J+Fields+(boundtoplease)


 * 1) The meanings and purpose of the corset generated heated debates among dress reformers, doctors, and educators in the nineteenth century and among scholars in the twentieth.
 * 2) Furthermore, Summers contends that maternity corsets shielded the pregnant body from view and thus provided Victorian society a means of denying women's sexual activity in conformity with prevailing ideologies.
 * 3) Yet she also poi nts out that this effect allowed pregnant women greater opportunities to remain actively engaged in public longer, rather than hidden in confinement. Similarly, while some commentators advocated maternity corsets for health reasons, others condemned their ill effects upon the foetus.
 * 4) These critics expressed no concern for the corseted mother's comfort or well-being, as they assumed she was indulging her vanity. However, some women implemented warnings about the harmful consequences of tightly binding the body during pregnancy by deliberately wearing corsets to induce miscarriage.