Corsets in the Nineteenth Century

When you hear the word corset you think about what women would wear back in the sixteenth century. This was a way for women to hold and train the torso into a desired shape, usually making themselves have a smaller waist or larger bottom. Mel Davies states that women in different types of social economic classes would use this tool as a birth control. They would tighten the corset so tight that it would end up harming the fetus or not allowing it to develop properly, making them abort. Some of these women find themselves in some really bad economic situations, for example some of these women would only have a number of children because they do not have enough money to put food on the table or to even care for another child. Then if they find out that they are pregnant again they have no other option but to use a corset if they do not have enough money to perform their own abortion instead of going to the hospital and getting a professionally procedure done. Corsets were not only used for these self procedures they were also worn above their dresses, it was a way for them to look attractive. From my own experience there was a time period where waist trainers were popular. Many young girls and women began to use these because they noticed that the ideal body was and still is having a small waist and a big butt. From this becoming so popular, I even had some friends that bought this.

But then when I was looking through the news I realized that using a waist trainer or corset is not healthy because it squishes all your organs into one place making it not healthy for you. But they didn’t really care about the after effects because they wore it either way. After a while some of these girls saw no results so they stopped wearing them. Not only did they see no results but they noticed that it was painful and they even found themselves in situations where they were out of breathe. As the years go by you can see how the uses of these corsets have changed overtime. They first started being used as a way to abort and then moved to a fashion trend. It now has become a way to look attractive. This has become the new trend for young girls and women. Since they look up to all the curvy models in the magazines and on tv they try to do anything to look similar and they use corsets or even starve themselves, which is really dangerous for them. There have been many famous people that try to use their body to show people about positive body image, like Ashley she is an American model who has become one of the most popular faces in the modeling industry for her curves or what people call “plus-size”. Ashley has become an idol for women that are bigger than others, having someone “plus-size” in this industry makes a lot of girls and women more confident with their body. We need to have more models like these so people can realize that bodies come in different sizes and not one is perfect.

Work Cited: Davies, Mel. "Corsets and Conception: Fashion and Demographic Trends in the Nineteenth Century." Cambridge University Press, pp. 611-41, www.jstor.org/stable/178431?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Fashion&searchText=and&searchText=trends&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DFashion%2Band%2Btrends%26amp%3Bfilt. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.