Okay listen:

Next time someone starts in on “Corsets are a symbol of oppression! They’re painful and deforming!”, I want you to look them in the eye and ask when the last time was that their underwear incapacitated them.

Our Western foremothers built our world while corseted.1/

They ran households, cleaned, cooked, did the laundry, farmed, cared for kids, protested, demonstrated, created and ruled and lived in corsets. Was Queen Victoria useless? Was Catherine the Great? Was your European/American/etc. g-g-grandmother? Corsets are a means to an end. /2

Tightlacing for fashion’s sake was a trend. It wasn’t everyday, practical wear except for the few who could afford to do nothing but be fashionable. From the 1500s on, women wore stiffened, supportive undergarments because we have BOOBS and they need to be WRANGLED./3

Have we ever assumed men in jock straps are useless? And even when they are, do we blame their underwear?

A proper, well-fitted corset supports your boobs and your back, and lets you go about your day without underwires and shoulder straps. It also gives you a lot of room to /4

stash money or keys or snacks, and could potentially save you from being murdered by Bolsheviks. (For a short while, at least.)

The historic oppression of women “because of corsets and crinolines” is a great way to shift blame onto women themselves, and to portray them as /5

silly, frivolous creatures with more fashion sense than common sense. Corsets weren’t oppressing women. The kyriarchy was, and still is.

You want to wear a corset? You wear one. And if anyone tells you you’re oppressing yourself, put them in a headlock. And then go vote.