Discussions with Zharphyn

Tag: women

Victory for feminists

by on Jul.19, 2010, under Clothing

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A comment from my friend Tammy led me to do some research, the results of which surprised me somewhat. Tammy, who is former RCMP auxiliary, had told me that British Columbia (the province in Canada where I live) quickly changed the law several years ago allowing women to be topless in public.Now I openly admit that I am guilty of staring at a woman’s chest instead of her eyes while talking with her. I also give myself neck strain when I see an attractive woman. Sorry, but I am a guy. Any guy who denies doing these things is quite likely lying. I am not saying that I am proud of these actions, quite the contrary, I am ashamed to act like this, but I am not always conscious of my own actions, and as I said, I am a guy.

Tammy has been telling me about this law change for many years, but I did not take much heed. My memory told me that the police had announced that female toplessness was a law they were no longer going to enforce. I figured this was basically the same difference. I finally got around to checking it out on the Internet, and I discovered that British Columbia had changed the law in 2000. For ten years now, it has been legal for women to be topless in BC.

What surprises me about this discovery, is how few women have actually taken advantage of this law change. I do not say that from the leering male perspective, although that part of me is very disappointed in women, I say this from the liberal feminist part of me. Yes, I try to be as big of a feminist as my male hormones will allow. I have often heard women in the past ten years grumbling about how unfair it is that men can be topless, yet women cannot. Obviously this law change needs to better advertised. In the past ten years, the only woman that I have seen taking advantage of the law change is Linda Meyer. Linda is the crusader that actually forced the courts to throw out the archaic law, so it is no great surprise that she is taking advantage of her success. I also do understand that the vast majority of women do not have an interest in appearing topless. Most women have believe that it is immoral or unethical to appear topless in public, or maybe they have body issues, I know that I have body issues, and I am male. But a very small percentage of women would have no objections, yet they too are not enjoying their freedoms.

What I want to understand about our society is why does this distinction exist? Little kids have no stigma about their bodies or about appearing nude in public. Our society teaches them that this is an unacceptable action. For some strange reason, society says that this is acceptable:

If it is acceptable for those men to appear in public without their shirts on, why does society say that these women should be covered?

There have been many protests and demonstrations over the years by women demanding the right to appear topless in public:

Now I have no illusions that all topless women would look like Victoria Secret models any more than all the topless males could be Chippendale dancers. I fully expect that the majority of woman, just like the majority of men society will not enjoy seeing topless:

What I want to challenge my readers, both male and female, is to comment on this post and tell me why you choose not to remove your shirt in public. Or perhaps you do appear topless in public, in which case please comment on that fact. But I would like to know whether you have body issues, moral objections, do you believe that it would be too distracting to the public and thereby cause accidents, does your religion tell you that it is wrong, or is there another reason?

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