If you had asked me yesterday, I would have told you that the girdle was a thing of the past, a torturous remnant left over from my young adulthood. They were sold in lingerie departments and dress shops, and could be had in any color to match the rest of your undergarments, including your full length slip, another victim of female liberation. Of course, I knew they had not disappeared completely, and could be found in today's lingerie stores, but now they are called body shapers. The goal has remained the same, the pushing in of unwanted bulges to streamline and smooth, perhaps a less than streamlined figure, while still remaining safely out of sight.
Before there were girdles there were corsets, mostly designed to give a woman a waist that only Barbie, many years later, could achieve. Even men in the Regency era of England could be found creaking their way into male clubs, and gaming establishments, pushing the results of the delights of the table into some sort of obedience to the tight coats and pants fashionable in that era.
But now, on the news feed that attaches my email, comes a picture of one of the prolific, procreating, publicity-seeking Kardashian family wearing a girdle ---- but as a mini-skirt. I have made it a principle of my life not to read anything to do with a Kardashian, but a girdle? They got me. The young girl in question is climbing out of what is a boat, I think, and we see her from the rear, where the see-through part of the apparel leaves nothing to the imagination.
These raise two questions for my feeling-way-too-old self. First, when did the back end of the female anatomy become such a feature? I do not think I see the attraction. Secondly, is wearing an uncomfortable undergarment from the past what women are looking for as they search for equality and recognition in the workplace and society at large? I think of the women who went before me, who could not vote, could not own property, had no right to their children, were jailed, force-fed, and marched for the vote to jeering crowds. Is this what these women had in mind--- a thoughtless young person, seeking to be photographed and to shock? Perhaps, along with the freedoms for which the female section of the population has fought, is the freedom to do ridiculous things to get attention. However, I am glad that Elizabeth Stady Canton and Susan B. Anthony are not alive to see it. I would be embarrassed.