Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian CorsetCorsets, and the corseted body, have been fetishized, mythologized, romanticized. This Victorian icon has inspired more passionate debate than any other article of clothing. As a means of body modification, perhaps only foot binding and female genital mutilation have aroused more controversy. Summers provocative book dismantles many of the commonly held misconceptions about the corset. In examining the role of corsetry in the minds and lives of Victorian women, it focuses on how corsetry punished, regulated and sculpted the female form from childhood and adolescence through to pregnancy and even old age. The author reveals how the steels and bones, which damaged bodies and undermined mental health, were a crucial element in constructing middle-class women as psychologically submissive subjects. Underlying this compelling discussion are issues surrounding the development and expression of juvenile and adult sexuality. While maintaining that the corset was the perfect vehicle through which to police femininity, the author unpacks the myriad ways in which women consciously resisted its restrictions and reveals the hidden, macabre romance of this potent Victorian symbol. |
Contents
Corsetry and the Invisibility of the Maternal Body | 37 |
The Child the Corset and the Construction | 63 |
Corsetry and the Reality of Female Complaints | 87 |
Copyright | |
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abdomen American appearance Beauty Beecher belt bodice bones breasts British busk Caplin century child Chlorosis cited claimed clitoridectomy clothing Company construction corset advertisements corsetières Costume critics cultural death Despite discussed disease doctors dolls dress reform fashion female body female children female complaints female sexuality feminine Feminism feminist feminist dress reformers Figure garment gender girls Gould-Woolson gymnastics gynaecologist Harper's Bazaar historians History History of Corsets Ibid Illustrated Journal juvenile corsetry Ladies Lancet Leicestershire London Madame male manufactured masculine maternity corsets Merritt middle-class women moral morbid mother neurasthenia nineteenth-century pessary physical physicians political popular pregnancy pregnant body published Rational Dress role Routledge sexual fetish sexual objectification shape social Society sport standard stays steels texts tight lacing tightly laced corsetry torso University Press uterine uterus Victorian women waist waistline Warner's wearing woman women's bodies working-class women worn wrote York young