A rant about class and corsets in 18th - 19th century sweden
One thing that REALLY annoys is when people talk about corsets like "all european women wore corsets and therefore they were so soppurtive and blah blah".
Ok for sweden this is absurdly incorrect. The only women who ever wore corsets was the nobility. They consisted in the 18th century of only 0,5 % of sweden circa 1 million population. So, we are literally talking about just a couple of hundred women walking around in corsets. Like a absurd minority, who were doing so to show their status and power as nobility.
During the 19th century also the rich city upper class women would were corsets but we are still talking about an ABSURD minority of the women in the country. Still in the 1% upper - class figures.
Peasants never wore corsets, working class women definitly never wore corsets. Except in very special exlusions from the rule, like if a servent in a upper class family was dressed up in one, but honestly i do not think that was very common (in sweden).
Idk it just annoys me that there are so many posts on tumblr going around being like: "corsets was so COMFY, and it helped them to carry their gigantic skirts, so they were needed"
I am like. Hell no. They were worn by an absolut elite, at least in sweden. It was difficult to do hard labor in them because that was the point. But such a women could show she had servents to do such things for her. Servents who mostly were women btw.
Idk i dislike glorificiation of upper class customs, like the corsets 18th and 19th century europe, in the name of some kind of feminism. What feminism? Why should we try to claim that corsets were so COMFY and so good, when the women who worn them, at least in sweden, were a very priviliged upper - class, whose money came from the blood and sweat of the large majority?
Like whatever corset nobility! 0,5% of the population? Idgf. The common folk of sweden wore clothes for work, practical clothes everyday, and more fancy for holidays. But having run around in 18th century peasant clothing, they could move easily. I wore a bodice for it, but its like. Just like a tight sweater. There are no ridges or stiff parts in it. And it is not tightlaced etc.
So anyway, here is a rant from a swedish gender studies grad about posts about corsets i seen on tumblr that annoys me.
Ps. I know many of the posts talk about "19th century Photoshop" being the reason for the small waists on 19th photograph. And while I am sure that is true to some extent. Have you ever seen 19th century and 18th century dresses of the nobility in real life? Trick of the eye can help a bit sure, but the waist of the wedding dress of the wife of King Gustav III dress is so small, it looks scary. And sure she was a teenager then but also. Its just looks horrific.
Ps. I am also aware corsets had different names and constructions in the 18th and 19th century but for simplicity sake i just used the name corset here.