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| | Katha Pollitt on the corset | LRB essay | Guardian Unlimited Books |
 | | Just about every aspect of the corset, Summers explains, depended on the eye of the beholder: moralists thought corset-wearing women scorned childbearing and household duties in favour of fashion and frivolity; but the garment also increasingly came to be associated with an acceptance of domesticity and maternity and a rejection of 'mannish' feminism. |
 | | A close-fitting corset produced physical symptoms that mimicked both sexual arousal and illness: panting, a rapidly rising and falling bosom, a flushed or pale complexion, the headaches and neuralgias which led to so many Victorian women taking to their sofas, and even the fainting fits that were such a dramatic feature of Victorian ballrooms. |
 | | The corset market itself was minutely graded, from expensive models adorned with rich laces and ribbons for the well-off, to plain ones made of stout cloth for working-class women: there was one for every income, but they all produced the same effect. |
| books.guardian.co.uk /lrb/articles/0,6109,834697,00.html (2471 words) |
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