Women have been covering their breasts for modesty for ~5,000 years, not 150. Used as a means of identifying which women are “respectable” and which women are “publicly available” to men, upper class women in ancient Mesopotamia were made to wear veils that were wrapped loosely over their hair and fell to their waists, but poorer women were not allowed, and faced harsh punishments if they dared to wear them.
modesty codes have predated Victorian England by a vast margin.
in fact… by some standards, VE was positively hedonistic. there are cultures where a woman seen un-escorted by her husband would be murdered for it. can you imagine what would have happened if the iranian girls protesting a hijab instead decided to flash people? those laws predates victorian england by quite a lot.
in the US; sure. but the “need” to cover up… is common across most of Eurasia and predates England, never mind victorian england.
every culture has some question of modesty- showing different things might be considered immodest. IIRC, in certain parts of Africa it’s calves that were considered the sexy bits. Which… caused friction when a woman missionary was lecturing on modesty. She was, of course, showing calves. and made sure to give the women t shirts (which promptly came back the next day with holes cut in because they got in the way of breastfeeding.) (it was then also explained that the men were all there because… sexy calves.)
Victorian England is responsible for most of our annoying modesty rules. As to why… I’m not certain, they were just fucking prudes.
Women have been covering their breasts for modesty for ~5,000 years, not 150. Used as a means of identifying which women are “respectable” and which women are “publicly available” to men, upper class women in ancient Mesopotamia were made to wear veils that were wrapped loosely over their hair and fell to their waists, but poorer women were not allowed, and faced harsh punishments if they dared to wear them.
When your wealth system is nothing but cruel unfairness you always need somewhere else to point a finger, that somewhere was boobs.
Today it’s immigrants and trans people.
Well said.
modesty codes have predated Victorian England by a vast margin.
in fact… by some standards, VE was positively hedonistic. there are cultures where a woman seen un-escorted by her husband would be murdered for it. can you imagine what would have happened if the iranian girls protesting a hijab instead decided to flash people? those laws predates victorian england by quite a lot.
Sure, but modern puritanicalism can mostly be drawn back to Victorian England.
in the US; sure. but the “need” to cover up… is common across most of Eurasia and predates England, never mind victorian england.
every culture has some question of modesty- showing different things might be considered immodest. IIRC, in certain parts of Africa it’s calves that were considered the sexy bits. Which… caused friction when a woman missionary was lecturing on modesty. She was, of course, showing calves. and made sure to give the women t shirts (which promptly came back the next day with holes cut in because they got in the way of breastfeeding.) (it was then also explained that the men were all there because… sexy calves.)
Yeah, it’s why people still avoid showing any skin at all, why women still wear corsets, and why we still wear ridiculously large hats.
And then we just never changed from then.
Hey, man, don’t shit on my corsets and hats.