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I’m a female, and I disagree with what women wear to the SlutWalk
This piece is inspired by something my cousin said when she came back from marching in a movement dubbed “The SlutWalk.” The movement was created as a stance against victim blaming and “slut shaming.” It’s not uncommon to see women marching wearing nothing but lingerie…which struck me as odd considering my cousin’s stance on the hyper-sexualization of women.
“Men are so gross. UGH. The way they were catcalling me on my walk home. Like, seriously?”
I’ve been mulling over that comment for a while, and I still feel confused by it.
From as early as the 1700s (probably earlier, but I’m not a historian), women have shoved themselves into costumes and garments to fulfill a vague and ever-evolving concept of desirability.
The stays and corsets from back in the day would literally squeeze and constrict a woman’s waist to make it appear tinier and push up her breasts to make them appear more plump and voluptuous. Fast forward to the 1950s and we see pinup girls modeling in suggestive poses, hips and chests jutting out. “Look at me,” these posters would say. It was around this time that the design of lingerie moved closer to what it is now.
The evolution of lingerie as we see it today has brought us to the plain and simple fact that lingerie…
