“We live in a culture that’s okay with sexualizing women’s breasts to sell practically anything yet simultaneously shames women for choosing to go topless.” (Photo by Stephanie Lockhart).
Erica Webb – Opinions Columnist
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Here’s a riddle: What do you get when you mix burgers and breasts in public? An advertisement. What about breasts and a hungry baby? A violation of human decency, apparently. There’s something wrong with this picture, America.
We live in a culture that’s okay with objectifying women’s breasts to sell practically anything yet simultaneously shames women for choosing to go topless, even when breastfeeding. This essentially sends the message that you can sell breasts, but not wear them.
Breastfeeding itself is the most natural thing in the world. New mothers shouldn’t have to scramble to find dirty restrooms or sketchy secluded areas to hide themselves when their infants need nutrition.
Some men’s responses to breastfeeding mothers are worse than the comment section of a YouTube video about religion. They like to basically compare it to exposing themselves. I’m so sorry that you feel it’s unfair that a mother can feed her child but you can’t walk around pantless. But it’s not the same thing—at all.
First off, the human body is beautiful and all, but it’s just plain unsanitary for people to walk around fully nude, especially in highly populated areas, no in-depth explanation needed. Second, breasts are not sexual organs. No matter what our culture likes to portray them as, that’s not their purpose. They serve as humans’ mammary glands to provide milk for infants.
If basic anatomy doesn’t convince you, look at other cultures across the world. In many societies, breasts are not heavily sexualized and women go topless quite often, breastfeeding or not.
Besides, American men have had the right to go topless since the mid-1930s, according to GoTopless.org. That’s right, they had the first #freethenipple movement, mass protests and all. One protest in Atlantic City, N.J., even inspired city leaders to say, “We will have no gorillas on our beach!”
Much of Western cultures’ mass sexualization of breasts comes from patriarchal norms of controlling women’s bodies out of “respectability.” This is a teaser to a whole other article.
Eventually, businesses started thinking, “Wow, look at that perfect mix of glandular and fatty tissues—we gotta capitalize on that.”
There’s a big difference between a woman choosing to go topless and a company using breasts as a focus point so you want to buy the vodka bottle between them. The latter separates women into parts for certain uses while the former is an autonomous choice in which women represent themselves as a whole person.
Look, there was once a time when people would wreck their cars over seeing women’s knees. Taboo things become normal once society lets people get used to them. I also believe you can find someone’s features attractive without seeing them in a constantly sexualized gaze, especially to the extent that you restrict their personal freedom based on gender.
Whether a woman goes topless while sunbathing, wears a burqa for religious reasons or anything in between, she deserves to have a fair choice and be respected for it—like any man would in the same situation.
