So a bunch of women in Portland, Maine took to the streets yesterday to protest laws against women going topless. They went topless, of course, because that’s what you do when you want to make a point about breasts.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the hand, I think, great. As a breastfeeding activist and someone who believes that women should have the right to whip out their boobies anywhere and anywhen to nurse their children – or someone else’s children – I think that anything that helps encourage acceptance of the boob as something that is not necessarily sexual is a step in the right direction. But I also worry that parades o’ boobies are not the right way to make that point.
As the women who marched discovered very quickly, you put a bunch of boobs on the street, and men show up to gawk, which just underscores the point that they’re arguing against. Maybe if this kind of parade happened every day, people would get bored of boobs and the thrill of gawking would disappear – which is maybe exactly what should happen, and what might happen, if only theoretically, if baring boobies were not illegal in Portland – but with a one-off boob parade what you get is a reinforcement of the idea that boobies are for gawking at. Look, everybody! Boobs on the street today!
In Toronto, where I live, it’s legal for women to go topless, but nobody ever does. And many women still struggle against the dreaded stink-eye when nursing in public, even though they could, theoretically, whip off their shirts and bare their breasts with impunity. So changing the law doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything – just ask a nursing mother anywhere in Southern Ontario.
It’s changing the culture that we need. Are boob parades in support of changing boob laws the way to do that? I don’t know. I don’t think so, not when those parades take you past cinemas showing the latest in starlets in tight t-shirts, or when the cameras being used by bystanders to snap booby pics are loaded with ‘SEXXY LADEEZ’ apps, or when anyone, anywhere, thinks that Hooters is a nice place to get buffalo wings.
We’ve got a long way to go, ladies. Traveling topless might not be our best bet.
About Her Bad Mother
I’m also from Ontario and spent seven years in Guelph where Gwen Jacobs first walked topless launching the court case that led to the legalization of bare boobs. While I agree that a ‘parade of boobs’ will most often lead to male gawking, I think this gawking in fact makes their point. Men who gawk don’t need boobs to be bare to gawk and the very oversexualized nature of boobs (and the entire female form) in our culture is inextricably tied to issues around who gets to control a woman’s body and sexuality. Criminalizing bare breasts is a form of control not only of women and their sexuality but of how we perceive it. If we are only allowed to bare the girls in approved, controlled and sexualized contexts then we are not free. Legalizing breasts is a feminist issue.
Just like with short skirts and good bras, a woman who wants to go topless will consider what kind of reactions and ogling she’ll get and whether or not she wants to deal with it. We don’t control how others respond to us. What we control is (or at least should be) what we put out into the world. Regardless of whether or not women actually change their behaviour when the laws change, knowing that if we wanted to go topless on a hot day, or at Pride, or while lying on the beach without being charged with indecency sends the message that our breasts are not, in fact, indecent. What is indecent is that, regardless of our relative state of dress or undress, we still have to think about how much male gawking and harassment we’re willing to tolerate as we walk out in the world.
.-= Kristin´s last blog ..Do these pants make me look straight? =-.
Oh, I totally agree that this should be legalized, and that indecency charges against women who expose their breasts are beyond obscene. My question is whether ‘topless’ marches are the way to bring this change about. As I said, I can the arguments for it, but as a nursing mom who’s been accused too many times of ‘just wanting to show (my) boobs’, I also wonder whether the insistence upon mass exposure as a means to a political end doesn’t hurt the cause, or related causes, like public nursing, by advancing the message that we *do* just want to bare the girls whenever we want. Nursing moms have struggled to make a different point, which is that public nursing *isn’t* about wanting to show our breasts, about wanting to be topless, but about wanting to feed our children. And as you imply, for most women, the broader issue wouldn’t be the freedom to wander around downtown Toronto topless, but to sunbathe topless and to be comfortable at the park or at Pride or what have you. And a topless march – as much as I agree with the principle – just seems to speak to something more, I don’t know, aggressive? And gives fuel to those who would say – however unfairly – that this IS just about exposing ourselves.
I don’t know. I’m aware that this kind of argument is problematic, inasmuch as it can be understood to imply that maybe boobs shouldn’t be bared, which is not my meaning. In any case, as long as men are allowed to take their shirts off, so should we.
.-= Catherine´s last blog ..A Dinosaur A Day Keeps The Bunnies Away =-.
I’m sort of torn about whether the parade is an effective way to change boob-politics,lactivism, and such, but it would probably help to transform people’s ideas of what ‘real’ breasts look like. I used to do modeling and my friends and I aren’t modest…as we all know, unaltered breasts look a lot different under the shirt than the porno tits that are so common in our media.
Just a thought…
.-= AshaB´s last blog ..“..because babies are born anarchists…” =-.
I have been breastfeeding since September of 2004, literally without pause. I have done it in all sorts of places with varying degrees of coverage. I am a huge proponent of letting moms feed their babies whenever and wherever they need. When I clicked over to this link I thought it was about shape, size etc. I could have gotten behind a real boobs campaign, inasmuch as I would get behind any topless parade. However to do it to help the breastfeeding in public angle I am against it. The thing for me is that half the time I was breastfeeding a child, people took no notice, they just didn’t know. Before someone points a finger saying, “They knew, you were just too arrogant to notice,” I’ll add that even though I believe in letting babies nurse when they need, I did my best to be respectful of people and places.
I think the more we can expose the irrational reactions of people bothered by it, the more we can demonstrate how ridiculous the debate is.
.-= Amanda´s last blog ..In another’s eyes =-.
Actually was Portland, Maine but no matter.
My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!
Women going topless in public is not a matter of morality. It is a constitutional matter. If men can go topless in public then women must be able to. If women can’t, then neither can men. It is pure and simple. That is gender equality guaranteed by our US Constitution that must now be recognized by each state.
40 years ago, men in France had the same uncontrollable reaction in front of naked breasts as American do in the US today. Repression does that to people! (Imagine men from the Middle East looking at US women in mini skirts!). Today on the French Riviera naked breasts have become a natural scene. I was there this past Summer and speak from experience. The only silly, giggly tourists were the Americans :)) So, let us be led by our Constitution. Our US gentlemen will surely find a way to tame their hormones like French men have!
Join us for National Gotopless day, Aug 22 2010. http://www.gotopless.org
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Please don’t forget to sign the petition and to pass it on to your friends!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/womens-consitutional-right-to-go-topless
If I had a penny for every time I came here… Great writing.