Political Breasts
Firenze
Shipmate, Host Emeritus
in Epiphanies
A week or so ago in The Guardian there was an interesting article on the cultural/political significance of breasts. Flat chests and short skirts - female empancipation: big breasts and loads of frills - back in the boudoir/kitchen and preferably pregnant.
Women's bodies ISTM have always been a signifier of power dynamics. Shout out to Elizabeth I who turned her physical body into a) an icon of virginity and b) (with the aid of a lot of frocks) an image of omnipotent majesty.
But mostly they are a reflection of the prevalent (male) agenda.
Agree?
Women's bodies ISTM have always been a signifier of power dynamics. Shout out to Elizabeth I who turned her physical body into a) an icon of virginity and b) (with the aid of a lot of frocks) an image of omnipotent majesty.
But mostly they are a reflection of the prevalent (male) agenda.
Agree?
Comments
If you can't, why post?
I don't doubt there are men who would LIKE to make women's bodies into raw material for their agenda; but the bodies are naturally too varied for their purposes without enforcing changes, and if they try to do that, well.. they will run into the difficulty of controlling the owners of those bodies. Breasts are not easily changed. Surgery hurts and costs money, besides being risky. Clothing fakery is also expensive, difficult, and well, tends to be ineffective much of the time.
I guess I'm trying to say that the article writer has overstated her point. Rich and powerful men can influence trends, sure, and they always have. But that's not the same thing as making all or even most women's bodies a reflection of a male agenda, or a signifier of power dynamics. To do that, you'd need to have coercive power over the people in those bodies. And the more expensive and painful the alteration you want, the more resistance you're going to get.
I'm thinking of the pushback we've had over the past few decades on things like nylons (pantyhose) and high heels, also makeup. When I was in my twenties, those were mandatory at work and expected in most non-casual situations. And most women around me conformed, because it cost them more to fight the pressures on them than it did to pick up another pack of hose or to spend a few minutes each morning putting on makeup. Fighting those expectations would have meant paying the cost of ridicule, disapproval, and sometimes one's job. So it was "cheaper" to conform. And yet, over the next 30 years, we've seen a movement away from all three of these things -- or at least permission not to use them -- at least in the U.S., in the society I'm most familiar with. The cost (money and annoyance) eventually became too great, and those women who didn't want to conform eventually carried their point.
But hose, heels, and makeup are minor in comparison to breast alterations. The resistance to alterations THERE is always going to be so strong that the most anybody is ever going to accomplish is influencing a trend (mostly among the rich and foolish). Ordinary women will go on with the breasts they were given by nature, undermining whatever political message some idiot is trying to inscribe in their bodies.
Some people feel freer in asexual spaces, other people feel freer being allowed to be sexual in public. And I think the main thing is that people are free to be who they choose to be.
And it is interesting that I'm not sure if there's a male equivalent because guys just don't get the same universal objectification or social vulnerability, in my experience. I've never been aggressively hit on in my life, and I know very few men who have had that experience. I cannot say the same for women that I know.
Hoping not to tangent the thread away from breasts in particular unless that's the consensus...
Does the body one is given influence one's personal presentation as regards high vs low femme? In other words, is a (hard not to say this indelicately, forgive me) flatter-chested woman more likely to present as less femme, compared to a fuller-figured woman who is more likely to present as more femme?
The body one is given may influence presentation but it can go either way. A fuller-figured woman who wants to get through her day without harassment may well opt for a less-femme look (baggy sweatshirts, no make up etc) . Though, speaking as someone who was flat chested prior to pregnancy and breast-feeding, being flat chested and not wearing make up doesn't prevent the hand on your arse when standing on crowded public transport, etc etc.
I don't really make any comment about the article, but it is an interesting corollary. Which is probably the wrong word, but sounds about right in my head.
A trend presumably influenced by women most in the public eye, particularly those there in virtue of their association with a man, or by exploiting their physical attributes. What I think of as the bimboisation of culture.
Starting with Lady Godiva?
I think it goes back to Roman times. But I don't remember where I read about it
In a way the 'I couldn't possibly comment' comment is a commentary on this issue, in itself? Perfectly legitimate.
On the issue itself, I suppose there's still a lot of judging of women primarily by their face and figure (real or enhanced). Social media is a great space to be reminded by random men that you're too ugly to rape, if you're a woman daring to have an opinion they don't agree with.
It comes across to me as a verbal smirk.
Perhaps this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
As an asexual person, I don't see my breasts as sexual in the slightest. And if it were more comfortable for my to be topless, and if this weren't illegal, I might choose to go topless and I wouldn't see it as being sexual. Maybe another person would see it that way though.
I saw it similarly - the flippant kind of comment that men often make (in the UK, at least) when women's issues that seem sexual to them are mentioned. And in person it is always said with a smirk. Maybe part of it is a cover-up for embarrassment, wanting to make it into a joke to cover embarrassment. There is a bit of a national tradition of men making innuendo jokes about breasts, though it is being challenged more now.
I need to go and wash my eyes out, that's one of the most horrendous things I've read in a long time.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/women-s-topless-court-victory-20-years-later-1.1026403
I actually got to meet Gwen Jacobs at an Ontario Federation of Students conference between her having been convicted and then having the conviction overturned on appeal.
Making up stories about women’s nakedness is an old tradition.
Being from Coventry, we were taught that her "nakedness" meant going without her jewels and other status symbols. However, medieval women were definitely not wearing cotton
I think this is a very simplistic take that doesn't take other forms of oppression into account. The 1920s saw the birth of diet culture in addition to flat chests and slim figures becoming fashionable - flat chests normally accompany slim bodies. The "heroin chic" trend of the 90s is being accompanied by Ozempic - fatphobia is baked in here. Also, the idea that someone having big breasts somehow means that they are an opponent to feminism is surely hugely misogynistic as well as fatphobic. Some of us just have big breasts naturally, sorry for being an agent of the patriarchy because my mum passed on the Big Nork Gene I guess.
I don't think that referring to other women as "bimbos" is remotely feminist, and tbh I think there's a significant undercurrent of transphobia in the whole argument too. It is not a huge leap from "choosing to have big breasts make you anti-feminist" to "trans women getting top surgery is anti-feminist".
Also, I note that sapphic women [women attracted to women] are apparently non-existent.
There's an ambivalence I also feel discussing women's bodies - which sometimes leads to avoidant sarcasm - where any comment can be taken the wrong way in any direction. Taken in a toxic extreme, this leads to men saying things like "you can't talk to a woman without being accused of flirting," or "you always need a chaperone anytime you're in any professional setting with a woman because of the mere possibility of an accusation." It's inevitably awkward.
More seriously. it's considered rude to talk about other people's body parts in public. I wouldn't really want people discussing penis length or size (and generally people think penises are ugly, ungainly things anyway.) It's just awkward and uncomfortable (at least from the straight guy's perspective.) Perhaps we imagine it's similar for women. Not being one, that's speculative.
So a lot of guys (self included) are conditioned from puberty on to stay the F away from any discussion of female anatomy and our feelings about it because you don't want to be accused of being some kind of weirdo creep.
As I've gotten older, I've gotten a little more balanced about this discourse, but...yeah. It's awkward.
Nowhere have I said big breasts equal opposition to feminism. I would be a walking contradiction if I did.
What I took the article to be saying is that the prominence (so to speak) given to big-breastedness bespeaks an idealisation of a particular pattern of womanhood - sexy and/or maternal, but definitely not confrontational.
Nor am I offering observations about trans or Sapphic people.
Proper clothing is somewhat a social construct. I get the feeling a lot of social constructions got torn apart between the 1960s and 1990s and some of us are still recovering from that. I think I might benefit from a bit more social construction sometimes.
Like @fineline I do not see my breasts the way society does. Sometimes I am told that my body--presumably including them--is so feminine. As a nonbinary (NB) person? No it isn't. My theoretical softness is something they associate with femininity but it has no relation to my actual gender. I don't personally experience dysphoria about my body, but that's because I have completely disconnected my body from my gender mentally.
I do think some people associate big breasts with certain aesthetics/personalities. I knew a young lesbian who was directly told she couldn't be a butch lesbian--despite having a very butch style--because her bust was too big. And she was told this by other lesbians too.
I really appreciate what @Firenze says about the people in the public eye influencing our views of ourselves. If I, as a person from the U.S. see lots of horrifyingly incompetent women who look like X, I might try to avoid looking like X because I find competence very important. This is also relevant because a certain kind of asshole male makes it very clear what type they like while decent men don't broadcast what type is because that's not respectful professional behavior. So what ends up in the media is unbalanced.
I do think that fatphobia is a big part of how we see women, as @Pomona mentions. It's of course a way of controlling women. If they're feeling shame, attacking each other, or damaging their health trying to lose weight, that's effort they're not spending on patriarchy.
And I think @Bullfrog has a point about how men relate to conversations of things that are seen as female. For instance, if guys talk about spreading their legs to "protect the family jewels" that is apparently considered an appropriate, albeit informal, thing to say, discuss, and respond to in a mixed gender (and age) group. But those same people would not be okay with discussing mammograms or menstrual cups. "Let's not make [man] uncomfortable here" is usually the comment, often a self-censoring by a woman. I think we (AFAB people*) are trained not to take up any space.
Recently I heard guys discussing the importance of prostrate exams. Now that is a rather awkward topic, particularly if you get into details. But I know people who have died because they thought them to embarrassing to get. Someone else I know has prostate cancer. I had better get over my awkwardness about that conversation and let it happen because such things are very important to have discussed. Similarly, HPV is easily prevented, and a vaccine lowers people's chances of getting cervical cancer, among others. It's outrageous that this isn't considered an appropriate topic of conversation. (I've seen that shut down as awkward too.)
And of course giggling about feminine conversations is another way of tone policing.
*people assigned female at birth, statistically mostly women but also trans men and NB people.
Then, in perimenopause, when I actually became overweight, I realised I had now become the fat female-bodied person that people like to jeer at, and the whole thing seemed so utterly ridiculous that I couldn't bring myself to feel any shame at being overweight. I came to see it not specifically about fat or thin, but more about a societal urge to police female bodies in general. To find something to disapprove in them regardless, as a way to keep women feeling inscure. And especially since coming across social media pages for 'manly men', where they talk about never letting a woman feel comfortable, I realise this really is something some men actively aim for, to maintain power over women.
It deepens like coastal shelf
as Mr Larkin nearly said.
It made me both insecure and vulnerable and at the same time angry. I dressed in a way that was both protective and broadcast the message 'I don't give a damn what you think'.
Oh definitely. A lot of mine came from women. But that's what I mean about perception of what men want - it was very based around that. Women being judged - and therefore judging themselves and each other - according to desirability to men. Internalised misogyny. Why else would women care about each other's boob size, for instance?
I even had my sister trying to advise me about clothing, with totally good intentions, when we were in our early 20s, in terms of 'Don't wear that - people will think you're a lesbian.' And when I asked why that mattered, she explained men wouldn't consider me as an option for them, so they wouldn't approach me and flirt with me, etc. (I hadn't yet realised that I was asexual, not knowing this was a thing, but I realised I was quite fine with men not considering me as an option!)
I find it rude and extraordinary in equal parts.
You could say it sprang from Mrs Bennett Syndrome - unless I can get my daughter(s) married, they will end up poor/homeless/alone. Better a marriage - any marriage - than that. Some daughters will agree - viz Charlotte Lucas.
Charlotte Lucas is an interesting one, because she says she doesn't like men anyway. So if you don't like men, but marrying one is the way to survive in society, a boring, stuffy one that leaves you alone is probably a better option, so long as he has the means to support you and is considered respectable.
I saw 'Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of)' at the theatre a while ago, and it portrays Charlotte as a lesbian, who is in love with Elizabeth, and marries Mr Collins to get closer to her.
My mom totally griped about this experience when I was a kid, especially since her weight fluctuations were unpleasant side effects of medications she was taking. Even being praised is unpleasant when it's not something you have any control over.
As best I can tell, the "approved model of Republican womenhood" comes in all sorts of breast sizes, but has to have long glossy straightened hair.
Doublethink, Admin