The meaning of ‘shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’
The meaning of ‘shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’
The passage below is from Fathoms: The World in the Whale Hardcover by Rebecca Giggs.
Baleens were hardened into police nightsticks as well as the thin classroom canes that raised welts on bad children’s palms (from which the verb ‘to whale on’ is derived). Baleens were fashioned as whips to spur laggard ponies, and as Y-shaped divining rods thought to twitch towards freshwater aquifers underground. Persistent beauty standards—the flummoxing hourglass ideal for women’s bodies—may have been reinforced via societal duress, but the shape was obtained via the strictures of baleen: whale-buttressed garments, compressing women’s rib cages to a cinch. That we still have this body-form as an archetype in culture is a legacy of whaling; the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline happened in lockstep with the vanishing of whales.
Does ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ is the same with ‘hourglass ideal for women’s bodies’?
Am I right?
Then does the sentence mean ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ triggered ‘the vanishing of whales’?
Thanks in advance.
Top answer
Stenka25 Does ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ is the same with ‘hourglass ideal for women’s bodies’? They are referring to the same phenomenon, yes. Stenka25 Then does the sentence mean ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ triggered ‘the vanishing of whales’?
- Stenka25 Does ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ is the same with ‘hourglass ideal for women’s bodies’?
- They are referring to the same phenomenon, yes.
- Stenka25 Then does the sentence mean ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ triggered ‘the vanishing of whales’?
- It says that the two things happened concurrently.
- It does not specifically say that the former triggered the latter, though it might be understood generally that popularity of whale-derived products encouraged the hunting of whales.
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Stenka25Does ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ is the same with ‘hourglass ideal for women’s bodies’?
They are referring to the same phenomenon, yes.
Stenka25Then does the sentence mean ‘the shrinking of the feminised figure at its waistline’ triggered ‘the vanishing of whales’?
It says that
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