You know my favorite bits in period dramas are the ones where the heroine is “not like other girls” and chooses not to wear a corset because let’s be real, no inteligent woman in a period drama setting would do that.
And then you can tell it was written by someone without a chest because next thing you know, they’ll be running off across a field or something.
Like girl, you just took off the only breast support you had, and now you’re sprinting across a field?? How is this not an issue??
And then they’re like “I’m a woman of science” but clearly no, because any woman who knows anything about weight distribution wouldn’t choose to fling off their corset whilst still wearing a poofy skirt. Like it’s there for a reason. It distributes the weight and keeps your 50 lbs of skirts from digging into your bare skin. And I cannot stress this strongly enough, IT SUPPORTS THE BUST. WHAT ARE YOU DOING. I’ll make an exception if they’re dressing as a man or have anything gender going on, but otherwise, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??
And then they say it’s because they’re painful or that they’re “instruments of the patriarchy”, except no they fucking weren’t, men wore corsets too, they were literally just bust support and historical corsets didn’t hurt, because they were made to fit your body, and they actually molded to fit it more the more you wore them. I know, I have multiple.
And if you think one couldn’t breathe, yes you could, people wore corset like garments for like 500 years, you think they would wear them if they couldn’t breathe? And no they didn’t lace them tightly except for special occasions and that was only a few people. In fact for most of history, it was physically impossible to lace boned garments any tighter then they were supposed to go because metal eyelets weren’t invented yet. You achieved the small waist look by padding out your hips and maybe your chest and sleeves creating an optical illusion