Freedom for Ladies and Whales

This slideshow on the history of the corset over at Slate Magazine makes me glad that hardly anyone wears these anymore. The whales can keep their baleen, and women can play sports without cutting themselves on protruding pieces of their undergarments.

It's articles like these that remind me how much culture can change, and how it's often for the better, regardless of what moral scolds like to tell us. For modern people, it is hard to fathom that dangerous whale hunts to obtain oil and baleen were once a profitable industry, and that women went so far as to wear corsets while pregnant. I'm pretty sure most ladies and most whales would agree that abandoning these traditions was a fantastic idea.