Let’s face it, most women really hate wearing a bra.  Bras can be your best friend and your worst enemy.  A good bra can give you the perfect, shapely sillouhette in that new sweater you bought, but at the same time can make you feel constricted and uncomfortable. 

The bra, or brassiere, as we know it today was the invention of a wealthy woman whose name was Mary Phelps Jacob back in 1913.  Up until the the modern day bra, women were subjected to an even worse dicomfort and hassle called the corset, which basically pinched a woman’s whole torso and breast area into submission by being pulled tight to accentuate a more hour glass figure.

 Corsets could actually be pulled dangerously tight, specifically to draw a woman’s waist in dramatically, all the while squeezing her internal organs and making for a very uncomfortable existence all together. 

The bra was actually a welcome change to women who were used to what looked like a medieval torture chamber, the complicated corset.  As time went on, bras were diversified, as everything else is, into modern “breeds” of bra, such as the underwire, the sports bra, the push up bra, miracle bra, water bra, strapless bra, and a bevy of other innovations made to serve fashion and comfort, depending on your preference or fashion needs. 

Women today, at least I know I speak for myself and several other female friends, still have a love/hate relationship with their bras.  Heck, if it were up to me, we’d be back in the hippie days of bra burning and thumbing our nose at society, going around braless, comfortable, liberated and happy.

The bra burning movement occurred in the era of feminism and the age of outspoken feminists such as Gloria Steinem, encouraging women to burn their bras and thumb their nose at a society that had basically all but forced them into wearing them. 

You see, there has actually been speculation that wearing tight or restrictive bras, or any bra at all, may actually lend to causing breast cancer.  Some theorists speculate that bras constrict the healthy flow of toxins in and out of the breasts.  This constriction can lead to a buildup of toxins in the breast tissue itself, lending to cancerous cell formation and ultimately breast cancer. 

But alas, we are still expected to wear these sometimes uncomfortable and restrictive contraptions, unless we want to be the subject of office gossip and judgemental glances from women, or lingering stares of men.  You see, bras are really just a societal standard now, and if you want to fit in with society and be accepted, unfortunately in social situations and in the work environment you still have to wear a bra.  That doesn’t mean it still can’t be the first item of clothing you rip off when you come home though!

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Posted in Breast Health Commentary by Breast News Girl No Comments Yet