Women's Issues

Extensive legal precedent suggests that laws requiring women, but not men, to conceal their breasts are sexist, discriminatory, and unconstitutional. For example, in 1992, the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, unanimously overturned the conviction of two women found guilty of exposing their breasts in public. The ruling held that the state's anti-nudity law was intended to apply only to lewd and lascivious behavior, not to "non-commercial, perhaps accidental, and certainly not lewd, exposure."

The ruling means that women in New York State could sunbathe topfree or even walk down the street without a top, as long as this was not done in a lewd manner, or for such purposes as prostitution. The judge pointed out that women sunbathe topfree in many European countries, adding: "To the extent that many in our society may regard the uncovered female breast with a prurient interest that is not similarly aroused by the male equivalent, that perception cannot serve as a justification for different treatment because it is itself a suspect cultural artifact rooted in centuries of prejudice and bias toward women." This ruling, however, is just one of many statutes and legal precedents nationwide that uphold the position that breast exposure is not inherently indecent behavior.

The repression of healthy nudity, especially for females, has been one of the chief means of mind and destiny control by the patriarchy. Breaking this pattern shatters the invisible bonds of an inherited sex role. Topfree inequality (requiring women, but not men, to wear tops) is demeaning and discriminatory toward women, and reinforces patterns of male domination over women. It was written "Men have the right to cover or expose their chests as they see fit-women do not. Men have the right to enjoy the sun, water, and wind without a top; women do not.

Few men would be willing to give up this right. Then why shouldn't women enjoy the same advantage? Requiring women to cover their breasts in public is a highly visible expression of inequality between men and women that promotes an attitude that demeans women and damages their sense of equality. For centuries, men have held the power to generate these misconceptions. The male view on the exposure of a woman's breasts is crucially influenced by the need of men to define women. This reaction stems from a masculine ideology that has doomed generations of women to a secondary status."

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