Your Bra Does Not Make You Submissive!

By ALI CUDBY

“People who put their bra on backwards and fasten it before turning it around are influencers.”

Yes, that’s a direct quote from an article in the UK’s Daily Mail from Patti Wood, a body language expert who has connected the way women put on their bras with their underlying personality types.

She goes on to categorize women into four categories: Drivers, Influencers, Supporters and Careful Correctors. To be more accurate, the philosophy is based around American psychologist William Moulton Marston’s DISC theory, which focuses on four distinct behavioral attributes: dominance, inducement, submission and compliance.

Looking a little deeper, something disturbing emerges. In an article in Redbook on the same subject, Wood seems to take a dodge. “Everything you do—and the way you do it—comes together to form a story about yourself, and there’s no reason your undergarments shouldn’t be a part of that.” (Italics are mine.) 

In other words, it doesn’t seem like Wood has done any actual research to connect real women’s personality types with how they put their bras on. It’s pure extrapolation.

If that’s true, then Wood is using the overall DISC philosophy to categorize women and their bra wearing habits without any evidence to back it up.

Sure, it makes for great headlines. The Daily Mail article proclaimed, “Are you a dominant front-fastener, or a submissive back-clasper? How the way you put on your BRA reveals intimate details about your personality.”

I think that’s a big problem. Here’s why.

The DISC profiles were developed to create a model of common language in workplaces, so that people could better understand interpersonal differences. We all know that people have different personalities and it’s helpful to understand how other people tick so you can be more effective working with them, managing them, etc. And sure, there’s overlap between how a person behaves in the office and how they behave at home.

BUT

When you start to characterize someone’s intimate behavior as “dominant” and “submissive” the entire conversation becomes something very different. Words matter, and going down this road with connecting bras to DISC traits effectively merges personality traits with sexual preferences. The minute the research shifts from the neutral ground of business to the gendered topic of intimates, those words become loaded with innuendo.

There are plenty of legitimately interesting and relevant topics to discuss when it comes to nonverbal communication. The last thing women and girls need is to be told that their daily actions have some connection to their sexuality. If a self-proclaimed expert wants to make that leap, she needs specific research to back it up.