Is lingerie empowering to women?

Is lingerie (as opposed to underwear) empowering?

Well if I considered female empowerment to be helping a bloke get a stiffy, then perhaps.

In other words, no.

That's exactly it granhands!

As for good/supportive underwear being "empowering", I take your point, and I suppose some of the big historical shifts in women's dress have been empowering (for e.g. wearing trousers rather than crinolines opens up a lot of possibilities!). But day to day, I wouldn't consider a good bra more empowering than for example your running shoes, but we wouldn't usually use that word for them.

Just to be clear, I am totally with OP on this.

Reading through my reply it looked as tho I might've not been!

Are these the kind of empowering messages our young girls need?

S'funny how often that word is linked to things like pole-dancing, breast implants and all the other porn culture rubbish that is actually quite demeaning for women and girls.

And now it's weird underwear with stupid straps.

Empowering my arse.

I definitely didn't mean to compare the two in a hierarchical way! Both very important, sorry - just rambling about semantics. Liberation is indeed the goal of feminism so I definitely didn't mean to imply that liberation on a personal level was a distraction from 'proper feminism'.

The overuse of the word empowerment has just made me sensitive to this and I believe that power is a real force in society, not a feeling. I just don't think you can feel like you have power and thus make it so.

I find good solid control underwear empowering because I look good in my clothes.
That stuff certain;y wouldn't hold anything up on this body!

My day-to-day life improved enormously when I quit thongs in favour of giant-up-to-my-belly-button granny pants.

In the words of Della from Raised by Wolves a thong is ‘a bacterial superhighway from your bum hole to your business’.

Not having BV or thrush is empowering, I guess... but only because having them is disempowering. No one feels powerful with itchy bits.

MagicMix, well if it helps to clarify what I meant - obviously those things you mentioned are empowering. I fully support that. My point was that the clothes I described would be an adjunct to that, not an unhelpful distraction. I think I'm trying to say that the only clothes which are empowering are the ones which enable women to do all the things on that list.

The bras look dis-empowering for women without implants.
All women are fantasy is just gross and reducing women to masturbation props is not at all empowering to me.

But in real life when I find a comfy, supportive bra that looks great and washes well I do feel empowered. Real bras for real boobs are feats of engineering.

Floral Yeah I think it's liberating to dress for comfort and practicality, certainly. It does stop you getting bogged down in all kinds of nonsense and your description of how 'sexy' clothes hamper women rings very true to me.

It just feels to me that there is a difference between liberating and empowering. Things that I would define as empowering to women are things like education, financial independence, political representation, laws and institutions that protect our rights and interests.

Like last year I stopped shaving. I found this liberating, but I did not find it empowering because my social status is unchanged and it has not affected the factors that disadvantage me due to my sex.

Comfy kecks that I can be reasonably comfortable using a sanitary towel while wearing, plus a bra that reduces tit wobble and doesn’t cut into my chest, that’s my idea of satisfactory undies. Avoiding discomfort is a baseline expectation, and I don’t think any undies in this range provide that, in fact one could go as far as to say that is a fantasy with these particular undies.

I prefer to take my underwear off when having sex, so it offers nothing there either.

If I’m just a fantasy then I don’t need to be present at all, which suits me just fine, as I’d rather steer clear of nasty, uncomfortable clothing and the people whose interest would depend on me wearing it.

Wearing knickers that don’t cause a wedgie is as empowering as it gets for me.

Nobody sees my underwear, it doesn’t even feel breeze on washing line. MB empowering I think is based on look at me in my underwear that is all. To me that is no representation of female empowerment again trying to sell an ‘appearance’.

MagicMix, I would say it is for myself because if I am comfortable and appropriately dressed for the task and the weather, I don't need to give a second thought to my attire and can focus on the task confidently.

The kind of lingerie in view here is designed to be in the forefront of the mind while being worn - it's made of flimsy material, it's cut in awkward ways and fastened in places that make it impossible to ignore. You're supposed to think "I am sexy" throughout the experience of wearing it.

The clothes I described don't need to be at the forefront of your mind at all, which means you can be effective in whatever it is you are actually doing as a whole human being, not a fuck doll whose purpose and 'power' is sexyfeels.

I don't even think wearing comfortable clothes is empowering. It doesn't give you any power.

There are other things to be said about that and I definitely think that prioritising your own comfort and freedom of movement is positive, liberating even. But not empowering exactly.

How come it’s always used about doing things like burlesque and putting glitter on your tits, and not about not having a beauty regime, having sexual boundaries or telling the patriarchy to fuck off.

Because it is a scam.

Hey feminism is becoming a problem, women are starting to get all kinds of ideas about having more worth than as objects men want to fuck. I know, let's get them back in their place putting their time and energy into appealing to men by telling them that it was their idea in the first place! And that it's feminist! Hahaha classic.

Feminism has been thoroughly hi-jacked.

Having a comfy bra, under comfy warm tidy and clean clothes, a decent comfortable pair of shoes, a coat against the cold.

These are empowering garments.

No, I don’t think lingerie is empowering, that’s too strong. But I do like nice lingerie and (soft) lace. It makes me feel good about myself when I get dressed each day. I dress for me but I like to look nice.

How come it’s always used about doing things like burlesque and putting glitter on your tits, and not about not having a beauty regime, having sexual boundaries or telling the patriarchy to fuck off.

Empowering over used word and always seems like it’s used for women

Yea little and 99% of the time used in a sentence with sexy.

I hate the word empowerment, it feels like it is power that someone else gives you rather than being powerful: something you are all by your own efforts.
Empowerment can actually fuck right off, if it's given then it can be taken away.

‘All women are the fantasy’

Sounds like something an incell would say, it sounds like a threat.
No matter what you do, no matter who you are men are going to wank over you.

I’m aware all women are the fantasy that’s why I’m a feminist.

When questioning if something is truly "empowering" to women (lapdancing, prostitution etc) I usually ask myself, "are straight men doing it?" This individual has buggered that up slightly 😶 but not the majority of lingerie wearers are men so "no".