Bara Bröst - Bare Breasts

When I first heard the story about Bara Bröst, it made me smile and then I quickly moved on. I assumed it was a one-off stunt by a some feisty Swedes. How wrong was I?
It all started when two female students took a dip in their local public swimming pool topless. They were asked to either put their tops on or leave. A bit pissed off about it, they started voicing their frustration about the fact that men are allowed to swim bare chested but women aren't allowed to swim topless.

Bare Breast is an actual group and they are fighting hard to make bare breasts accepted in all areas where men are allowed to be topless.

Now before you start thinking that's it's a waste of time and there are bigger issues to be concerned about, take a look at their manifesto:

We demand:
- That women should be allowed to be topless in situations where it is accepted for men to be topless.
- That the breast should not be considered to be a part of the female genitalia.
- That the gender discriminating rules at the swimming pools are removed.
- That the norms that discriminates against women are worked with in schools and at workplaces and so on.
- That the politicians take their responsibility and act in this question.

Our goals:
A gender equal society where
- it is socially accepted for women to be topless in situations when it is accepted for men to do so.
- male and female bodies get an equal amount of space and on the same conditions.
- female bodies are not sexualized.
- no one has to feel like an object.
- women are not being discriminated against.

Inger Grotteblad, spokesperson for the leisure centre where the women were thrown out for swimming toplesss, had this to say: "There are three reasons for this. First, there is a security aspect, then there is a hygiene issue and finally there is what we call 'prevailing manners and customs'. It is above all this last point which is important here,"

First of all, security and hygiene are not really issues. Are they afraid that men are going to go wild at the sight of bare breasts and start molesting women left and right? And last time I checked, breasts weren't unhygienic. If they are, I don't think the few millimetres of 'protection' that most bikinis deliver are going to be keeping away all the nasty booby cooties from other people in the pool. Secondly, 'prevailing manners and customs' - of course that is where the real discussion starts. Breast are considered part of women's genitalia and unfortunately are deemed to sexual and too inappropriate to be exposed in most social situations (although I'm sure the News of the World and Stephen Gough would disagree with that).

But these Bara Brost women are on to something and they are not the first. In many places it is sexual discrimination to ask women to cover up their top half when men are allowed go bare chested. Canada, in a high court decision in 1996, made it clear that it was no indecent for men and women to go topless. In the UK, nudity is legal, but that doesn't mean all those flashers are just expressing their rights. Nudity is acceptable but sexual behaviour or activity that causes distress because of one's nudity is not.Of course, that's the crux of the problem - what one person finds natural and normal is another person's sexual fantasy, at least when it comes to women. Whether or not women find their breast sexual isn't up to them. It's been decided for them and declared from on high that all breasts must be hidden and covered.

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