Have you ever been told you’re bringing women’s rights back one-hundred years because of what you’re wearing?

The guest on Betwixt the Sheets today has. And it was a corset.

Dr Alanna McKnight has dedicated her career to researching the social and cultural history of corsets, and to challenging the idea that corsets were imposed on women as a tool of patriarchal control.

Find out why people started wearing corsets, whether men ever wore corsets, what were they made of, and how they’ve paved the way for shape wear like Spanx and waist-trainers.

Find out more about Alanna’s work here, and read her article on Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala corset here.

*WARNING this episode includes some fruity language*

Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Seyi Adaobi.

Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.This episode includes music by Epidemic Sound and an archive clip from the Public Health Film Goes to War from the National Library of Medicine 1945.