Selected Lead Articles from The Dawn | Page 3

our
heads, nor stoop to pick up anything from the floor, nor throw a ball
with any certainty that it will fall before us. The outdoor gait of a large
proportion of women is certainly spoilt by lack of freedom, and the
arms of the majority hang cylindrical and stiff like a bent stove-pipe.
All these things make us sigh for a race of clear thinking women who
are not afraid, whose own judgment is guidance enough and reason
enough, and who will dress for health, decency, and comfort only. It
would seem merely reasonable to wear garments which will leave our
arms at least as much freedom as a doll's arm on a wire hinge, and to
refrain from tying our ribs together, in a way which prevents respiration,
and disturbs our anatomy, particularly as the only gain we achieve, is a
counterfeit beauty of an unnatural model. We laugh at the Chinese
women with their poor useless bandaged feet, and all the while we are
tying up ourselves and laming much more important organs than feet,
viz. lungs. For experiments prove that the average lung capacity,
without corsets, is 167 cubic inches, but with the armour plating on, it
is 134 inches only. Now, the first necessity of life is to breathe freely,
for the blood collects poisons in its course, which can only be cleansed
from the system by exposure to air in the lungs, and if anyone desires
to feed her body on entirely pure and well-cleansed blood, it is essential
that the action of the lungs should be untramelled. When we remember
that every minute, a quantity of blood equal to the entire amount in the
body is passed through the lungs for purification, and that it is from the
blood that every part of the system from head to foot, draws its material
of life, and replenishment and renewal, it is apparent that the least aid
we can give to the capacity of inhaling pure air, is an aid to the health
of every organ and tissue in the body, brain included. It is generally
admitted, that, on the average, women are much weaker and much
more subject to small ailments than men are, in spite of the fact that the
anatomy of each is so alike as to require an expert to distinguish
between them, and it is reasonable to suppose that part of this weakness

is due to habitual constriction of the lungs through many generations,
and habitual compression of the organs which lie below the diaphragm.
Few people are aware that women who wear tight waist-bands breathe
in a manner that is unnatural, and unlike all other human creatures. All
natural men and women, whether civilised or savage, do, in the act of
inspiration, expand both the upper and lower part of the chest, but the
maximum expansion in all men, and in natural women, is abdominal.
You inhale a full breath, the ribs rise slightly, the upper part of the
chest dilates, the diaphragm contracts, and at the waist there should be,
in healthy people, an expansion of from one to three inches, but there
are few women whose habiliments allow an expansion of more than
one-quarter or one half-an-inch. Thus the modern woman with a
diminished lung-action, breathes mainly with the upper part of her
chest, while all men, and all women who breathe freely, breathe almost
entirely with the lower part. Even if this change were not injurious and
we could afford to dispense with a full lung-action, the compression of
the waist is necessarily hurtful, since it squeezes internal organs, and
prevents the due contraction of the diaphragm, a contraction which
materially assists the liver in the discharge of blood and bile. Tie a tight
bandage round the waist of a man and the functions of the organs
affected are impaired, he is unable to make more than two thirds of the
mental and physical exertion of which he is capable. Is it not probable
that women lose nearly the same proportion of their natural ability? But
the idea of corsets on a man is ridiculed everywhere. Does it not strike
you as possible, that the air of amused toleration with which men often
regard women, is due to her pervading artificiality--this padding and
strapping? If one man sees another using the smallest device to
improve his features or figure, does he not instantly despise the
intentional sham? And while men are expected to alter their standard of
opinion for woman's benefit, and to concede to women the liberty to
ingeniously alter and add to their natural figures, without the penalty of
contempt--"because you know she is a woman"--how can we expect
men to place women in their regard and respect on a real equality with
any agreeable