it’s hilarious to me when people call historical fashions that men hated oppressive
like in BuzzFeed’s Women Wear Hoop Skirts For A Day While Being Exaggeratedly Bad At Doing Everything In Them video, one woman comments that she’s being “oppressed by the patriarchy.” if you’ve read anything Victorian man ever said about hoop skirts, you know that’s pretty much the exact opposite of the truth
thing is, hoop skirts evolved as liberating garment for women. before them, to achieve roughly conical skirt fullness, they had to wear many layers of petticoats (some stiffened with horsehair braid or other kinds of cord). the cage crinoline made their outfits instantly lighter and easier to move in
it also enabled skirts to get waaaaay bigger. and, as you see in the late 1860s, 1870s, and mid-late 1880s, to take on even less natural shapes. we jokingly call bustles fake butts, but trust me- nobody saw them that way. it was just skirts doing weird, exciting Skirt Things that women had tons of fun with
men, obviously, loathed the whole affair
(1864)
(1850s. gods, if only crinolines were huge enough to keep men from getting too close)
(no date given, but also, this is 100% impossible)
(also undated, but the ruffles make me think 1850s)
it was also something that women of all social classes- maids and society ladies, enslaved women and free women of color -all wore at one point or another. interesting bit of unexpected equalization there
and when bustles came in, guess what? men hated those, too
(1880s)
(probably also 1880s? the ladies are being compared to beetles and snails. in case that was unclear)
(1870s, I think? the bustle itself looks early 1870s but the tight fit of the actual gown looks later)
hoops and bustles weren’t tools of the patriarchy. they were items 1 and 2 on the 19th century’s “Fashion Trends Women Love That Men Hate” lists, with bonus built-in personal space enforcement
Gonna add something as someone who’s worn a lot of period stuff for theatre:
The reason you suck at doing things in a hoop skirt is because you’re not used to doing things in a hoop skirt.
The first time I got in a Colonial-aristocracy dress I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The construction didn’t actually allow me to raise my arms all the way over my head (yes, that’s period-accurate). We had one dresser to every two women, because the only things we could put on ourselves were our tights, shifts, and first crinoline. Someone else had to lace our corsets, slip on our extra crinolines, hold our arms to balance us while a second person actually put the dresses on us like we were dolls, and do up our shoes–which we could not put on ourselves because we needed to be able to balance when the dress went on. My entire costume was almost 40 pounds (I should mention here that many of the dresses were made entirely of upholstery fabric), and I actually did not have the biggest dress in the show.
We wore our costumes for two weeks of rehearsal, which is quite a lot in university theatre. The first night we were all in dress, most of the ladies went propless because we were holding up our skirts to try and get a feel for both balance and where our feet were in comparison to where it looked like they should be. I actually fell off the stage.
By opening night? We were square-dancing in the damn things. We had one scene where our leading man needed to whistle, but he didn’t know how and I was the only one in the cast loud enough to be heard whistling from under the stage, so I was also commando-crawling underneath him at full speed trying to match his stage position–while still in the dress. And petticoats. And corset. Someone took my shoes off for that scene so I could use my toes to propel myself and I laid on a sheet so I wouldn’t get the dress dirty, but that was it–I was going full Solid Snake in a space about 18″ high, wearing a dress that covered me from collarbones to floor and weighed as much as a five-year-old child. And it worked beautifully.
These women knew how to wear these clothes. It’s a lot less “restrictive” when it’s old hat.
I have worn hoop skirts a lot, especially in summer. I still wear hoop skirts if I’m going to be at an event where I will probably be under stage lights. (For example, Vampire Ball.)
I can ride public transportation while wearing them. I can take a taxi while wearing them. I can go on rides at Disneyland while wearing them. Because I’ve practiced wearing them and twisting the rigid-but-flexible skirt bones so I can sit on them and not buffet other people with my skirts.
Hoop skirts are awesome.
Hoop skirts are also air conditioning. If you ever go to reenactments in the South, particularly in summer, you’ll notice a lot of ladies gently swaying in their big 1860s skirts – because it fans all the sweaty bits. You’ll be much cooler in a polished cotton gown with full sleeves, ruffles, and hoopskirt than in a riding jacket and trousers, let me promise you! (This is part of the reason many enslaved women also enthusiastically preferred larger skirts – they had more to do than sit in the shade, but they’d get a bit of a breeze from the hoops’ movement as they were walking.)
They’re also – and I can’t emphasize enough how important this is – really easy to pee in. If you’re in split-crotch drawers (which, until at least the 1890s, you were), you can take an easy promenade a few feet away from the gents and then squat down and pee in pretty much total privacy. It gives so much freedom in travel when it’s not a problem to pee most anywhere.
People also don’t realize that corsets themselves were a HUGE HUGE IMPROVEMENT over previous support-garment styles – and if you have large breasts that don’t naturally float freely above your ribcage (which some people’s do! but it’s not that common), corsets are often an improvement over modern bras.
They hold up the breasts from underneath, taking the weight of them off your back. Most historical corset styles don’t have shoulder straps, so you’re not bearing the weight of your breast there, either, and you can raise your arms as far as your dress’s shoulder line allows (which is the actually restrictive bit – in my 1830s dress, literally all I can do is work in my lap, but in my 1890s dress I can paddle a kayak or draw a longbow with no trouble. Both in a full corset). They support your back and reduce the physical effort it takes to not slouch, helping avoid back pain. They’re rigid enough that you don’t usually have to adjust your clothing to keep it where it belongs. They’re flexible – if you’re having a bloaty PMS day you just … don’t lace it as tightly, and if your back muscles are sore you can lace it a little tighter. And you can undo a cup (or, y’know, not have breast cups) to nurse a baby without losing any of the structural integrity of the garment.
I do educational/historical dressing and people are really insistent, like, “The corset was invented by a man, wasn’t it?” “Actually, women were at the forefront of changing undergarment styles throughout the 19th century!” “But it’s true that it was invented by a man.”
Uh, well, it’s hard to say who “invented” the style but it’s very likely that women’s dressmakers mostly innovated women’s corsets and men’s tailors mostly innovated men’s corsets, honey. Because those exist too.
Also? These fashions are about taking up space. They’re about being loud and visible and saying HERE I AM. About saying “I’m so rich, I need someone to help me dress every morning.” And about saying, “I am not solely here for male consumption”–there’s a reason so many cartoons lampooning women’s fashion are about how hard those ladies are to kiss, and how impossible it’d be to have a quick fuck in them. (Which it actually isn’t, but that’s beside the point)
Historical women’s fashions aren’t 100% unproblematic and absolutely wonderful. They make stark class distinctions incredibly visible, because you simply cannot wear some of these dresses and keep them maintained without a private staff to do a ton of work for you. They upheld a standard of femininity a lot of women were excluded from. They limited women’s and girls’ participation in sports and athletics.
me: it’s awkward when men approach me because i don’t know how to turn them down without putting myself at risk
some idiot: um just tell them you’re gay sweaty
meanwhile,straight men:
Worth noting: She told the dude several times before, politely, that she wasn’t interested and he wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept following and pestering her. After turning him down multiple times, she finally said she was gay, and he snapped and started attacking her. He climbed on her windshield, kicked it in and shattered it, causing glass to get in her eyes.
Also worth noting iirc, there were numerous witnesses and not one person did anything to help this woman. They all saw this man pestering her, her turning him down, repeatedly, and him jumping up on her car to kick her windshield in and her driving to try and shake him off, that not working, and her jumping from the car to flee. And no one did anything. The police never caught him.
“Since he did this and got away with it, he had no repercussions,” she said. “He’s going to think ‘if a girl rejects me, I can do this to her. I didn’t get caught last time.’ ” (source)
How about instead of “just tell them you’re gay” we teach men how to take no for an answer?
i hate “accurate” shakespeare productions where all the actors are white guys. the reason women didn’t act in his plays was because it was illegal in that time obv due to misogyny, and we don’t want that to carry over. there were characters of colour that shakespeare specifically wrote. for example, othello was a part for a black actor and yet there r MODERN productions of othello where othello’s actor is a white dude in blackface.
shakespeare would be thrilled if he knew that modern productions of his works featured diverse casts, complete with not only female actors, lgbt actors, and actors of colour, but interpretations that have been tweaked to showcase modern issues that black communities, gay people, women, etc. face.
if you want to do something, do it. a midsummer production where they’re all lesbians? a romeo and juliet production depicting racial tensions? a twelfth night production where viola is and is played by a trans women? shakespeare’s ghost will give u a thumbs up. (plus his works are out of copyright so u can do whatever the hell you want with them whether he’d want you to or not.)
Would the Takarazuka all female theater be enough? Cause they pretty much do ANYTHING especialy Shakespeare:
My boyfriend just woke up, mostly still asleep and told me “don’t worry, it’s getting better” in a heavy, American accent, which is unusual for an Australian man.
“Why are you American?” I asked, to which I got:
“Sorry, it’s getting better” in a stereotypical posh English accent.
“Why are you English?” I asked, amused.
“What is he normally?” He managed to ask.
“He? You’re not anyone else, you’re you.”
“Ugh, me” was the last thing he said, in a right proper Aussie accent before he fell back into proper sleep.
Bitch just thwarted a ghost possession by judging his accents
My boyfriend would be gettin’ hit with the baseball bat beside our bed if he ever woke up and said, “What is he normally?” about himself.
Then you would NOT have liked the time he pointed to a corner of our room while he was sleeping and said “they share a dimension with Earth and they take cats to eat them”.
Reminds me of my mom getting remarried several years ago, for about a weekend – dude waited until after the wedding to tell her he expected her at waiting at home with dinner waiting when he finished work.
I dunno, like I get that this version of manhood is “normal” but goddamn is it the most brittle, contemptable fuckin thing
TEAR THEM TO SHREDS. LEAVE THEM BEHIND. LITTLE BOYS DONT GET TO PRETEND TO BE MEN, AND WOMEN ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS DESERVE BETTER.
I had a look around Gay’s The Word today, which I’ve read is, sadly, the only surviving LGBTQIA+ bookshop in the UK. It was great being around so many fiction and non-fiction queer books all in one place and I discovered so many I want to read! And it didn’t just have gay, lesbian and bi reads, but also sections for other sexualties like asexuality and ace 🏳️🌈
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