Jiggly: Shape wear then and now - Lab 080

It all started with the corset
- Dr. Wendy Burns-Ardolino: “What's interesting about corsetry itself is really it is a locus of social control for women's bodies” [00:09:19]
Not only about controlling the ideal shape of a woman, but also bound up with ideas of morals, hygiene, and patriarchal values
- Rooted in flawed medical discourse that a woman’s organs needed to be held in; The same logic that prohibited women from running marathons until relatively recently because people believed there uteruses would fall out

The corset was commonplace in the 19th century but was handmade and expensive
With mass production and advertising came the rise of shapewear; cheaper, more accessible
With the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 70’s came the decline of shapewear; metaphorical bra burning
That lasted about 20 years, but then:
- Dr. Wendy Burns-Ardolino: “It was quickly followed up with kind of an internal girdlezation where women focused so much on what their bodies looked like.”
- Titi: “The girdles are in our minds.”

Pervasive social media means we are constantly looking at photos of ourselves, scrutinizing bodies, comparing ourselves to Photoshopped images of celebrities
This scrutiny can come from women occupying the male gaze and then looking at themself through that lens
- Dr. Wendy Burns-Ardolino: [00:26:25] “It's like we're pre-programed from birth to experience our bodies as other people see us right through that social lens. It's almost impossible to see yourself without occupying the male gaze.”

What can we do about it?

Zakiya: “What can we do to detach our self-worth and confidence from the shape of our bodies and how we look? … It sounds like we're trying to shift the perspective from what does my body look like to what can my body do for me? Or What can I do with my body? And that feels like a really powerful approach.”