F ³

"Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday…”

Remember this?

On a totally different note, I’ve been pondering turning Fridays blog into a free-for-all of things I want to write about that fall outside of the HoCo local territory of the blog. It’s long been known that people tend to read blogs less on Fridays. I wonder what would happen if I had “off-topic Fridays”? (In my head the working title has been, “The hell with it; it’s Friday.”)  Perhaps it’s the temptation to write about the things I would write about if no one were watching. 

One reader referred to this possibility as Free Expression Fridays, which has morphed into Free Form Fridays because that gives me the opportunity to use that nifty superscript. Mathematicians are asked to withhold judgement. At any rate, it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Bones

You may be awake of the relatively recent phenomenon of the dog who will assist you in deciding what kind of a day it is. 

“Bones or no bones day? Noodles the 13 year old pug has all your answers”  Audrey Macquillan, The Post Athens

As with most things that have originated on Tik Tok, I became aware of this only after it turned up in references on Twitter. It’s pretty simple. Owner, holding dog, places dog on the floor. If dog stays standing, it’s a Bones Day. Go out and do stuff. Up and at ‘em. If dog telescopes into itself and refuses to stand, it’s a No Bones Day. Go back to bed. Be easy on yourself. Take no unnecessary risks.

My apologies if you were already aware of this. 

Soon after I learned this I floated this idea on Twitter:

If we can have a No Bones Day, why can’t we have a No Bras Day?

I am here to report that my forward thinking concept has not gone viral, though it has some enthusiastic support.

But, seriously folks, what is the big deal with bras? Why are they considered required “foundation garments” for women*? Why do women allow anyone else to tell them what to wear? 

A man may be required to wear a jacket and a necktie under certain circumstances. And I’m sure that’s an entirely different blog post. But the expectation that a woman must wear a bra goes far deeper than that. It basically says that that there is something so innately unacceptable about a woman’s body that it must be modified before she can be seen in public. 

That’s just preposterous. And it’s typical of the many ways that women’s bodies are judged, policed, and controlled in our culture. 

During the more locked down portion of the pandemic I was having an online exchange with a friend about how working from home had prompted a desire to find ways to look “respectably dressed” without actually wearing a bra. Let’s face it, for many women bras are just plain uncomfortable. I had some hopes that perhaps these pandemic experiences might fuel a transformation in how just how much women would allow respectability to dictate their daily attire.

I have not seen any recent articles about the Great Resignation from stupid clothing requirements for women. Sigh.

My friend and I agreed that the most successful way to rid the world of bras would be if, somehow, all women who wore them simply ceased to wear them on the same day and, if asked, maintained complete ignorance of the entire topic.  It would have to be simultaneous and total. 

We did not discuss where all those existing bras were going to go, so clearly there’s a flaw in the plan.

All in all, we do not need a No Bras Day because that would just be passing on the authority for this decision to yet some other outside entity. We need a world where making our own choices about our own bodies is no longer a scary or potentially harmful thing.

I have a friend who once declared one day of the year to be Mind Your Own Business Day. Maybe that should be every day. 

*For the purposes of this piece I have used the word to woman to mean “a woman with breasts.” I am aware that this is an incomplete definition and I am open to better wording.