A snippet I would like to share about corsets in 1913 plus questions about bust support.

[Yvonne De Rooij]

I was talking about old (edwardian to 1949) books on sewing with TheLongHairedFlapper on her youtube channel, and she recommended some freely downloadable books from archive . com

Comments

[ext_3749756]

As for the body hair; my ex always said he preferred the clean shaven look. I had so much trouble trying to avoid irritation when shaving, there was always some red bumps.
I tried so many things but couldn't find anything that worked.
Last summer I got an infected hair follicle that didn't want to drain or heal for months, and I ended up having it cut out by my GP, then stitched and a bit later had to come back to remove stitches.
As my relationship wasn't going well this little thing stuck in the back of my head. I started to think about why I shaving and going through this trouble for someone who didn't even treat me right.
But I was still either shaving or trimming until earlier this year.

And yes, looking at myself in the mirror when I was still shaving looked wrong. I didn't want to put a name on it earlier but it looks weird to me to have a prepubescent looking vulva on a grown woman's body. Not just weird or wrong, it made me feel a mild feeling of revulsion.
It reminded me of the obsession with youth society nowadays has (or at least, that's the message I am getting) and the pressure put on adult women to look as young as possible for as long as possible.

When I was a teen my mother didn't want me to shave (I still don't know why) and I didn't see that as positive. I thought she was keeping me ugly or something.
I remember a neighborhood girl telling me to shave when I was wearing a sleeveless top in summer.
I remember being very embarrassed about that, and I was angry with my mother for not telling me that would happen/not warning me about that.
Same thing happened at a swimming pool. I had some hair peeking out of the sides of my bathing suit, and I was ridiculed. And yet my mother did not let me shave.
When I was 15 I sneakily used someone else's razor (I don't remember if it was my brother's or our stepdad) to shave underarms and vulva. I have been doing it ever since to avoid any more embarrassing situations.
I didn't have a role model for a mother. She didn't talk to me about anything related to grooming, or societies expectations, or boys or sex. She didn't shave herself, so maybe that's something that influenced her decision to ban me from doing it.
I hope you had a better relationship with your mother than I did.
We're doing fine now but I didn't really like her in my teens.

Not dressing for the male gaze is freeing. I'm not looking for a relationship and that also helps with just dressing for comfort and practicality.
I dress like a grandmother who is avoiding the sun. Hat, sun glasses, t-shirt, long sleeved cardigan, trousers, simple casual oxfords as shoes, hair in a low bun.

I really am having a great time letting things grow and not shaving and just being me au natural.
It's strange that this is like an act of rebellion against societies expectations, and yet no-one knows about it because I cover those areas with clothes.

[virginiadear]

Eh.
The older I get and the more I hear (or "hear," meaning read), the more I am aware of mother-daughter conflicts and their impacts on the mother-daughter relationship.
I have two siblings, and if you heard each of us describe the relationship he or she had with our mother, you'd swear we had three different mothers, but no: just three very different experiences.

And, the older I get, the more emphatically impressed I am by how many now-adult children, particularly women, are disappointed, or even hurt, by their childhoods, especially by our relationships with our mothers. (Although, come to think of it, men may not have issues with their mothers, so much, and although this may just be due to an inadequate data base I can't say I've heard many men complain of their own fathers. Perhaps that's just a guy thing.)
To sort of tie this in with the topic of this community, my own mother had a notion that wearing a bra with cups larger than a certain size was "not proper," so I wound up wearing proper-fitting band sizes, but not cup sizes when I was in my teens.

[geminiwench]

I will argue that I have had the courtesy of many men sharing their feelings/thoughts/impacts of both their mother and their father with me... and they are just as grievous as what happens to adult women... its just men are taught not to dig into those feelings, perform introspection on their young stallioned hurts, and certainly not to SHARE those feelings. I have some really wonderful men in my life who have opened up... and their world is our world.. just a little different of a paradigm. But the hurts are the same.. they're just different;)

I had a conversation with my brother, "I think you had a different MOM than me. Not literally of course, but she was a different person when she raised you.. vs when she raised me." my brother is 10 years older than me and left when I was 7 years old for a career military life so we never knew each other very well... but have recently reconnected and it turns out we like each other A LOT.. which is nice! He brought it up on another trip... that he was thinking of what I said. He didn't KNOW a lot of mom's stories.. he didn't KNOW why she was 'crazy'.... because he was a boy, and she sheltered him from what happened to her. She protected him from stories of his father.
But, I was a girl, and younger, and conversational.. and I heard IT ALL. I knew all the stories. I knew why she was... like she was. I knew HER mother's stories, too. I KNEW why the women in my family... were like they were. He did not. He just.. suffered the consequences in confusion and "dealt with it"... which was mainly.. lots of ignoring his feelings and trying to move past them in a manly way.

It's sad hearing how your mom thought of bras/breasts.. and you know SHE probably got that from HER mom, and didn't even think twice about it. The way I read your story, at least... it's that NEEDING a big bra... is improper. So... stuffing you into ill-fitting ones with too small of cups, because of her fears about the impropriety of wearing big cups. Something that was instilled in HER by a mother, or a grandmother, or some woman in her life... that gets transferred to you.

This is the literal meaning of the word 'tradition'. Any sort of information that is passed from one generation to another.. imagine all the PAIN or SHAME or EMBARRASSMENT or FEAR or ANGER that gets passed down... as a tradition. It's very sad.

[virginiadear]

"But, I was a girl, and younger, and conversational.. and I heard IT ALL."

I believe your being younger had a lot to do with it, simply because as one lady (enough older than I that she could have been my parent) expressed it, parents are anxious with the first child, because they've never done this thing---parenting---before, and they're so worried about getting it right; and being a girl makes a difference because we have a cultural expectation that females in our species will nurture our emotions.

If I had to pick just one word about my mother's attitude toward breasts, at least those of her daughters, that word would be "squeamish," although as things turned out she didn't have to be squeamish about her other daughter's breasts, as my sister took after our mom's side of the family: small breasted.
As I explained to Yvonne, it wasn't a dramatic, traumatic thing, it was just not a correct fit and I figured out even later than I came to realize that I'd been wearing the wrong cup size for literally decades that my mom had a hang-up, I think we have to call it, about female family members having breasts larger than a certain cup size---so I was off by one cup size.
I think, too, that as a society, we in western civilization are a lot more technically aware of bras and how they are built and how they should fit and what we need, or at least the information is out there. One example is that today we speak of "breast volume," rather than straightforward calculation of cup size based on two measurements (old way: around the ribcage under the breasts, and then around the torso over the fullest part of the breasts and after subtracting the lesser from the greater, and adding so much if the difference were an odd number and nothing if it were an even number, the cup size was arrived at: 1" difference, A; 2" difference, B; 3" difference, C; 4" difference, D. More than that was DD, DDD, and so on, but breasts very much larger than that were inconceivable although they certainly existed.)

[geminiwench]

As a triple D cup.... OH THE PAINS!!

My mother is also big breasted, but was very honest about it and her body... that helped me with mine.

But the idea of women being squeamish about feminine bodies it's like.... why? how?? I don't understand!!

[virginiadear]

Y'know, it was just how things were. As I've already said, it wasn't dramatic, and it wasn't traumatic, and there are plenty of women in America (and in other parts of the world) who are wearing a bra with a too-loose or too-tight band, or the wrong size cup.
It can't have escaped your notice that some women at least seem to wear a bra one cup size too small quite intentionally: they feel it makes their breasts look fuller and more enticing. (You might want to read Desmond Morris on this; I think, although I don't recall absolutely, that this was from his "Intimate Behavior." Or, "Intimate Behaviour;" there may be a U in that word.
It's actually not a big deal (medically) if it isn't causing physical harm.
It may not be necessary that you understand the generation before mine; I feel pretty danged sure it's not necessary for me to explain it.
It does seem clear, though, that "squeamish" was a poor choice of word, and doubtless there is a better, more precise one, but at the moment that doesn't seem a big deal, either.

You do seem to have made an assumption that I am or was big-breasted. For the point, the very minor point, I was making, it was only necessary that the breasts in question be larger than was thought "necessary," no matter who it was or is doing the thinking.

[geminiwench]

I, myself, have big breasts. But I was not trying to assume you did, excepting for the fact that: "the breasts in question be larger than was thought 'necessary,'" which is a phrase I can't help parsing in a deeply cultural way. I feel it is like the way some people are raised to believe their nose is 'bigger than necessary' or the have more body hair 'than necessary' or 'should have' a bigger butt or breasts or.. or whatever. The very idea of ideal bodies is and anyone telling anyone else their body is 'not enough' or 'too much; in any way especially referencing 'necessity'... is really confusing to me, not intellectually.. but **emotionally**.

I'm not trying to belabor the point,.. but I might accidentally be belaboring the point. Many sorries!

[ext_3749756]

I'm sorry you had to go through that. I wonder what her belief about cup sizes was really based on.

Personally my brother and I are very much disappointed with our father. But my brother is still in contact with him and lives in the same street as our father does, so I think every time something bad/disappointing happens with my father it's salt in the wounds for my brother.
I think that it isn't generally socially accepted when men open up about negative experiences in their childhood, or just anything regarding their feelings in general. That may be why we don't hear it much unless it's our close male relative.

[virginiadear]

"I'm sorry you had to go through that. I wonder what her belief about cup sizes was really based on."

Thank you, but please not to be sorry. In the end it wasn't all that dramatic, just not a correct fit, you know? And bodily I took no harm from it, had no physical pain, nor any emotional pain (probably because I simply trusted that my mother knew what she was doing when she'd select my bras for me when I was still in school: mom's a woman, I'm a girl, so it must be right), and eventually I did come to realize that I was wearing the wrong cup size, but the percentage of women who do [wear the wrong sized bra without knowing they're doing so] is staggeringly high, at least in this country.
As to what my mother's belief was really based on, I don't know, but I could make some guesses, and one would be that large-breasted women (such as those on the other side---my dad's side---of the family---are bound to be...indecent, fast, or outright lascivious, and who wanted a daughter who, everyone could see by the size of her breasts, was OBVIOUSLY no better than she should be?

Lately, say within the past ten years, I hear a lot of complaining from baby boomers that their childhoods weren't "perfect," according to some idealized-television sit-com version of what perfect was, where no one ever lost his or her temper, no one shouted, no parent ever said anything in impatience or was ever other than perfectly understanding, aware, and tolerant although firm and loving.
Well, parents did the best they knew how to do. Some parents just didn't know everything we, their kids, wish in hindsight they had known and wish they had taught us, so they couldn't share it, couldn't teach it to us. The best we can do in the here and now is to stop using our own pasts as scapegoats---and most of us do, at least a little bit---and to go forward to become the people we wish to be and to build the lives we wish we had had handed to us.
There's a wonderful line in Max Ehrmann's "Desiderata," which is at the very end: "Be careful. Strive to be happy." And it has been my interpretation of that work that he isn't saying, "Strive after happiness," but that happiness can be found in striving to realize your desires, striving to achieve your goals. I believe humans need that.

[ext_3749756]

As a dutch person writing to mostly americans on the internet in english I have learned to say "I am so sorry that you had to go through that" when I actually mean "I empathize with you" . I am under the impression that the former sounds nicer.
I had gotten so used to using this wording to express my empathy that I started using it in dutch too, and stumbled into the "what are you apologizing for? You had nothing to do with that" reaction.

I made the mistake of trusting my mother's wisdom 100% and putting her on a pedestal.
Of course she has made mistakes, some of which had a large negative impact on my teen years.
I have forgiven her for it and come to the conclusion that she did the best she could.
But that was in my late twenties, and only after my mother and I talked about the past.

[virginiadear]

"As a dutch person writing to mostly americans on the internet in english I have learned to say "I am so sorry that you had to go through that" when I actually mean "I empathize with you" . I am under the impression that the former sounds nicer.
I had gotten so used to using this wording to express my empathy that I started using it in dutch too, and stumbled into the "what are you apologizing for? You had nothing to do with that" reaction."

I believe I understand what you are saying, here (above.) Personally, I prefer your actual meaning, that of empathizing with another person, and wish more of my countrymen and -women would learn to use it as well as to make the distinction between empathizing and sympathizing.

I also believe that we all must start out trusting our parents 100%. As we gain life experiences, which of course we don't have when we're younger, we learn our parents are merely human, not infallible, and not expert in everything.
I think it's lovely that you've come to understanding and resolution of the common crisis we all must experience, that our parents or parent-figures are separate human beings from ourselves and that we have the power both to forgive and to negate at least to a large extent the negative impacts [yes, plural] those points of divergence had had on us.
I also think it's lovely that you and your mother were able to talk about the past: not every mother and daughter do.

[ext_3749756]

I was fortunate that my mother has changed for the better over the years as well (this mainly happened from my mid to late twenties).
She had a lot of her own issues to get through.
Sometimes when tell others that she has changed too, they reply by saying that it isn't her that has changed but our interactions since I am no longer in my teens.
These are people who barely know her so I think that is kind of an ignorant thing to say.
Parents can and do change imo.
We get along much better now and that has nothing to do with me not being a teen anymore. My mother was a very bitter, troubled and stressed out person until I was 24 or so.

[virginiadear]

I agree: a great deal gets said in ignorance, sometimes also a kind of "passing [a lesson] along," as in telling the listener something of which he or she is already well aware, simply because the speaker had had it presented to them when they'd rather not have heard it and have been waiting for an opportunity to be the teacher of that same lesson.

[ext_3749756]

That is so accurate of what usually happens :)

Even I am sometimes afraid I telling someone something they are already know, and I am afraid they feel that their intelligence is insulted.

[virginiadear]

There's bound to be some repetition, you know, both in the saying/writing and in the hearing/reading, but no one knows everything and often a repeat of something known long ago (or even not so long ago) but since forgotten can spark memory and enthusiasm, so it seems to me we need to relax our egos on that score.
On these social media platforms, particularly, I've noticed that people get rather prickly. I suspect they forget: this isn't private e-mail, for one thing, and we don't truly know one another all that well, for another thing. One person snarled at me on one occasion that they already knew thus-and-such and didn't need me to tell them their own cultural history.
No doubt they didn't, but plenty of other people were (or could have been) reading on that public forum, and without that explanation they might have been clueless if they were a stranger to the subject at hand.

[ext_3749756]

I think a good conclusion could be, just as you say, we can't know everything about anybody else.
When I remember to do so I include a disclaimer such as "if you already know this, disregard this message".