science

National Cleavage Day

National Cleavage Day is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand National Cleavage Day rather than just read about it. In short: National Cleavage Day (abbreviated NCD) was an annual celebration held in South Africa, sponsored by the brassiere marketer Wonderbra. National Cleavage Day was started in 2002 and held at the end of every December.

Key takeaways

National Cleavage Day belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect National Cleavage Day to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of National Cleavage Day from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

National Cleavage Day (abbreviated NCD) was an annual celebration held in South Africa, sponsored by the brassiere marketer Wonderbra. National Cleavage Day was started in 2002 and held at the end of every December. Wonderbra together with Cosmopolitan magazine and 5fm, an SABC radio station mainly based in Johannesburg, sponsored the celebration.

Purpose Anita Meiring, public relations consultant for Wonderbra, described the event: "It is a day for women to realise that their cleavage is something unique and that they should be proud of it." "It gives women a chance to be beautiful and glow in the furtive, yet appreciative, glances their cleavage evokes from men". She also explained, "It gives men a legitimate reason to stare at boobs." Samantha Paterson, a brand manager for Wonderbra, said that National Cleavage Day was started as a way to solemnise women's independence and power in all facets of life, from their careers to their relationships to their own destiny. Paterson said the day is intended to be lighthearted amusement and that the revenue would be donated to the Sunflower Fund. The fund, a non-governmental and non-profit organisation based in Cape Town with a stated aim to help South African citizens diagnosed with leukaemia and other life-threatening blood diseases, has since combined with the German-based NGO DKMS to form DKMS Africa.

Locations National Cleavage Day was celebrated at office premises, restaurants and bars throughout the nation. Most people polled on the streets during the celebrations in 2002 expressed a positive view of the event. During National Cleavage Day 2002, twenty local girls in Johannesburg and another twenty girls in Cape Town distributed stickers and G-strings to selected female drivers. The celebration of the NCD in 2006 started early in the morning of 7 April when women showing their cleavages in Edgars, Foschini Group and Truworths at La Lucia Mall, Gateway Theatre of Shopping and The Pavilion handed out free copies of Cosmopolitan magazine to customers. A competition was organised at the Cafe Vacca Matta called the "Best Cleavage." Thousands of women in the province of KwaZulu-Natal displayed their cleavages in support of this event. Local manufacturers and retailers of undergarments joined in support of the celebration of the NCD and it marked changes in the industry. After the celebration in 2007, Paterson said, "We will be donating money for every bra that gets sold in March. We will donate money to the Sunflower fund. We are having big parties, we have special National Cleavage Day cocktails that have been created and for every cocktail bought R2 will be donated to the sunflower fund." References to National Cleavage Day, observed annually in March or April, were occasionally noted internationally as trending on Twitter.

Criticism Siqwana-Ndulo, provincial gender commissioner in Eastern Cape, condemned the celebrations, warning women not to be involved in the National Cleavage Day. Siqwana-Ndulo said "This is a pure marketing tool using people's bodies." She added, "The commission is against any person or advertising company, which uses people's bodies for marketing purposes be it advertising a car or anything of that sort." A paper published by Gender Links depicted an image of two women showing their cleavages during the NCD on 5 April 2003, with the caption "These two bosom buddies were all part of the fun in yesterday’s National Cleavage Day, where a number of stunning beauties, their natural assets enhanced by Wonderbra, brought traffic to a standstill in many parts of Joburg." The paper argued that globalisation of the media enforces "globalised norms" of gender and the lowest single common denominator in "global" images of gender is "sex sells" which builds and reinforces stereotypes and biases—both male and female. Vanessa Raphaely, editor of the Cosmopolitan, argued the NCD is not intended to objectify women, but to celebrate in a funny manner.

References

External links Wonderbra and their support for NCD (archived) National Cleavage Day website (archived)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with National Cleavage Day

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what National Cleavage Day claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to National Cleavage Day before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about National Cleavage Day ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of National Cleavage Day

In research: National Cleavage Day appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses National Cleavage Day in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: National Cleavage Day is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics April observances, Breast, Culture of South Africa, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for National Cleavage Day outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study National Cleavage Day in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what National Cleavage Day means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain National Cleavage Day out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is National Cleavage Day in simple terms?

Why does National Cleavage Day matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study National Cleavage Day?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on National Cleavage Day.