorian literature is the very real lack of lung capacity caused by the cramped chest area caused by corsets. Nowadays, corsets are often worn as sexy underwear and can be fetish items of great beauty (mages in the centre).
This shaping and control of the female body is the root of the urge of 1970s feminists to burn their bra. Our complex relationship with our undergarments led Brenda Jiménez to carry out her art project ‘A bra does not make the woman’ in Mexico. She photographed young women wearing their bras over their tops and asked them to speak about what it meant to them. She later posted the project to the International Museum of Women’s Imaining Ourselves online exhibition.
Todays prompt is to look at the images here and at Jiminéz’s work and to think about the question:
How do our clothes shape us and how do we shape our clothes?
Posted 1 year ago & Filed under WLM@40 workshop, exhibitions, feminism in london, feminist collections, online exhibitions, picture prompts, 3030 challenge prompts, View high resolution
