Misogynists Were Ignoring Science in the Nineteenth Century Too…

 

Misogynists Were Ignoring Science in the Nineteenth Century Too…

I have never been overly interested in fashion (with minor exception to the wardrobe that I choose to dress myself in each day), however, after visiting the “Ravishing the Rose in Fashion” exhibition at The Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology that happened to change a little bit.  While I perused the dimly lit exhibition, a number of the corsets on display caught my eye — but not for the reasons in which they are supposed to draw attention.  I know that they are designed to help women appear to have a more desirable figure, but I just simply could not get over how unbelievably uncomfortable they appeared to be.  I even felt sympathy for the headless mannequins who were squeezed into them for display.  My interest and sympathy led me to want to do more research into the corset and how much it actually constricted the female body.  

During my search, I eventually came across a fascinating newspaper article published on January 15, 1890 in the Dundee Courier that discusses a series of athletic tests conducted on a group of female participants at the North London Collegiate School to try and prove that corsets were overly restrictive, therefore their tight-lacing was prejudicial.  The study consisted of thirty-two school girls, sixteen of whom wore corsets, and sixteen who did not.  The athletic tests were leaping for height and length, tug-of-war, and endurance running.  For the leaps, the average height for both wearers and non-wearers was essentially the same.  This did not come as a major surprise to me because vertical jumping comes predominantly from the arms and legs, so it makes sense that this test showed no significant evidence that corsets were physically limiting.  In the distance leaping contest, the non-corset wearers averaged only three inches further than the corset wearing girls.  However, the further jump, which measured about twelve feet long, was made by a non-corset participant.  In the tug-of-war, the non-corset wearing team was dominant over the corset wearing team.  Lastly, in the running competition, the results showed that the girls who wore corsets had a very small advantage in their respiration rates, but a significant advantage in their pulse rates (probably because they were so restricted that their heart didn’t need to pump so far to get all the blood where in needed to be...).  However, when it came to the breathing capacity, the non-corset party significantly outperformed those who wore the corsets.

Now, these results seem to clearly show that the non-corset wearers had an obvious advantage over their corset wearing counterparts, right?  Well, the author of the article seems to ignore those quite evident results.  This is apparent from the very beginning of the article when the author opens with the statement that, “A most unfair attempt has recently been made by doctors to destroy the faith of woman in her corset.” (2)  For this reason, from the moment I began reading the article, I found myself reading it with hesitancy to trust the scientific evidence that it provided.  However, I eventually came to realize that the data just did not seem to support the author’s claims at all… yet the article concludes by saying, “It would seem that on the whole the non-corset party had the best of the corset, but women will undoubtedly arrive at the conclusion that the figures do not warrant a total abolition of “loose stays.” (2) The author seems to be using the word “figures” to create two different meanings to conclude the article.  The first meaning is that women will see the figures, or data, and still desire to wear corsets because it is, “one of the joys of their existence” (2).  The other is that women will see the figures, or bodies of the girls who are not wearing corsets, and come to the same conclusion.  The author of the article just clearly ignores the science presented in the tests conducted by the doctor that show corsets to be restrictive and physically prejudiced against women.  Instead, they choose to stick with their own misogynistic prejudice instead.

References:

"WOMAN’S SUFFRAGE." Dundee Courier, 15 Jan. 1890. British Library Newspapers, link-gale-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/apps/doc/R3209322690/BNCN?u=nypl&sid=bookmark-BNCN&xid=60d25150.