The Modesty Panel: What I Wear is None of your Damn Business.

This post is part of The Modesty Panel, a series focusing on the concept of modesty from the perspectives of various bra bloggers. Each of us has experiences, beliefs and assumptions about modesty that influence how we blog about breasts, and this week we are taking the time to share our views. Make sure to check some of the other posts out!

When I was 16, I was still at that inbetween phase with clothes, where you haven’t quite found what you love or really works on you . I loved colours and patterns, but as a teenager with big boobs, I was pretty limited in the shirt department. I mostly stuck to plain vest tops with pretty skirts, so my usual outfit was something like the below. It was pretty, comfortable, cool in hot weather…basically, it ticked all the boxes. The only “problem” is that it showed a bit of cleavage. Which, for a 16 year old in the middle of summer, really wasn’t a big deal.

Anna16Me at 16

After class one day, I was walking home with my then-boyfriend, when we passed a group of guys. You know the type – loud, obnoxious, and as I’m sure you can predict, they started making lewd comments at me. It wasn’t new. It’s something I got used to pretty much as soon as I hit puberty. I could write a whole post on catcalling alone, but that isn’t what I want to talk about today. My boyfriend was furious. Not because I had been harassed, not because I can’t even walk down the street without being blatantly objectified and disrespected. He was furious because of what I was wearing. Because my top showed some cleavage, he accused me of looking for attention. My boyfriend of nearly 2 years decided that I must want to be catcalled. He called me a lot of names I won’t repeat, and demanded I start wearing t-shirts.

All of that because I was wearing a vest top. Sure, I could change what I wear, and it might result in a few less comments. But why should I have to? What’s so wrong with my breasts? Why was the problem me? Continue reading

Sexism and Children: Why it’s Not “Just a Joke”.

Today’s post is going to be a bit different from the usual. A couple of weeks ago, my niece turned 4. I’ll be honest, I find it quite hard to pick presents for my princess-loving nibling! I like giving her something a bit different from the mountains of pink, so I usually try to find her something princess-with-a-twist, and this time, it seems I picked a pretty good one: a Princess Merida dress with a bow and arrow set.

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When she opened it, she was so excited to find a princess dress, but she had no idea what the bow and arrow was. After I explained what it did, and I showed her a picture of Princess Merida wielding it, she couldn’t wait to try it out. So I started showing her how to use it. Obviously it’s just a toy, and it isn’t all that sturdy, which means you have to hold it a very specific way to shoot it, and the arrows only go a few feet.

While I was trying to show her how to use it, I started hearing comments from a couple of men standing behind me. Continue reading

My bra size revelation (the perils of +4!)

For my entire bra-wearing life, from the age of 9 or 10, I wore a 34 back. My mum put me straight in a 34A, then a 34C by the age of 12, a 34DD at 13, then a 34F at 14, and I carried wearing a 34F/FF from then on. That is, until about a bit over a year ago, when my breasts decided to start growing again, to the point where they were barely in the cups anymore. Despite it being clear that I needed to go up about 3-4 cupsizes to perhaps a 34H, I put this off. The main reason? The +4/5 method. Continue reading