Sunday, July 31, 2011

testing ideas







A few things going on here.  Listening to the news lately and hearing all the hype for pseudo news program stories about women who kill their kids and their husbands I am beginning to see a trend.  I think we can expect to see lots of women as villains this Fall television season.  Women will now be able to add murder to their media persona's along with that their tried and true roles of the rape and murder victims.  I predict continuing mixed messages that we women are both not safe in this world and are somehow, at the same time, to be feared.

The underwear photos are a response to the book, America's Women.  The history of how undergarments mirrored changes in the social situations of women is very interesting.  At the turn of the century when the bicycle became popular women were actually encouraged to ride them.  Prior to this women were seen as too frail to participate in physical activity.  (Ironic given their history of farming, hunting, home building and child birthing, but that's another topic.)  The underwear for women at that time was still the corset which made riding bicycles difficult.  Of course the corset made everything difficult for women - everything including breathing, which contributed to the notion that women were too frail for physical activity.  Did you  know that women even wore corsets when they were pregnant?  Crazy.  Because it was socially acceptable for women to ride bikes the corset had to evolve.  

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