Corsets

Photo by Nataliia Vladimirova on Unsplash

My husband and I were watching a period drama a few weeks ago when he suddenly asked, “Why do they have to put a corset scene in every period movie?” I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it’s true; I dare you to find a movie or TV show set before 1900 and including upper-class women that doesn’t have at least one woman trying not to breathe while another strangles her insides for her in the name of “proper attire.” I didn’t have the words in the moment, but the answer is obvious. Corsets are a damn good metaphor for the ways in which women make themselves smaller in order to fit into society.

Author Sue Monk Kidd describes in her book, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, a time when she became aware of the corset. She had just been inducted into a society group called “Gracious Ladies,” and was preparing to partake in some sort of initiation ceremony, when she had a sudden misgiving.

I thought about the meticulous way we were coiffed and dressed, the continuous smiling, the charm that fairly dripped off us, the sweet, demure way we behaved…we looked like the world’s most proper women. “What am I doing here?” I thought. Lines from the poem “Warning,” by Jenny Joseph, popped into my head and began to recite themselves.

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple / with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me…/ I shall go out in my slippers in the rain / And pick flowers in other people’s gardens / And learn to spit.

I turned to a woman beside me and said, “After we’re Gracious Ladies, does that mean that we can’t wear purple with a red hat or spit?”¹

Kidd was, at this point, in the early stages of “waking up” to her state as a “man-made woman.” She writes:

It occurred to me on that October morning that living the female life under the archetype of Gracious Lady narrowed down the scope of it considerably. It scoured away a woman’s natural self, all the untamed juices of the female life. It would be many years before I read Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s words, “When a woman is cut away from her basic source, she is sanitized,” but somehow even then, in the most rudimentary way, I was starting to know it.

I was religiously trained to be a sanitized woman. I dressed in long skirts (with shorts under them, just in case) and head coverings whenever I left home. I obeyed not only my dad but every male authority figure in my life, starting with God and descending down the totem pole (yet another phallic symbol I presume). I cooked and cleaned and did all the nastiest chores. I took care of my younger brother and sisters. I gardened and sewed clothes and read all the right books (very “right,” as a matter of fact), starting always with—what else?—the “good book.” I viewed all religions not sanctioned by my parents as inherently evil, and anything spiritually feminine most of all. I was suspicious of anyone or anything not specifically Christian. I rigorously squashed all the messy, sexy, loud, opinionated, unladylike parts of myself, the “untamed juices of the female life,” beneath my corset, and I pulled hard on those strings—especially on Sundays. And I thought I was the only one pretending.

Around the same time that I started reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter another book came in at the library, a book I had had on hold for months. The book was Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity by actor and feminist activist Justin Baldoni. According to Baldoni, men wear corsets, too. He calls it “armor.”

All the messages surrounding what it means to be a man in this world created a box—a definition of masculinity—that to fit into made me wage a war against myself. Not only did I have to numb my feelings, I had to sever myself from them. Not only did I have to ignore my insecurities and shame, I also had to insult them. Not only did I have to put on a mask, but I also had to put on a full suit of armor to protect myself from incoming attacks.²

A man’s “armor” is supposed to make him “bigger and better.” The armor fills in the gaps, smooths over the weaknesses, makes the wearer appear strong enough, brave enough, smart enough, prosperous enough to be considered a Man in the eyes of society. The great work of Baldoni’s life, as related in his book, has been reclaiming his humanity by taking off the “armor” one piece at a time. For a book written by a man specifically for men, I was surprised by how much I could relate. While corsets and armor seem to have opposite effects on those wearing them (shrinking vs. swelling), both serve the same basic purpose: they stifle our humanity and prevent us from having real, vulnerable connections with others.