Famine and Fashion Needlewomen in the Nineteenth Century Book

I've always had a bit of a weakness for revisionist history. I tend to agree with Napoleon that official history is “a set of lies agreed upon.” Art historian David Kunzle's Fashion and Fetishism: Corsets, Tight-Lacing and Other Forms of Body Sculpture is definitely revisionist history. In this case Kunzle takes a phenomenon (the wearing of corsets, and in particular the tight-lacing of corsets, in Victorian times) that has traditionally been understood in a particularly (as emblematic of the oppression of women in that era) and shows us that the truth may well be the exact opposite of what we'd always assumed. Kunzle demonstrates that far from being a fashion imposed on women by misogynistic men the sculpting of the female body by means of corsets was something adopted by women in the teeth of very strong opposition from men. And the strongest opposition to corsets came from the most misogynistic men. They were seen as an example of female lasciviousness and wickedness and self-indulgence. So why did women want to tight-lace? It appears that one very strong reason is that it made many women, for the first time, acutely aware of their own bodies in a sexual way. In many cases they did it because they found it highly pleasurable.

There's also some interesting stuff about allegations (common at the time) that tight-lacing was used to procure abortions. If true, then corsets really were used by women to take control of both their own sexuality and their own reproductive lives. He also covers other clothing used to sculpt the female body, such as the wearing of high heels. And, interestingly enough, the book also reveals just how many men in that era wore corsets. The book is refreshingly free from moral judgments, and although it's written very much from a feminist perspective he doesn't use the word patriarchy once, which is particularly refreshing. There's also quite a bit on the survival of tight-lacing as a fetish into our own times, especially in internet subcultures. Overall a fascinatingly different look at social history – I highly recommend this book. And although it deals with body sculpture and sexuality this book is most certainly not even remotely pornographic.