September 29, 2022 • 36 mins
Lizzo has Yitty, Kim has Skims, and even our favorite influencers are doing ads for waist trainers on Instagram. Shapewear is in. These aren’t your great-great-granny’s corsets…things have changed. This week, Titi and Zakiya learn about the history of shapewear and how the trends are impacting societal beauty standards. Guest: Dr. Wendy Burns-Ardolino. You can find more Dope Labs, show notes, and cheat sheets at dopelabspodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen. We are in the heyday of the bodysuit, of
the velcro wrap around the waist, and I feel like
it's snuck up on us.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, it feels like everything and everyone wants to be
shaped inside of their clothes.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
You know who is my favorite person that talks about shapewear? Who? Well,
they make my favorite shapewear ads and they're like, I'm
trying to be shaped like a Coca Cola bottle. Alonzo Arnold. Ah.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I love Alonzo Arnold. They are giving you looks and
they are giving you comedy, so I love it. But
just like you said, Alonzo Arnold is going to put
on that shapewear hon knee.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
And Alonzo isn't the only one. A lot of people are.
And it really makes us think like has this always
been going on, just in different forms, and now it's acceptable.
I feel like we're one step away from the sports
rap outside the shirt. This really started with the slippery
slope with the compression sock. It all goes back to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
pop culture, and a healthy dose of friendship. The semester
is winding down and we want to have a really
special semester finale featuring all of you. So make sure
you give us a call and let us know your
favorite episode from this semester. Yes, call us to zero
(01:54):
two five six seven seven zero two eight, or if
you're shy with your voice, email as at contact at
Dope lapspodcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
This week, we're talking all about shapewear specifically. We really
wanted to know more about where it all started, what
it's made of, and the social impacts on the people
that wear it.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Let's get into the recitation. What do we know?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, we know that shapewear is everywhere. It feels like
it's in everything. I just bought a pair of pants,
just regular black pants, and there was like some shapewear
at the top. It was really tight at the top
and I wasn't even expecting it. So now it's being
incorporated into just regular apparel.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You know. I feel like when the Spanks Lady really
made it big. Oh yeah, I knew every celebrity was
going to have their shapewear aligned shapewear and like body
sculpting all those. Yeah, but underwear and undergarments, it's a huge.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Thing, absolutely, and we know that people use different types
of different things.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
They have the compression stuff in the gut and they
letting it loose in the butt.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Okay, I have seen that. I've seen it for myself.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And you know, a thing I know you know about
me is that I hate shapewear. All my friends are like, girl,
that dress will be so cute if you had on
some spanks or you had on some friends, not all
my friends, not you. You don't do that to me.
I want your gut and butt loose. You let me
be my real self.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
But it also feels like it's really taking off where
celebrities are coming out with their own shapewear brands, and
now it's like in every home this old has Yiddy,
Kim Kardashian has skims.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
In Atlanta has their own brand of those like corsets
and things and Tommy Buster things.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So yeah, and then I see a bunch of them
on Instagram, like Sweet Sweat, where it's like a waste
thing like a waiste trainer. But I have a lot
of questions like why is this so popular now? I
know we're going back to the maiden type dresses and
Victorian styles, Like are we getting course? Yes, are we
(04:26):
getting back to that? I'm not ready.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
If we are, I'm not either. I'm not wearing a
hoop skirt.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Hey, the doorways are not wide enough anymore. I think
I want to know as a material scientist, like the
technology that's going into shapewear and these new age corsets,
because they're not your great, great great grannies corsets. And
I'm also curious about like the impact on society, particularly
(04:57):
when we think about body image and what we normally lies.
In addition to photoshop, these types of shapewear contraptions are
really changing what the beauty standards are, like, oh this
is normal or this is not when you go back.
I was looking at some old photos and they were like, oh,
this person was too thick, or they were too this
(05:18):
person was plus size, or.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
They X, Y and Z. I'm like, in the nineties
it was messed up, But now I'm like, have we
gone the other way where we're like big booty, little leg,
you know, or really flat stomach, unexpected smoothness in these
different places. What does that do to our images of
(05:39):
self for men and women when we take those things off.
Is it just women wearing these shapewear? Because I think
men are wearing them too.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I've seen them.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Let's jump into the dissection. Our guest for today's lab
is doctor Wendy Burns Ardellino.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I'm Wendy Burns Ardellino.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
I am the Dean of the College of Humanities Social
Sciences at the University of Houston Downtown and I am
a cultural studies practitioner and scholar.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Doctor Burns Ardolino is the author of Jiggle Reshaping American Women,
a book about American women in their relationship to traditional
foundation garments and modern shapewear.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Most of us have probably.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Heard about SPANX, like we talked about already, but we
wanted to learn more about what came before Spanx. How
did the idea of shapewear come to be?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, it begins with the corset.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
That all kind of began in the nineteenth century, and
you would be hard pressed in Western society to find
a woman who didn't wear a corset in that time frame.
By the twentieth century, basically, corstree is on the ropes
a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Corsets were traditional foundation garments, so garments that go under
your clothes before you put your clothes on top. It
was made to support a woman's torso, to hold the
women's torso in and train it into a specific desired shape.
They were handmade from rigid materials like wood, ivory, and whalebone.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
As the quote unquote.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Ideal image and shape of women changed throughout time, soda corsets,
so there were multiple styles of corsets throughout history.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
And my question is why, you know, why are women
supposed to be wearing whalebones while men are walking around
in free flowing pants.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
The arguments about the need to wear foundation garments and
to wear shaping garments, and some of those include medical
discourse that women's bodies will actually not hold their form.
Women are not muscular enough, so they need the external
(07:58):
garment to hold for them, otherwise their organs are going
to just kind of drop out of their bodies or
something like that. And I've done some work in sport
discourse as well with regard to women who run. Some
of the medical discourse was that their uteruses would fall
out of their bodies so that there would be this
(08:18):
collapsing of organs, this idea that if you were going
to be bearing children that you needed to have a
certain form for that, that you needed to care for
your women parts and wearing shape.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Where was a part of that.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
This is ridiculous. Yeah, absolutely ridiculous. Let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
We've talked about science and how it can be racist, sexist,
and homophobic, but you can see it specifically in this
scientific talk quote unquote from back in the day, and
they had it all wrong. Women weren't allowed to run
in marathons for this reason. They first started allowing women
to run in marathons in like the seventies because of
this idea.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Right, So the seventies probably for general marathons, but it
wasn't until nineteen eighty four when women were allowed to
participate in the Olympics in the marathons. There, that's not
that long ago.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
What's interesting about corcatry itself is really it is a
locus of social control for women's bodies, and it really
does emerge out of the discourses of hygiene, moral purpeitude,
bound up with religion. Definitely patriarchal values, idealized images of
(09:34):
the cult of womanhood and women's role in society.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
This sounds eerily familiar to women's fashion today and how
lots of trends and ideals are dictated by men in
the male gaze, high heels, the coke bottle figure. It
seems like not a lot has changed over the past
couple centuries. Yes, I'm not wearing high heels. I don't
like wearing high heels.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, you see, I've been wearing my sneakers with my skirt. Okay,
Like these nikes feel good. So doctor Burns Ardellino told
us that corset use was at a high, but you know,
the trends are always changing. Skinny zy and curvy's in
(10:19):
big button, No, but big butt, but only with this shape.
Like you know, you're doing all these things to emphasize
and de emphasize your body according to these changing ideals.
And one thing that was a major factor in the
adoption of corset use was the advancement of technology for
the mass production of garments in the nineteen thirties, and
(10:41):
so this paved the way to the rise of modern.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Shapewear when they become mass produced garments. In some ways,
it democratizes shapewear because then more people can afford it.
But I think the flip side of that is that
the mass production of it enables it to be more controlled.
(11:03):
There's more mass social control at the same time.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Hmm. That's such a good point. So now it's not
just ladies who lunch walking around with their stomachs crushed in,
but now is everybody.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
And then at that point, more and more people are
buying these products, right, and they might have multiple garments
as opposed to like when you had a course, you know,
maybe you would only have one or if you were
wealthy too.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
At a time because they had to be handmade.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Not only did mass production accelerate the growth of the
shapewear industry, but new technology and innovation around fabrics and
textiles also allowed the market to flourish, boom, and thrive.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
One of the first fabrics that was used is called
last X, and with last X, the elastic was woven
through the fabric to give it some stretch, right, So
that's kind of like a precursor to spandex.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
So last text was vented in the thirties and Spandex,
which we know for is elasticity, first hit the market
in nineteen fifty eight. Although we see it in a
lot of things now. It was first used in bras,
jockstraps and athletic wear.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Now it feels like all our clothes has plastics. Yeah,
every item of clothing has some type of stretch, and
sometimes you'll be able to see it if your clothes
are falling apart, like minar, you can see the little
elastic threading that's also ran through the fabric as well,
just to give it some give, so that when you're
(12:34):
pulling on those jeans that they have some stretch.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I don't want no hard jeans. Keep the span dex
in mind.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I don't even know what it's like to put on
a pair of jeans that don't have any stretch. Nah,
that's why the cowboys were walking like that.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yes, the jeans were crisped, the cardboard pants. It's not
the horses, y'all. It was the jeans the whole time.
A good grief.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Another factor that contributed to the rise of shapewear was advertising.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Advertising is occurring in magazines that women have access to,
but also trade journals, writing to fashion fires, get department stores.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
And then a third prong of this is.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
That literally a lot of these companies were marketing to
the salespeople who were on the floor of the department stores.
They would let them try out the garments, they would
solicit their feedback, they would recommend how to sell the garments.
So they'd be like, you need this garment because this
is your problem with your body, right, That's kind of
(13:48):
how they sold it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So fast forward to the rise of feminism and the
women's movement in the sixties and seventies. Now there's where
we see a decline in shapewear use.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Feminism is on the right eyes and women really say
we're not going to have our bodies be objects for men.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
We're going to enjoy our bodies for our bodies.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
And culturally that's such a profound moment. And I know
the lore is that women burn the bras. They didn't
really burn the bras, they just took them off. But
I think the important part to understand about that was
it was a moment of collective cultural consciousness when women
really in the seventies were like, no, we're not gonna
(14:29):
subscribe to this anymore. And that went on for probably
twenty years, but it was quickly followed up with kind
of an internal girdilization where women focus so much on
what their bodies looked like.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So that's a really important point. Even if women weren't
wearing bras or shapewear, it doesn't mean that the social
conditions that led us to wear shapewear in the first
place no longer existed.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
The girdles are in our minds.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
So many people struggle with healthy really relationships to eating
or exercising, and a lot of that is from social
pressure to look a certain way. Shapewear and external garments
are just one way of affecting or controlling how our
bodies are seen.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Women are still trying to constrain themselves into an idealized figure,
and if you're not that figure, then what you do.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
And these idealized images of what women should look like, well,
not only are they unrealistic and sexists, but they also
intersect with fat phobia and the idea that a person's
weight correlates directly to their health, and that's simply not true.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
In my book, I actually have like hang tags from
the garments themselves that shows you that they're marketing it
as slimming, shaping, trimming. Everything is about weight and controlling weight.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
When you look back at those.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Women's journals like Red Book and Women's Day, they're actually
recommending how to purchase just the right shapewear, how to
wear the right shape, where how to do it correctly.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
So it's very prescriptive, filled with dos and don'ts.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
And again it's like taking the control away from women
of their own bodies.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
From the garments, to the advertising, to the reason behind
it all. In the first place, shapewear seems to point
back to one thing, controlling women's bodies.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
And then there's this weird discourse that I follow throughout these.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Journal even advertisements for these garments, that basically says, wear
this garment and it will set you free.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
It does this weird.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Dichotomy where it's saying that you need to be constrained
in order to be set free, and.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
People buy that.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
The math is not math.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And for me, women are told by their family members,
by their community, by society, by their religious leaders, by
the medical community, this is what you need to do
in order to be a proper and good woman. Otherwise,
like this idea of a loose woman. And hence the
title of my book, right jiggle because we don't want
(17:09):
jiggly bits, right, We want to have everything kind of
like elaminated in smooth surface.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I had no idea that the term loose woman was
about their body composition.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
What I didn't either, I've always heard it related to
something different.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Exactly, Doctor Burns Ottolino said, the term loose women started
with Okay, if you have like jiggly bits, as she's
saying that, it correlates to you being like promiscuous because
all of your you know, how you're being held together,
and the patriarchy says, oh, if you're not all held
together and tight like that, then you're probably a promiscuous woman.
(17:50):
So jigly bits equals promiscuity. And then as time change,
we changed it to loose women, like you know, loose.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
That's why, isn't it boy? The nineteenth century still has
a grip on us. Okay, let's take a break, and
when we come back, we'll talk about how celebrities are
contributing to the shapewear conversation and how social media affects
the way we see our bodies. We're back next week.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
We're talking all about eco tourism with Sarah Stadola, the
impacts of travel on the environment and local communities.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But right now let's get back to the lab. We've
been talking with doctor Wendy Burns Ardelino all about the
history of shapewear, from corsets to spandex. Shapewears rise and
fall in the seventies with the women's movement and how
well basically shape where it's had a comeback.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And then in the nineties again technology allows us to
have these really pretty colored garments and stretch lays, and
spandex is huge part of that, and then the marketability
back to women.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
It feels like shapewear has stuck around and is here
to stay. Spanx was launched in two thousand and.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I can remember when Spanx was launched, I was like, Oh,
who really needs that? We don't really need that. But
I can also remember, you know what else came out
that I feel like people don't talk about enough. That
was borderline shapewear but make it fashion American apparel. Do
you have some pants from them like that shiny shapewere
(19:45):
it's not shapewear, but it's like spandex is just to
your body. Oh yes, yes, yes, I wore those pants out.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's not shapewear. It's not shapewear, it's a brand, no,
But the smooth like.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Silhouette, yeah, it was all like spandex like that was
the thing for a while. Yeah. So it started off
as underwear.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Then we transitioned to the legging, you know, wearing things
that we considered underwear now on the outside. And then
now we had full blown bodysuits with the gloves all
the way up to the neck.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Mock turtleneck. That's not my kind of turtlenick. Do you
remember when people were wearing those like, hmm, I'm gonna
be aging myself. But like those long shirts that were
kind of like tunics. Some of them were baby doll shaped,
a big belt and just like tights. Yes, I am people,
she was me. I never knew where the belt was
(20:46):
supposed to go. I have a short tour, so I
just felt like it was around my neck. I felt
like I could not get it right, you know. And
in addition to those brands, I think we've seen another
wave of shapewear booming along with the athletic wear ath
leisure with celebrity brands like Skims, Ivy, park Yitty, Lululemon.
(21:11):
Lululemon has a hold on the girls, well the girls
with money because it's expensive and I'm not getting Lululemon
because it doesn't come in my size.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Baby With Yity, the reason why it was so important
and why people find their groundbreaking is because it prioritizes
larger sizes, like it starts at six X, and that's
not something.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
That you see for most apparel.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
For a lot of apparel, they might have larger sizes,
but they'll only have a few and so those will
be sold out really quickly, and so then there's an
entire population of people who don't have access to some
of the clothing that they would like to have access to.
You know, there's a huge mass production of extra extra
smalls and size zeros and things like that, but folks
(21:57):
that are on the plus size and of the spectrum,
they don't have that option even in store.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You can't go into a store and find those sizes.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
What Lizo is doing, what Yity is doing as a brand,
is keeping the focal point the focus is plus size women.
And that's really important because what the manufacturers in these
apparel companies are always saying is that there's no market
for plus size, Like you can't make money prioritizing plus
size women. And what she's saying is you're wrong, and
(22:27):
I'm gonna show you. And she has like she's been
selling out and so many people are wearing YITDDI now.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I mean, and we see this in general, you know
what I mean. If there's only a few being made,
those few are selling out. You know, when you talk
about scarcity for large sizes and we're talking extra large
and two exl Okay, everybody deserves to have these options.
I think this is something we've talked about in a
couple of different places, but we're seeing it once again.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
I have recently come into contact with some younger women
and preteen girls who are just mortified about their images
in social media. And I do feel like, as someone
who grew up in the eighties and nineties that I
did not grow up with that pervasiveness of social media
controlling my every image. But I think for women, it's
(23:19):
always like any image of yourself that's out there in
your body, really it puts you at risk.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
And so it's concerning.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I mean really when you think about it, like if
women's bodies are often under critique or being critiqued, the
more opportunity to see those bodies, the more opportunity there
is to critique them, and so it is some type
of risk. I can remember coming across some features of
me in the eighth grade. I didn't know anything about posing,
none of that stuff. I was just like a teenage dirtbag,
(23:51):
Okay is what I was looking like.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, And now eighth graders these days, they know their angles,
they know how to find the light, they know how
to smile. They're wearing a full face of makeup. Yes,
I mean, things are just very different now. And social
media definitely has that effect because what social media does
is put you in a place where you're constantly comparing
yourself to other people. And so they're looking at some
(24:16):
of these celebrities who are absolutely photoshopping their photos and saying,
I want to look like that too.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
It takes me back to our Edges Snatched episode where
we had with doctor Rocky Harris and he talked about
the digital camera and the cameras in our phones, taking
pictures of yourself and constantly evaluating yourself, and then with
social media, other people evaluating you. You know, and like
you said, a lot of these folks are photoshopping these photos.
Those photos have run through so many processors before they
(24:44):
get to your screen. Right if you look like that,
call for help and so On one hand is really
interesting because celebrities are sometimes being more transparent about like, oh,
this is the shape where I'm using, instead of pretending
that it's their natural body. True.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
But on the other hand, and social media means that
people are more likely to be scrutinizing our bodies and
feel pressure to look a certain way.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
There's a connection there to feeding that paranoia that women
need to be a certain way. We're constantly chasing, chasing,
chasing this.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Idealized body, this.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Idealized image of femininity that we can never attain. We're
basically self policing. We're in the panopticon where we're looking
at ourselves through the lens of the male gaze, and
we're saying, no.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
That's not right, and that's not right, and you have
to change that, and you have to change thought.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Doctor Burns. Ardelino shared an idea from feminist philosopher Iris
Marian Young about how women can occupy the male gaze
even when they're trying to avoid it.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
She's like, people will make the argument that I love
this beautiful sweater or I love this beautiful.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Piece of shapewear, for example.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
But what they love, what women are enjoying about it
isn't the experience of wearing the garment right, the feel
of the garment or wearing the garment. They love the
way they look in the garment, which the way they
look in the garment is them occupying the male gaze
(26:17):
and looking at themselves.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
I really believe that that's a social norm for us.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
For women, it's like we're pre programmed from birth to
experience our bodies as other people see us right through
that social lens. It's almost impossible to see yourself without
occupying the male gaze.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I think that's a really important framework that doctor burns
Ardolino is highlighting because I feel like a lot of
folks nowadays are saying, oh, I don't drust for men,
I dress for women. I like when women are complimenting me.
I don't need a man to compliment me, which is true,
I'm right there with you. But then you also have
to think about why other women are finding what you're
(27:02):
wearing attractive, and it's usually because of these patriarchal standards
where it's like, yes, waste is snatched, honey, Yes, booty
is looking right. Yes, legs and all the things like that.
But these are all things that men over the centuries
have programmed us to believe. Is what the definition of
beauty is.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Wow, I'm about to start saying, yes, girl, posture is slumped,
relaxation is on a thousand Yes girl looking cozy, looking comfy.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
That's a sleepy girl realness. That's right. I love those
bags under your eyes. I can tell you've been working hard.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yes, And so that begs the question of, like, what
can we do to detach our self worth and confidence
from the shape of our bodies and how we look, Like,
how can we pull those things apart.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
I'm still struggling with it, and I'm fifty four.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
So I would say what I have come to now,
based on experience.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Is that if we focus on kind of our mind,
body spirit connection and what it's like to inhabit our
bodies in the world and to be whole and well
and whatever that means for you, because I think that's
a very individualized experience. What constitutes that and how can
(28:17):
I occupy the space of the healthiest, wellest, fittest version
of myself? What is it like to inhabit this body
and what joy can we find in this body? And
if I focus on that experientially as what that feels
like and the practice of that, I.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Think it gets around a little bit the corners of
what does your body look like all the time.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So it sounds like we're trying to shift the perspective
from what does my body look like? To what can
my body do for me? Or what can I do
with my body? And that feels like a really powerful approach.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Having a body that can do things and finding joy
in the capacity of one's body is something that's often
denied women. Not all women and not always, but a
lot of women never experience their bodies as a body
that can do things and that can be intentional and
can achieve things. I can totally imagine people being like, well,
(29:20):
that's a very ablest attitude about women's physicality. But I
think whatever your physical limitters are, and I can say
this as someone who has a metal plate in tense
screws in my leg, that there are still things that
you can do. I have been a triathlete for ten
(29:42):
years and I had a major injury in twenty seventeen,
but I still have a very active lifestyle and applying
yourselves to the things that you can do. It does
bring you a certain amount of confidence and also like
it puts you in relationship with your body in a
different way than visa via the lens of social media
(30:05):
or the mirror.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That is such a good point.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, So no matter what your abilities are when it
comes to your body, you can still enjoy the body
that you have and the things that it can do.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Right, So here's my pitch.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
My pitch is for cultural studies and media studies education,
so that our kids, our students, our women are all
going into society with those media goggles on, they have
the tools to discern what's happening in society.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
This makes me think back to Doctor Burn's Ardelino talking
about being socialized for this kind of stuff from birth,
you know, And it makes me think back to people
in my family saying sit still or sit like a lady, right,
don't wrinkle your dress, you know, don't switch your hair out,
and just you know, all of these things. Don't get
(31:02):
your clothes dirty, yes, all that stuff. You're just limiting yourself. Now,
somebody had to do laundry, So I understand part of.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
That but but you're doing all of these things so
other people see you as nice. And I think one
of the things we didn't really talk about earlier in
the episode, but should be considered, is that we sometimes
see this in men.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Like in the gym Bros. Yeah, you're trying to get
that ultimate V shaped body.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
And going to great measures that are very unhealthy to
try and get it.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yes, I'm like, why you want to be shaped? Like
Larry the Lobster who decided that.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Was in exactly and they faced some of the same
societal pressures that women face.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It's not exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It's different because men still have male privilege, but there's
still a lot of men that are suffering because of
social media, body image and things like that.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, And I think that just takes us right back
to this thing that you kind of started touching on
earlier tea about okay Mailgates, Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and pressure.
But we still are existing in this society, so right,
as long as we're going to exist here, there's something
about being able to exist comfortably in our skin. I
(32:15):
guess I better copyright Beyonce Buovo and my skin Cozy
and shape, where in some ways can be empowering, but
it can also be limiting. And from the empowering aspect,
everybody should have access to it right absolutely, so that
you can look the way that you want to look
when you look in the mirror. I mean, you know,
(32:35):
we talk about this all the time. Too much of
anything can be bad. Now, if you are nipping and
tucking with spandex and lycra all the time, you may
forget or it may start to not like what your
body looks like without those things right, and that feels
very possible exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
And we talk to Manti Oid Harris about the effects
of social media and how body dysmorphia is now at
an all time high. It seems like because people are
using these filters and celebrities are using a lot of shapewear,
a lot of filters to make their bodies look a
certain way, but that's not actually what it is in reality,
and it all can negatively affect our perception of ourselves
(33:15):
because it's like, wow, how come my body doesn't look
like that? When the truth is their body doesn't look
like that.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Such a good point.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
They're just doing what they want to do in order
to look the way that they want to look.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
All right, it's time for one thing. This episode focused
on shapewear, and we talked about some positives and negatives
for shapewear, but the reality is people are wearing it.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yes, So shapewear is a part of our everyday lives,
and so we really want to support shapewear that is
inclusive of everybody type, everybody's size, and of marginalized communities.
So we really recommend Yiddy and we will be adding
some more shapewear brands in the show notes, so check
it out at Dope labspodcast dot com.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
All right, that's it for Lab eighty.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I want to know are y'all wearing shapewear If you are,
what's your favorite kid?
Speaker 1 (34:18):
What do you like? What don't you like about it?
Call us and tell us what you thought. Call us
at two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight. Gabriella,
we got your message last week. Okay, thank you, and
so just know we aren't listening to those messages when
you do call Now, the semester is winding down, so
don't forget to call in and tell us what you
want to hear about. In our final episode of the semester,
(34:41):
which is gonna air on October twenty seven. Remember that's
two zero two five six seven seven zero two.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Eight, and don't forget There's so much more for you
to dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat
sheet for today's lab and additional links and resources in
the show notes. Plus, you can sign up for our newsletter.
Check it out at Dope Labs Podcast special Thanks to
today's guest expert, doctor Wendy Burns Ardolino. Her book Jiggle
is free on academia dot edu.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
You can find her on Twitter at burns Ardellino, and.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope
Lab Podcast.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Tt is on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t
s h O, and you can find Zakia at z
said So. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from
Mega Owned Media Group. Our producers are Jenny Radlettmass and
Lydia Smith of Wave Runner Studios. Our associate producer is
Caro Rolando. Editing and sound design by Rob Smerzaiak, with
(35:40):
additional mixing and sound design by Hannes Brown. Original music
composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura from
Spotify Creative producer Miguel Contreras. Special thanks to Shirley Ramos,
Jess Borison, Till krat Key and Brian Marquis, executive producers
from Mega owned Media Group rs T T Show Dia,
(36:01):
and Zakiah Wattley
Listen. We are in the heyday of the bodysuit, of
the velcro wrap around the waist, and I feel like
it's snuck up on us.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, it feels like everything and everyone wants to be
shaped inside of their clothes.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
You know who is my favorite person that talks about shapewear? Who? Well,
they make my favorite shapewear ads and they're like, I'm
trying to be shaped like a Coca Cola bottle. Alonzo Arnold. Ah.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I love Alonzo Arnold. They are giving you looks and
they are giving you comedy, so I love it. But
just like you said, Alonzo Arnold is going to put
on that shapewear hon knee.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
And Alonzo isn't the only one. A lot of people are.
And it really makes us think like has this always
been going on, just in different forms, and now it's acceptable.
I feel like we're one step away from the sports
rap outside the shirt. This really started with the slippery
slope with the compression sock. It all goes back to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
pop culture, and a healthy dose of friendship. The semester
is winding down and we want to have a really
special semester finale featuring all of you. So make sure
you give us a call and let us know your
favorite episode from this semester. Yes, call us to zero
(01:54):
two five six seven seven zero two eight, or if
you're shy with your voice, email as at contact at
Dope lapspodcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
This week, we're talking all about shapewear specifically. We really
wanted to know more about where it all started, what
it's made of, and the social impacts on the people
that wear it.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Let's get into the recitation. What do we know?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, we know that shapewear is everywhere. It feels like
it's in everything. I just bought a pair of pants,
just regular black pants, and there was like some shapewear
at the top. It was really tight at the top
and I wasn't even expecting it. So now it's being
incorporated into just regular apparel.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You know. I feel like when the Spanks Lady really
made it big. Oh yeah, I knew every celebrity was
going to have their shapewear aligned shapewear and like body
sculpting all those. Yeah, but underwear and undergarments, it's a huge.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Thing, absolutely, and we know that people use different types
of different things.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
They have the compression stuff in the gut and they
letting it loose in the butt.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Okay, I have seen that. I've seen it for myself.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And you know, a thing I know you know about
me is that I hate shapewear. All my friends are like, girl,
that dress will be so cute if you had on
some spanks or you had on some friends, not all
my friends, not you. You don't do that to me.
I want your gut and butt loose. You let me
be my real self.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
But it also feels like it's really taking off where
celebrities are coming out with their own shapewear brands, and
now it's like in every home this old has Yiddy,
Kim Kardashian has skims.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
In Atlanta has their own brand of those like corsets
and things and Tommy Buster things.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So yeah, and then I see a bunch of them
on Instagram, like Sweet Sweat, where it's like a waste
thing like a waiste trainer. But I have a lot
of questions like why is this so popular now? I
know we're going back to the maiden type dresses and
Victorian styles, Like are we getting course? Yes, are we
(04:26):
getting back to that? I'm not ready.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
If we are, I'm not either. I'm not wearing a
hoop skirt.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Hey, the doorways are not wide enough anymore. I think
I want to know as a material scientist, like the
technology that's going into shapewear and these new age corsets,
because they're not your great, great great grannies corsets. And
I'm also curious about like the impact on society, particularly
(04:57):
when we think about body image and what we normally lies.
In addition to photoshop, these types of shapewear contraptions are
really changing what the beauty standards are, like, oh this
is normal or this is not when you go back.
I was looking at some old photos and they were like, oh,
this person was too thick, or they were too this
(05:18):
person was plus size, or.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
They X, Y and Z. I'm like, in the nineties
it was messed up, But now I'm like, have we
gone the other way where we're like big booty, little leg,
you know, or really flat stomach, unexpected smoothness in these
different places. What does that do to our images of
(05:39):
self for men and women when we take those things off.
Is it just women wearing these shapewear? Because I think
men are wearing them too.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I've seen them.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Let's jump into the dissection. Our guest for today's lab
is doctor Wendy Burns Ardellino.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I'm Wendy Burns Ardellino.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
I am the Dean of the College of Humanities Social
Sciences at the University of Houston Downtown and I am
a cultural studies practitioner and scholar.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Doctor Burns Ardolino is the author of Jiggle Reshaping American Women,
a book about American women in their relationship to traditional
foundation garments and modern shapewear.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Most of us have probably.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Heard about SPANX, like we talked about already, but we
wanted to learn more about what came before Spanx. How
did the idea of shapewear come to be?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, it begins with the corset.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
That all kind of began in the nineteenth century, and
you would be hard pressed in Western society to find
a woman who didn't wear a corset in that time frame.
By the twentieth century, basically, corstree is on the ropes
a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Corsets were traditional foundation garments, so garments that go under
your clothes before you put your clothes on top. It
was made to support a woman's torso, to hold the
women's torso in and train it into a specific desired shape.
They were handmade from rigid materials like wood, ivory, and whalebone.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
As the quote unquote.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Ideal image and shape of women changed throughout time, soda corsets,
so there were multiple styles of corsets throughout history.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
And my question is why, you know, why are women
supposed to be wearing whalebones while men are walking around
in free flowing pants.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
The arguments about the need to wear foundation garments and
to wear shaping garments, and some of those include medical
discourse that women's bodies will actually not hold their form.
Women are not muscular enough, so they need the external
(07:58):
garment to hold for them, otherwise their organs are going
to just kind of drop out of their bodies or
something like that. And I've done some work in sport
discourse as well with regard to women who run. Some
of the medical discourse was that their uteruses would fall
out of their bodies so that there would be this
(08:18):
collapsing of organs, this idea that if you were going
to be bearing children that you needed to have a
certain form for that, that you needed to care for
your women parts and wearing shape.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Where was a part of that.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
This is ridiculous. Yeah, absolutely ridiculous. Let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
We've talked about science and how it can be racist, sexist,
and homophobic, but you can see it specifically in this
scientific talk quote unquote from back in the day, and
they had it all wrong. Women weren't allowed to run
in marathons for this reason. They first started allowing women
to run in marathons in like the seventies because of
this idea.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Right, So the seventies probably for general marathons, but it
wasn't until nineteen eighty four when women were allowed to
participate in the Olympics in the marathons. There, that's not
that long ago.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
What's interesting about corcatry itself is really it is a
locus of social control for women's bodies, and it really
does emerge out of the discourses of hygiene, moral purpeitude,
bound up with religion. Definitely patriarchal values, idealized images of
(09:34):
the cult of womanhood and women's role in society.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
This sounds eerily familiar to women's fashion today and how
lots of trends and ideals are dictated by men in
the male gaze, high heels, the coke bottle figure. It
seems like not a lot has changed over the past
couple centuries. Yes, I'm not wearing high heels. I don't
like wearing high heels.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, you see, I've been wearing my sneakers with my skirt. Okay,
Like these nikes feel good. So doctor Burns Ardellino told
us that corset use was at a high, but you know,
the trends are always changing. Skinny zy and curvy's in
(10:19):
big button, No, but big butt, but only with this shape.
Like you know, you're doing all these things to emphasize
and de emphasize your body according to these changing ideals.
And one thing that was a major factor in the
adoption of corset use was the advancement of technology for
the mass production of garments in the nineteen thirties, and
(10:41):
so this paved the way to the rise of modern.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Shapewear when they become mass produced garments. In some ways,
it democratizes shapewear because then more people can afford it.
But I think the flip side of that is that
the mass production of it enables it to be more controlled.
(11:03):
There's more mass social control at the same time.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Hmm. That's such a good point. So now it's not
just ladies who lunch walking around with their stomachs crushed in,
but now is everybody.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
And then at that point, more and more people are
buying these products, right, and they might have multiple garments
as opposed to like when you had a course, you know,
maybe you would only have one or if you were
wealthy too.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
At a time because they had to be handmade.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Not only did mass production accelerate the growth of the
shapewear industry, but new technology and innovation around fabrics and
textiles also allowed the market to flourish, boom, and thrive.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
One of the first fabrics that was used is called
last X, and with last X, the elastic was woven
through the fabric to give it some stretch, right, So
that's kind of like a precursor to spandex.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
So last text was vented in the thirties and Spandex,
which we know for is elasticity, first hit the market
in nineteen fifty eight. Although we see it in a
lot of things now. It was first used in bras,
jockstraps and athletic wear.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Now it feels like all our clothes has plastics. Yeah,
every item of clothing has some type of stretch, and
sometimes you'll be able to see it if your clothes
are falling apart, like minar, you can see the little
elastic threading that's also ran through the fabric as well,
just to give it some give, so that when you're
(12:34):
pulling on those jeans that they have some stretch.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I don't want no hard jeans. Keep the span dex
in mind.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I don't even know what it's like to put on
a pair of jeans that don't have any stretch. Nah,
that's why the cowboys were walking like that.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yes, the jeans were crisped, the cardboard pants. It's not
the horses, y'all. It was the jeans the whole time.
A good grief.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Another factor that contributed to the rise of shapewear was advertising.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Advertising is occurring in magazines that women have access to,
but also trade journals, writing to fashion fires, get department stores.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
And then a third prong of this is.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
That literally a lot of these companies were marketing to
the salespeople who were on the floor of the department stores.
They would let them try out the garments, they would
solicit their feedback, they would recommend how to sell the garments.
So they'd be like, you need this garment because this
is your problem with your body, right, That's kind of
(13:48):
how they sold it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So fast forward to the rise of feminism and the
women's movement in the sixties and seventies. Now there's where
we see a decline in shapewear use.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Feminism is on the right eyes and women really say
we're not going to have our bodies be objects for men.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
We're going to enjoy our bodies for our bodies.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
And culturally that's such a profound moment. And I know
the lore is that women burn the bras. They didn't
really burn the bras, they just took them off. But
I think the important part to understand about that was
it was a moment of collective cultural consciousness when women
really in the seventies were like, no, we're not gonna
(14:29):
subscribe to this anymore. And that went on for probably
twenty years, but it was quickly followed up with kind
of an internal girdilization where women focus so much on
what their bodies looked like.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So that's a really important point. Even if women weren't
wearing bras or shapewear, it doesn't mean that the social
conditions that led us to wear shapewear in the first
place no longer existed.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
The girdles are in our minds.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
So many people struggle with healthy really relationships to eating
or exercising, and a lot of that is from social
pressure to look a certain way. Shapewear and external garments
are just one way of affecting or controlling how our
bodies are seen.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Women are still trying to constrain themselves into an idealized figure,
and if you're not that figure, then what you do.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
And these idealized images of what women should look like, well,
not only are they unrealistic and sexists, but they also
intersect with fat phobia and the idea that a person's
weight correlates directly to their health, and that's simply not true.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
In my book, I actually have like hang tags from
the garments themselves that shows you that they're marketing it
as slimming, shaping, trimming. Everything is about weight and controlling weight.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
When you look back at those.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Women's journals like Red Book and Women's Day, they're actually
recommending how to purchase just the right shapewear, how to
wear the right shape, where how to do it correctly.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
So it's very prescriptive, filled with dos and don'ts.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
And again it's like taking the control away from women
of their own bodies.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
From the garments, to the advertising, to the reason behind
it all. In the first place, shapewear seems to point
back to one thing, controlling women's bodies.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
And then there's this weird discourse that I follow throughout these.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Journal even advertisements for these garments, that basically says, wear
this garment and it will set you free.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
It does this weird.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Dichotomy where it's saying that you need to be constrained
in order to be set free, and.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
People buy that.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
The math is not math.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And for me, women are told by their family members,
by their community, by society, by their religious leaders, by
the medical community, this is what you need to do
in order to be a proper and good woman. Otherwise,
like this idea of a loose woman. And hence the
title of my book, right jiggle because we don't want
(17:09):
jiggly bits, right, We want to have everything kind of
like elaminated in smooth surface.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I had no idea that the term loose woman was
about their body composition.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
What I didn't either, I've always heard it related to
something different.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Exactly, Doctor Burns Ottolino said, the term loose women started
with Okay, if you have like jiggly bits, as she's
saying that, it correlates to you being like promiscuous because
all of your you know, how you're being held together,
and the patriarchy says, oh, if you're not all held
together and tight like that, then you're probably a promiscuous woman.
(17:50):
So jigly bits equals promiscuity. And then as time change,
we changed it to loose women, like you know, loose.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
That's why, isn't it boy? The nineteenth century still has
a grip on us. Okay, let's take a break, and
when we come back, we'll talk about how celebrities are
contributing to the shapewear conversation and how social media affects
the way we see our bodies. We're back next week.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
We're talking all about eco tourism with Sarah Stadola, the
impacts of travel on the environment and local communities.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But right now let's get back to the lab. We've
been talking with doctor Wendy Burns Ardelino all about the
history of shapewear, from corsets to spandex. Shapewears rise and
fall in the seventies with the women's movement and how
well basically shape where it's had a comeback.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And then in the nineties again technology allows us to
have these really pretty colored garments and stretch lays, and
spandex is huge part of that, and then the marketability
back to women.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
It feels like shapewear has stuck around and is here
to stay. Spanx was launched in two thousand and.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I can remember when Spanx was launched, I was like, Oh,
who really needs that? We don't really need that. But
I can also remember, you know what else came out
that I feel like people don't talk about enough. That
was borderline shapewear but make it fashion American apparel. Do
you have some pants from them like that shiny shapewere
(19:45):
it's not shapewear, but it's like spandex is just to
your body. Oh yes, yes, yes, I wore those pants out.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's not shapewear. It's not shapewear, it's a brand, no,
But the smooth like.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Silhouette, yeah, it was all like spandex like that was
the thing for a while. Yeah. So it started off
as underwear.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Then we transitioned to the legging, you know, wearing things
that we considered underwear now on the outside. And then
now we had full blown bodysuits with the gloves all
the way up to the neck.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Mock turtleneck. That's not my kind of turtlenick. Do you
remember when people were wearing those like, hmm, I'm gonna
be aging myself. But like those long shirts that were
kind of like tunics. Some of them were baby doll shaped,
a big belt and just like tights. Yes, I am people,
she was me. I never knew where the belt was
(20:46):
supposed to go. I have a short tour, so I
just felt like it was around my neck. I felt
like I could not get it right, you know. And
in addition to those brands, I think we've seen another
wave of shapewear booming along with the athletic wear ath
leisure with celebrity brands like Skims, Ivy, park Yitty, Lululemon.
(21:11):
Lululemon has a hold on the girls, well the girls
with money because it's expensive and I'm not getting Lululemon
because it doesn't come in my size.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Baby With Yity, the reason why it was so important
and why people find their groundbreaking is because it prioritizes
larger sizes, like it starts at six X, and that's
not something.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
That you see for most apparel.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
For a lot of apparel, they might have larger sizes,
but they'll only have a few and so those will
be sold out really quickly, and so then there's an
entire population of people who don't have access to some
of the clothing that they would like to have access to.
You know, there's a huge mass production of extra extra
smalls and size zeros and things like that, but folks
(21:57):
that are on the plus size and of the spectrum,
they don't have that option even in store.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You can't go into a store and find those sizes.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
What Lizo is doing, what Yity is doing as a brand,
is keeping the focal point the focus is plus size women.
And that's really important because what the manufacturers in these
apparel companies are always saying is that there's no market
for plus size, Like you can't make money prioritizing plus
size women. And what she's saying is you're wrong, and
(22:27):
I'm gonna show you. And she has like she's been
selling out and so many people are wearing YITDDI now.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I mean, and we see this in general, you know
what I mean. If there's only a few being made,
those few are selling out. You know, when you talk
about scarcity for large sizes and we're talking extra large
and two exl Okay, everybody deserves to have these options.
I think this is something we've talked about in a
couple of different places, but we're seeing it once again.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
I have recently come into contact with some younger women
and preteen girls who are just mortified about their images
in social media. And I do feel like, as someone
who grew up in the eighties and nineties that I
did not grow up with that pervasiveness of social media
controlling my every image. But I think for women, it's
(23:19):
always like any image of yourself that's out there in
your body, really it puts you at risk.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
And so it's concerning.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I mean really when you think about it, like if
women's bodies are often under critique or being critiqued, the
more opportunity to see those bodies, the more opportunity there
is to critique them, and so it is some type
of risk. I can remember coming across some features of
me in the eighth grade. I didn't know anything about posing,
none of that stuff. I was just like a teenage dirtbag,
(23:51):
Okay is what I was looking like.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, And now eighth graders these days, they know their angles,
they know how to find the light, they know how
to smile. They're wearing a full face of makeup. Yes,
I mean, things are just very different now. And social
media definitely has that effect because what social media does
is put you in a place where you're constantly comparing
yourself to other people. And so they're looking at some
(24:16):
of these celebrities who are absolutely photoshopping their photos and saying,
I want to look like that too.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
It takes me back to our Edges Snatched episode where
we had with doctor Rocky Harris and he talked about
the digital camera and the cameras in our phones, taking
pictures of yourself and constantly evaluating yourself, and then with
social media, other people evaluating you. You know, and like
you said, a lot of these folks are photoshopping these photos.
Those photos have run through so many processors before they
(24:44):
get to your screen. Right if you look like that,
call for help and so On one hand is really
interesting because celebrities are sometimes being more transparent about like, oh,
this is the shape where I'm using, instead of pretending
that it's their natural body. True.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
But on the other hand, and social media means that
people are more likely to be scrutinizing our bodies and
feel pressure to look a certain way.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
There's a connection there to feeding that paranoia that women
need to be a certain way. We're constantly chasing, chasing,
chasing this.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Idealized body, this.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Idealized image of femininity that we can never attain. We're
basically self policing. We're in the panopticon where we're looking
at ourselves through the lens of the male gaze, and
we're saying, no.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
That's not right, and that's not right, and you have
to change that, and you have to change thought.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Doctor Burns. Ardelino shared an idea from feminist philosopher Iris
Marian Young about how women can occupy the male gaze
even when they're trying to avoid it.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
She's like, people will make the argument that I love
this beautiful sweater or I love this beautiful.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Piece of shapewear, for example.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
But what they love, what women are enjoying about it
isn't the experience of wearing the garment right, the feel
of the garment or wearing the garment. They love the
way they look in the garment, which the way they
look in the garment is them occupying the male gaze
(26:17):
and looking at themselves.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
I really believe that that's a social norm for us.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
For women, it's like we're pre programmed from birth to
experience our bodies as other people see us right through
that social lens. It's almost impossible to see yourself without
occupying the male gaze.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I think that's a really important framework that doctor burns
Ardolino is highlighting because I feel like a lot of
folks nowadays are saying, oh, I don't drust for men,
I dress for women. I like when women are complimenting me.
I don't need a man to compliment me, which is true,
I'm right there with you. But then you also have
to think about why other women are finding what you're
(27:02):
wearing attractive, and it's usually because of these patriarchal standards
where it's like, yes, waste is snatched, honey, Yes, booty
is looking right. Yes, legs and all the things like that.
But these are all things that men over the centuries
have programmed us to believe. Is what the definition of
beauty is.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Wow, I'm about to start saying, yes, girl, posture is slumped,
relaxation is on a thousand Yes girl looking cozy, looking comfy.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
That's a sleepy girl realness. That's right. I love those
bags under your eyes. I can tell you've been working hard.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yes, And so that begs the question of, like, what
can we do to detach our self worth and confidence
from the shape of our bodies and how we look, Like,
how can we pull those things apart.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
I'm still struggling with it, and I'm fifty four.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
So I would say what I have come to now,
based on experience.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Is that if we focus on kind of our mind,
body spirit connection and what it's like to inhabit our
bodies in the world and to be whole and well
and whatever that means for you, because I think that's
a very individualized experience. What constitutes that and how can
(28:17):
I occupy the space of the healthiest, wellest, fittest version
of myself? What is it like to inhabit this body
and what joy can we find in this body? And
if I focus on that experientially as what that feels
like and the practice of that, I.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Think it gets around a little bit the corners of
what does your body look like all the time.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So it sounds like we're trying to shift the perspective
from what does my body look like? To what can
my body do for me? Or what can I do
with my body? And that feels like a really powerful approach.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Having a body that can do things and finding joy
in the capacity of one's body is something that's often
denied women. Not all women and not always, but a
lot of women never experience their bodies as a body
that can do things and that can be intentional and
can achieve things. I can totally imagine people being like, well,
(29:20):
that's a very ablest attitude about women's physicality. But I
think whatever your physical limitters are, and I can say
this as someone who has a metal plate in tense
screws in my leg, that there are still things that
you can do. I have been a triathlete for ten
(29:42):
years and I had a major injury in twenty seventeen,
but I still have a very active lifestyle and applying
yourselves to the things that you can do. It does
bring you a certain amount of confidence and also like
it puts you in relationship with your body in a
different way than visa via the lens of social media
(30:05):
or the mirror.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That is such a good point.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, So no matter what your abilities are when it
comes to your body, you can still enjoy the body
that you have and the things that it can do.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Right, So here's my pitch.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
My pitch is for cultural studies and media studies education,
so that our kids, our students, our women are all
going into society with those media goggles on, they have
the tools to discern what's happening in society.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
This makes me think back to Doctor Burn's Ardelino talking
about being socialized for this kind of stuff from birth,
you know, And it makes me think back to people
in my family saying sit still or sit like a lady, right,
don't wrinkle your dress, you know, don't switch your hair out,
and just you know, all of these things. Don't get
(31:02):
your clothes dirty, yes, all that stuff. You're just limiting yourself. Now,
somebody had to do laundry, So I understand part of.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
That but but you're doing all of these things so
other people see you as nice. And I think one
of the things we didn't really talk about earlier in
the episode, but should be considered, is that we sometimes
see this in men.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Like in the gym Bros. Yeah, you're trying to get
that ultimate V shaped body.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
And going to great measures that are very unhealthy to
try and get it.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yes, I'm like, why you want to be shaped? Like
Larry the Lobster who decided that.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Was in exactly and they faced some of the same
societal pressures that women face.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It's not exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It's different because men still have male privilege, but there's
still a lot of men that are suffering because of
social media, body image and things like that.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, And I think that just takes us right back
to this thing that you kind of started touching on
earlier tea about okay Mailgates, Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and pressure.
But we still are existing in this society, so right,
as long as we're going to exist here, there's something
about being able to exist comfortably in our skin. I
(32:15):
guess I better copyright Beyonce Buovo and my skin Cozy
and shape, where in some ways can be empowering, but
it can also be limiting. And from the empowering aspect,
everybody should have access to it right absolutely, so that
you can look the way that you want to look
when you look in the mirror. I mean, you know,
(32:35):
we talk about this all the time. Too much of
anything can be bad. Now, if you are nipping and
tucking with spandex and lycra all the time, you may
forget or it may start to not like what your
body looks like without those things right, and that feels
very possible exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
And we talk to Manti Oid Harris about the effects
of social media and how body dysmorphia is now at
an all time high. It seems like because people are
using these filters and celebrities are using a lot of shapewear,
a lot of filters to make their bodies look a
certain way, but that's not actually what it is in reality,
and it all can negatively affect our perception of ourselves
(33:15):
because it's like, wow, how come my body doesn't look
like that? When the truth is their body doesn't look
like that.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Such a good point.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
They're just doing what they want to do in order
to look the way that they want to look.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
All right, it's time for one thing. This episode focused
on shapewear, and we talked about some positives and negatives
for shapewear, but the reality is people are wearing it.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yes, So shapewear is a part of our everyday lives,
and so we really want to support shapewear that is
inclusive of everybody type, everybody's size, and of marginalized communities.
So we really recommend Yiddy and we will be adding
some more shapewear brands in the show notes, so check
it out at Dope labspodcast dot com.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
All right, that's it for Lab eighty.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I want to know are y'all wearing shapewear If you are,
what's your favorite kid?
Speaker 1 (34:18):
What do you like? What don't you like about it?
Call us and tell us what you thought. Call us
at two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight. Gabriella,
we got your message last week. Okay, thank you, and
so just know we aren't listening to those messages when
you do call Now, the semester is winding down, so
don't forget to call in and tell us what you
want to hear about. In our final episode of the semester,
(34:41):
which is gonna air on October twenty seven. Remember that's
two zero two five six seven seven zero two.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Eight, and don't forget There's so much more for you
to dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat
sheet for today's lab and additional links and resources in
the show notes. Plus, you can sign up for our newsletter.
Check it out at Dope Labs Podcast special Thanks to
today's guest expert, doctor Wendy Burns Ardolino. Her book Jiggle
is free on academia dot edu.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
You can find her on Twitter at burns Ardellino, and.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope
Lab Podcast.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Tt is on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t
s h O, and you can find Zakia at z
said So. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from
Mega Owned Media Group. Our producers are Jenny Radlettmass and
Lydia Smith of Wave Runner Studios. Our associate producer is
Caro Rolando. Editing and sound design by Rob Smerzaiak, with
(35:40):
additional mixing and sound design by Hannes Brown. Original music
composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura from
Spotify Creative producer Miguel Contreras. Special thanks to Shirley Ramos,
Jess Borison, Till krat Key and Brian Marquis, executive producers
from Mega owned Media Group rs T T Show Dia,
(36:01):
and Zakiah Wattley
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