Hopefully you were blissfully unaware that “GoTopless Day” happened this past weekend.
On the Sunday closest to Women’s Equality Day, thousands of women across the country annually gather and bare all from the waist up in a protest for “equal rights.” This year, demonstrations took place in Los Angeles, Venice Beach, New York City, D.C., Chicago and several other cities.
The events were coordinated by GoTopless, an organization founded in 2007 by a spiritual leader named Rael (who also advocates the role of aliens in founding world religions), and currently directed by President Nadine Gray. On its website, the group advocates for the “same constitutional right that men have to go bare-chested in public.”
According to lefty Jezebel, Gray stated that the push for “women to go topless in the 21st century is as strong as women wanting to vote in the 20th century.” She continued: “It may be sensual, but it’s not illegal to be sensual.”
Time writer Megan Lasher described the movement, writing: “It’s liberating, it’s radical, it’s the bra-burning feminism that challenges the way we think about bodies.”
Female participants agreed with the spin. Celebrating the day on the red carpets of the VMA music awards, pregnant Laura Perlongo wore an open bomber jacket with nothing underneath, exposing both her bust and belly.
Teen Nickii Raynor, interviewed by The New York Daily News declared: “I love being topless and it really bothers me that we can’t go topless without it being a big deal. Men go topless all the time and it’s so normalized.”
Maybe the fact that hundreds of male onlookers ogled at the women is a hint as to why our society maintains the norms it does.
