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    TeachplayloveKate Dries
    8/07/15 11:44am

    No, the one good thing about waist trainers was realizing my 9 year old has been listening to me when a commercial came on for them during Little House On The Prairie. Her exact quote was, “I bet there isn’t something like this for men.”

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      DuchessCrazyLindaTeachplaylove
      8/07/15 11:48am

      A very astute comment. A+ to your parenting skills.

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      gooutsideandplayTeachplaylove
      8/07/15 11:49am

      That does give me a business idea — moob trainers!

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    whiteshoeblacksheepKate Dries
    8/07/15 11:39am

    she has books! on a shelf! looks like a law library! who knew?

    [looks closer]

    oh, those are boots on a shelf.

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      mollymlf05whiteshoeblacksheep
      8/07/15 12:10pm

      As a Midwesterner, I am jealous of her boot collection, but I am also confused because she lives in LA, where it is rarely boot weather.

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      KillerTomatomollymlf05
      8/07/15 12:16pm

      For us, any temp under 70 degrees is boot weather :)

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    BekabyKate Dries
    8/07/15 11:41am

    Declaring waist trainers as empowering because they make individual female business owners money is silly. Like, would we entertain the notion that a former stay at home mom who now makes big money selling I dunno, graphic tees and signs for anti-abortion protesters is “empowering for women?” I hope we wouldn’t.

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      consumerofnerdsBekaby
      8/07/15 11:51am

      Why can't a stay at home mom with a home business not be empowering for women? Especially if she wasn't forced into the roles and is doing what she likes?

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      Bekabyconsumerofnerds
      8/07/15 12:01pm

      Being an entrepreneur can be very empowering for women and an economic landscape which better supports that avenue for earning is empowering for women. But that does not translate into the merchandise she sells being empowering itself, which is what this article suggests. It’s the act of being a business owner, making the important financial and business decisions for herself, that confers that power and self-determination, whatever the business is.

      I’m not saying that these women are not “empowered”, they absolutely are, but we should not understand that to mean that waist trainers are empowering.

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    1llamarampage will write againKate Dries
    8/07/15 11:34am

    Yeeeeah, I’m going to need something a little more substantial than “It’s women’s empowerment because it benefits meeee!” before I start thinking it’s anything more than the same tired bullshit. Things that range from terrible to useless benefit the people selling them all the time - that’s capitalism. It doesn’t make them good or noble or interesting things.

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      JozeeDozee1llamarampage will write again
      8/07/15 12:22pm

      Exactly. She writes

      “Waist trainers, the modern day equivalent to the girdle, and before that, the corset, appear to be more of the next step in oppressive women’s wear than an liberating development. But as a new piece at The Fader outlines, they’re empowering if only because of the success of the women who are selling them.”

      But is that really a good thing? Kudos to small business owners but not at the expense of perpetuating the trend of women needing to conform to a specific body type.

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      DontBeSuchaBoobPunchTina1llamarampage will write again
      8/07/15 1:03pm

      Agreed. I guess I just don’t see how profiting off of women’s insecurities is somehow better when it’s women doing the profiting. If anything, the internalized misogyny on display is more disturbing.

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    DuchessCrazyLindaKate Dries
    8/07/15 11:46am

    There’s No Actual Benefit To Waist Trainers

    Ftfy

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      sparklekittyDuchessCrazyLinda
      8/07/15 12:07pm

      I find them very effective for managing chronic back pain

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      DuchessCrazyLindasparklekitty
      8/07/15 12:14pm

      I know, I was only trying to match the headline to the story above. They mentioned no benefits whatsoever.

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    randilynKate Dries
    8/07/15 11:32am

    as Kara Brown outlined recently,

    You mean when she broke Kinja?

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      MsMymlanrandilyn
      8/07/15 11:51am

      My scroll finger was numb after that.

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      randilynMsMymlan
      8/07/15 11:52am

      I feel like the NoStar Wars started with that (most awesome) post.

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    HaHaYouFoolKate Dries
    8/07/15 12:01pm

    Holy mother, how can we stop the talk about the (nonexistent!) “health benefits”? Unless your doctor has ordered you to wear a similar contraption as a truss or back brace, you are doing damage to yourself with this waist training nonsense.

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      Slut PanicHaHaYouFool
      8/07/15 12:05pm

      I doubt that.

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      Oatmeal Cookie MonsterHaHaYouFool
      8/07/15 12:30pm

      Um, what damage exactly is being done?

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    turnipforwhatKate Dries
    8/07/15 11:38am

    “Waist training” means something specific. This is not it. This is just a simple girdle, and it’s not any worse than Spanx.

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      Oatmeal Cookie Monsterturnipforwhat
      8/07/15 11:42am

      Yeah, waist training means wearing an actual corset for 23 hours a day. My best friend did this starting at, like 15, after she read about/researched waist training in the Renaissance. She thought it would be cool, so she did it.

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      turnipforwhatOatmeal Cookie Monster
      8/07/15 11:57am

      Waist training did not exist in the Renaissance (neither did steel boned corsets; in that era shaping was done with stiff fabrics and hemp cording). The tightlaced corset is a Victorian style, though even at the height of corset extremes few women were tightlacing or waist training. Most people’s conception of the corset is very tied to the Scarlet O’Hara, “pull it tighter as a I cringe and cling to the bedpost” image. That’s a very time- and class-restricted incarnation of the corset. For much of its history, the corset/stays were supportive garments that were not nearly so restrictive.

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    yvanehtniojKate Dries
    8/07/15 12:01pm

    “I 100 percent helped make this body type acceptable.”

    Ah, yes, I remember the dark pre-PreMadonna days when a small waist was unacceptable. I won’t go back, do you hear me? I WON’T GO BACK!

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      SipowitzKate Dries
      8/07/15 11:53am

      There’s One Actual Benefit to Waist Trainers

      It squeezes all your poop out?

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        melmeldubSipowitz
        8/07/15 12:11pm

        if so, i’ll buy one.

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        mazzieDSipowitz
        8/07/15 12:55pm

        Coffee is cheaper.

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