Believe it or not, bras were not always considered to be horrendous objects of constriction. In fact, many of the first bras were created in order to set women free from corsets.

Back in the day, wearing corsets was The Fashionable Thing to Do, especially among the wealthy. These undergarments were designed to push the breasts upward, making them look perky, and making one's neckline look as if it were overflowing with cleavage. The tightness of the bodice also flattened out the stomach, accentuating the hips so one could pull off that hourglass figure — considered to be the ideal of beauty — even if one wasn't born with it. They took an eternity to put on, and women would often have their servants pull the boning tight to their torsos, tying up the laces to ensure it was as close-fitting as possible (a practice known as tightlacing).

Over time, physicians became concerned by the harmful physical effects wrought upon women who were overzealous in their tightlacing. Corsets could restrict breathing, cause light-headedness, break ribs, and harm internal organs.

Not only that, but corsets were incredibly limiting. As a backlash to this, there was a clothing-reform movement, a push to free women from them so they could participate more fully in society, engaging in athletic activities and working outside the home. During the first World War, many women had to work in factories and wear uniforms for the first time. And women were also moving into other career sectors, including retail and office work. The bra enabled them to do this.

By the late 19th century, the bra began to replace the corset as the primary means of supporting the breasts. Over the years, there have been many iterations of the bra (the bandeau, the balconette, the racerback, etc.), designed to capitalize upon the needs and the beauty ideals of any given era. As for corsets, they have been mostly relegated in the public imagination to the realm of burlesque performances, fetish play, and all things Kardashian.

But back to the bra. What changed? What made the brassiere shift in our minds from an object of liberation to an object of suppression?

The second wave of feminism seems to have been the main impetus behind women's negative attitudes toward undergarments. In the 1960s, some of the trappings of femininity — including bras — became subject to scrutiny by feminist activists. In 1970, Germaine Greer even wrote in The Female Eunuch that, "Bras are a ludicrous invention." She went on to say, "If you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression." Still, feminists maintained that bras — in addition to other beauty accoutrements — existed to restrict women and reduce them to sex objects. Because of this, they renounced them.

And now? We seem to be living in an era in which most women consider the bra to be a necessary evil. There are those, however, who are fighting to free the (female) nipple, despite Greer's warning that there are other things to fear beyond physical discomfort and the degradations of being bound to patriarchal beauty standards.