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Hilary Davidson @FourRedShoes
, 12 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
I have just had an epiphany:
There's an equation.
If B equals number of breasts visible separately, and S equals a stiffened undergarment supporting those breasts then

2B + 0S = Medieval
1B + 1S = Early Modern
2B + 1S = Modern
Late medieval: two round breasts
Sixteenth century: squooshed together into a monoboob with a triangle underneath
Seventeenth century: sames
Most of the eighteenth century: same
1790s onwards: two breasts!
This works to about 1900. The 20th century is a whole other thing, once corsets slips off the breasts, further down the hips, and start disappearing
Hmm. Postmodernism ascends as bras come off in the 1960s.
Or, we could go with Walter Truett Anderson's 1996 descrption of four typological world views:
Postmodern-ironist, which sees truth as socially constructed - breast implants
Scientific-rational, in which truth is found through methodical, disciplined inquiry - sports bras
Social-traditional, in which truth is found in the heritage of Western civilization = bras

Neo-Romantic, in which truth is found through attaining harmony with nature and/or spiritual exploration of the inner self = no bra
That pretty much brings us up to today in the Abreast of History theory (with thanks to @pages_and_pages for the title)
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More from @FourRedShoes see all

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It's strange to me when people dismiss female historical needlework as insignificant or conformist. It's really hard. Excellence in needlework is technical, artistic accomplishment that deserves respect - oh, and clothed huge chunks of ALL populations.
All those MRA tweets about 'what have women invented'? Well, women grew every single human, fed them from their bodies, fed them food after that, and clothed them so that historical men could grow up warm, dry, respectable, in clean clothes with full bellies, to go and invent.
Thoughts inspired by this tweet, and by the continuing trope in screen and text fiction, of ye olde badass girl chucking in her boring needlework for action and adventure - achivement along masculine lines.
Read 16 tweets

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For my #EarlyMedievalPills, let’s explore what monograms can tell us about changes in political culture & social communication between late antiquity & #Carolingian times.
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An important piece, but it highlights something that's been sorely lacking in the burnout discussion.
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Why the good doctor is burning out /via @globeandmail theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…
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When visiting #Rome, tourists usually (and comprehensibly) focus on its #ancient remains. Today for the series #EarlyMedievalPills I'll take you through the #Carolingian city of Pope Paschal I (817-24) who, in only 7 years, left a permanent mark on #Roma's sacred topography 1/11
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#b Excellence is overrated, competence is underrated.
Competence is knowing what to do in a situation and how to do it. It is not the same as excellence.
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1. Wanna hear a weird but true story? (I have a few minutes to type, so here goes). I almost lost my hearing from the lid on the tank of a toilet. Noise-Induced Hearing Loss. You wouldn't think a toilet lid could be so loud, would you? Well, I learned otherwise...
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#b 'Teknik menjawab' is not a series of rituals that you carry out to secure an A in the exam. You don't get guaranteed an A just through superficial actions like highlighting keywords or drawing meniscus or inserting isi tersirat.
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