April
5, 2016
By:
Gina Yoryet Roman
One
of my students told me about this video about the “evolution “ of the swimsuit
last year. I never took the time to watch it, not because of lack of interest,
but because I just never got around to it. Since then, it’s been in my mind. After
reading the text, which was a lot quicker than watching the video, I am in
total conformity with Jessica Ray (an American actress, bathing suit designer,
and writer of ‘Decent Exposure.’).
The
way a small piece of fabric – a bathing suit started and the twist that men and
women have given it, is vile. The direction this garment has undergone, the
morbid way men objectify women, and the way women embrace that type of
treatment is more than what some individuals could ever fathom. Our society has
gone to a point where it is ok to utilize women as insignificant objects and
ignite sexuality. Younger women are constantly being pressured to grow up too
fast. To be attractive, sexy, sensual, to please a man’s desire through the
type of clothes they use. Through the out of proportion makeup on their face
and the alterations on their body – plastic surgeries.
I
hope that Jessica Ray is able to convey her message and make women aware not
only all through the U. S., but around the world. We are in desperate need of
it.
I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and
propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls
or expensive clothes.
Timothy 2:9-10
Analyst
at the National Geographic concluded the bikinis really do inspire man to see women as objects as
something to be used rather than someone to connect with. So, it seems that
wearing a bikini does give a woman power, the power to shutdown a man’s ability
to see her as a person, but rather as an object
Sadly,
many women don’t leave anything to the imagination
[Jessica Rey]
Source: LYBIO.net
I’m sure you’ve all heard that song before and I apologize if it gets stuck in
anyone’s head for the rest of the day. But, I am wondering, if you’ve ever
really listened to the lyrics, because until a couple of weeks ago, I’d never
really listened to them before, so I’d like to review some of them with you.
The first verse goes, [Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie
Yellow
Polka Dot Bikini]
She was afraid
to come out of the locker
She was as nervous as she could be
She was afraid to come out of the locker
She was afraid that somebody would see
The song
continues, with her being afraid to come out in the open, so she hides in her
blanket, and then, she was afraid to come out of the water, so she starts to
turn blue. Why was this woman, so afraid? This song was released in 1960,
fourteen years after the bikini was invented in France. French engineer, Louis
Reard invented the bikini, he worked in his mother’s lingerie shop and he named
it after the site of the atomic bomb testing that year Bikini Atoll.
[Jessica Rey] Source: LYBIO.net
He thought that the publics’ reaction would be like an atomic bomb explosion.
And, he was right. His design was based on exposing the belly button for the
first time. And he said, it wasn’t the true bikini unless it could be pulled
through a wedding ring. It was so scandalous that no French model would wear
it. So he had to hire a stripper to debut his bikini.
Before Reard
invented the bikini women wore one piece swimsuits, like this, or if they were
two piece swimsuits, they were still very modest, exposed very little midriff
and always cover the belly button. Before that, at the turn of the century
women wore this voluminous bathing costumes, and they use things called bath
machines, which were like a 6x6x6 wooden or canvas hut on wheels, the women
would get inside of the bathing machine in her cloths, and then she would
change into her bathing costume. And horses or sometimes people would drag the
bathing machine down to the shoreline, and then women would get straight into
the water. So that no one would see here in her bathing costume.
We have
certainly come a long way, since then from practically wearing a house of 36
square feet to wearing about 36 square inches of fabric. You go to the beach
today and it seems like everyone is wearing a bikini, but it was not an instant
hit in the United States. It was seen as a suspect garment favored by
licentious Mediterranean types.
In 1957, Modern
Girl magazine said, “it was hardly necessary to waste words on the so called
bikini, because no girl with the tact or decency would ever wear such a thing.
And one writer described the bikini as a two-piece bathing suits that revealed
everything about a girl expect her mothers’ maiden name. Guards at the beach
would measure bathing suits and women wearing bikinis were sure to get kicked
off of the beach.
[Jessica Rey] Source: LYBIO.net
So, it’s no wonder that the girl on the song was afraid to come out of the
water.
With 1960s
however, came the sexual revolution and the women’s movement and the rising popularity
of the bikini. Soon no one was afraid to wear one. And in 1965, a women told
Time magazine, that it was almost square not to. Last year alone annual
spending on the bikini totaled $8 billion. The popularity of the bikini has
been attributed to the power of women, not the power of fashion. And a New York
Times reporter called the bikini, the millennial equivalent of the power suit.
So I’d like to
take a couple of minutes to examine this so-called power that wearing the
bikini brings.
A few years ago,
male college students at Princeton University participated in studies of how
the male brain reacts to seeing people in different amounts of clothing. Brain
scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily-clad women, the
region of the brain associated with tools, such as screwdrivers and hammers lit
up.
Some men showed
zero brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the
brain that lights up when one ponders another person’s thoughts, feelings, and
intentions. Researchers found that shocking, because they almost never see this
part of the brain shutdown in this way.
[Jessica Rey] Source: LYBIO.net
And a Princeton professor said, “It is as if they’re reacting to these women as
if they’re not fully human. It’s consistent with the idea that they are
responding to these photographs, as if they were responding to objects, not
people.
In a separate
Princeton study, when men viewed images of women in bikinis, they often
associated with first person action verbs such as: “I push”, “I grab”, “I
handle”. But when they saw images of women dressed modestly, they associated
them with third person action verbs, such as “she pushes”, “she grabs”.
Analyst at the
National Geographic concluded the bikinis really do inspire man to see women as objects as
something to be used rather than someone to connect with. So, it seems that wearing
a bikini does give a woman power, the power to shutdown a man’s ability to see
her as a person, but rather as an object.
This is surely
not the kind of power that women were searching for, the power to be treated as
an equal to be seen as in control and to be taken seriously. It seems that the
kind of power they are searching for is more attainable, when they dress
modestly. But now comes the problem of modesty.
The very word,
modesty is often met with such disdain especially among the younger high school
crowd. I remember speaking to a group of teenagers in New York and when I
mentioned modesty, this girl yelled from the back, “What am I supposed to dress
like then, a grandma? And I was scared, but I have to admit, I thought the same
thing when I first learned about modesty. I thought it meant, “I had to be
frumpy and dumpy and out of fashion”. And, I imagine myself wearing dresses
like this, sitting alone in my living room, never going on another date, ever
again and never getting married, and I was particularly frustrated when
shopping for a swimsuit, when I decided not to wear bikinis anymore, because
all I could find were things that my grandmother would actually wear.
[Jessica Rey] Source: LYBIO.net
Instead of being discouraged I took matters into my own hands and I designed my
own swimsuit, and the first time I wore it, a few girls asked, where I got it,
and the second time a few more and so on and so forth. So, I decided to put my
MBA to use, which made my parents so happy, and just start my own swimsuit
company.
My goal is to
disapprove the age-old notion, that when it comes to swimsuits, less is more
and that you can dress modestly without sacrificing fashion.
My inspiration
for my swimsuit line is Audrey Hepburn, who is timeless and classy and who
happened to have dressed very modestly. I don’t think people would think of
Audrey Hepburn and think frumpy and dumpy and out of fashion.
These are some
of my designs and my tag line is “Who says it has to be itsy bitsy?” Well to
answer the question, if you look at today’s society everyone, everyone says,
“It has to be itsy bitsy”, fashion designers, the media, and let’s face it
sometimes parents.
Little girls
would not be running around in sexy underwear and skimpy bikinis, if it weren’t
for their parents buying them for them.
I believe that
the woman was afraid to come out of the water, because she had a natural sense
of modesty about her. That has been stripped away by today’s culture. And, we
need to bring it back.
[Jessica Rey] Source: LYBIO.net
I have dedicated a lot of my time, I travel all over the country speaking to
girls about this issue. I’ve just written a book called ‘Decent Exposure’ about it.
And, we need to
teach girls that modesty isn’t about covering up our bodies because they’re
bad, modesty isn’t about hiding ourselves, it’s about revealing our dignity.
[Jessica Rey] Source: LYBIO.net
We were made beautiful in his image and likeness, so the question I’d like to
leave you with is, how will you use your beauty? Thank you.
