Home is where the Bra isn't

In the age of corona, I find myself untethered- so many structures and relationships that I derived my identity from have been either ripped away from me or put in question. I am on shaky ground, constantly re-examining things I took for granted, a process that is not as comforting as I theoretically believed it would be.

Covid-19 has made me reevaluate my life in multiple ways. As a final year student, I am suddenly out in the real world without any rites of passage accompanying that transition. I am lost as a citizen, because I had no idea how to help vulnerable communities apart from standard donations. Spending day in and day out with my mother, traditional roles have been reversed as I now smother her with my fear for her safety. Down the lane, as I was re-conceptualizing my role as a student, a citizen and a daughter, I landed on a deeply personal reflection.

Spending day in and day out with my mother, traditional roles have been reversed as I now smother her with my fear for her safety.

During the lockdown I’ve rarely worn a bra. It was only when I was sitting through my first online lecture that I realized how uncomfortable I felt and I finally pinpointed my bra as the source. I simply wasn’t used to wearing it anymore and the daily irritation that had become routinized was now a glaring source of hatred.

The bra is a modern child of the corset, a painful contraption that was meant to support a woman’s breasts, enlarge her bottom and make her waist appear smaller. In simpler words, it was meant to make women more desirable to men. But the price of looking desirable was often ill health- corsets restricted breathing, caused muscles to degenerate and deformed the rib cage. Bras are considerably less painful, but restrictive nonetheless. Moreover, as I recently found out, there is no conclusive evidence that says that bras are actually providing the desired support. On the contrary, some studies show that they actually weaken your natural muscles, making your breasts sag faster. For a minute, let’s put science aside; even if I forego bras and my breasts do sag, what’s the problem? It’s another construct of a patriarchal world that shames women for a very natural by-product of ageing or their genetics. An instrument of control, in that sense, which ensures that we remain desirable to the opposite sex, without whose sustained attention we’re on troubled waters.

But the price of looking desirable was often ill health- corsets restricted breathing, caused muscles to degenerate and deformed the rib cage. Bras are considerably less painful, but restrictive nonetheless.

Chinua Achebe discussed how colonialism fundamentally changed cultures through their ideas of propriety. Women who traditionally bared their breasts were made to cover them as part of the Western ‘civilizing mission’. India too faced this, but it’s not fair to place the entire blame on the West. There were several indigenous garments, such as the choli, which had the same role as a modern bra. Regardless of the name, the intent was always to regulate women’s bodies, and therefore their sexuality.

Over the years, styles for bras have become innovative- their colors have become bolder, their designs more daring. They’re the naughty secret underneath your clothing, a symbol of your femininity. The fact that they’re meant to be hidden is telling, it epitomizes the dual image that women are meant to straddle- that of the whore and Madonna; a mysterious beguiling seductress on the inside and a prim and proper virgin on the outside, the epitome of male desires.

Patriarchy is so deeply built into foundational institutions and structures that every desire to question it becomes childish- we can identify the explicit ramifications, but the small, daily ways that it covertly restricts women is something we usually cannot distance ourselves enough to question. It’s easier to point out that war as a domain of masculine aggression is so rampant that even the fight against Covid- 19 is patriarchal militancy than to discern why I want to put on a bra before I go fight Comrade Corona.

The fact that they’re meant to be hidden is telling, it epitomizes the dual image that women are meant to straddle- that of the whore and Madonna; a mysterious beguiling seductress on the inside and a prim and proper virgin on the outside, the epitome of male desires.

When I denounce my bra as a patriarchal regression, I must add that it has been a source of empowerment too. Ages ago, I remember how my exposed bra strap made a man extremely uncomfortable in the metro. He was bothered by the fact that it was on open display; it was a symbol of my sexuality meant to be hidden away and here it was in plain sight. I couldn’t have cared less whether it was visible or not but when a tool meant to restrict me does the opposite, by demonstrating my control over my body, what do we call it then? Is it re-signification even if isn’t intentional?

To wear or not to wear, then? Every option has a tragic cost, even if we extend it beyond the scope of the bra to all feminist struggles. Uniformity is a problem in feminism, so most likely, there is no one answer without running into Rousseau’s ‘forcing people to be free’ totalitarianism. Feminist praxis encourages us to privilege experiences, trying to build a larger picture of solidarity through it, when the experiences of one may resonate with another. It does not demand a one-shoe-fits-all answer that a blind lust for data postulates- this article tried to imbibe that feminist mythology, and maybe our response to it should too.

Uniformity is a problem in feminism, so most likely, there is no one answer without running into Rousseau’s ‘forcing people to be free’ totalitarianism.

Written by Pallavi Baraya