– The daily mirror, Berlin –
The female body and what we should see of it are once again debated. This time, it’s not about the hair or the veil, but about the chest and the bra or swimsuit top. These debates have similar structures.
Topless debate started last summer in swimming pools [allemandes] : women, who can generally get a tan there without the top, should they also be able to bathe there in the same device – which often went against the regulations?
It all started in 2021 in a water park in [quartier de] Treptow-Köpenick, in Berlin: a woman, who is there with her partner and her child, wants to get a topless tan. The guards intervene and tell him that it is forbidden. The woman protests and declares – and she is not the only one – that it is sexism; no one complained about his friend, who is also shirtless. She demands equality for all torsos.
The very clear positions that confront each other are comparable to those that we heard in the debate on the wearing of the veil. The veil is the oppression of Muslim women and bare breasts a must on the path to gender equality. These are cookie-cutter categorizations that leave little room for nuance.
A “secondary sexual characteristic”
Admittedly, a certain radicalism is always refreshing and it takes some to get things moving. However, not everyone may agree that the female torso is the same as the male – even among feminists.
It is generally still considered a “secondary sexual characteristic”. It is therefore not the same thing as the leg, for example, whose sexual role is not defined by biology but by culture. And those who think it’s up to the woman to decide the length of her dresses are far from all in favor of them baring their breasts in public.
It is a question of nuances and these are all the more important as Western societies are increasingly diverse. Plus the opinions, moods, feelings and perspectives that must coexist