BY: Peter Worthington
torontosun.com
As far as protests go, the Go Topless one in Toronto last Sunday was in character for the sort of stories that take root in midsummer.
One of the co-ordinators for the Go Topless gesture that had some eyes popping in Toronto was Diane Brisebois. And she is perfectly correct when she says society tends to discriminate by shrugging when men go topless in public, and getting flustered and indignant when women do the same thing.
One wonders if she and others who indulge in this sort of protest would feel the same if they thought the topless protest was organized by a local motorcycle gang, or by the local boys-will-be-boys club.
The main beneficiaries of the Go Topless protest were gawkers, and the sort of spectators who attend Gay Pride parades as voyeurs for the spectacle.
In essence, the whole thing was harmless, and maybe kind of fun.
Dating back to Gwen Jacobs being charged for walking topless on the streets of Guelph in 1991, and being acquitted in 1996, women insisting on displaying themselves this way are more a curiosity than cause celebre.
Of course, Brisebois and fellow protesters are right — if guys can go shirtless in the sun on hot days, why not women too? On Sunday she advocated wearing angel wings to keep men respectful towards topless protesters. Oh? That works? Good to know.
Sometimes neither topless men nor topless women are an esthetic sight. Sometimes just the opposite. Maybe people have a right not be confronted by unwanted sights.
But being unappealing to the eye is not illegal, and no reason to discriminate against one gender in favour of the other. At baseball games, when a bunch of beer guzzlers off with their shirts and bare their chests and (often) large tummies to TV cameras, it’s not that stimulating to see.
But the participants seem exorbitantly pleased at their audacity.
Perhaps women who protest by going topless get a kick out of being bold and daring? Maybe they feel being stared at is an achievement? And I guess it is, if that’s what you consider important.
I do know that some animal rights movements (PETA, for example), feel it’s worthwhile to protest for better treatment to animals by removing their shirts and going topless.
How such gestures help Fido or other animals is a bit obscure, but it certainly catches the attention of the media. Presumably that’s the idea.
A while back a couple of women in Ukraine were protesting something by standing topless on top of a police van and chanting and waving posters. The only ones upset were the cops, who dragged them off the van and put them inside the paddy wagon.
In all such cases, the cops are the ones who must feel awkward. They don’t know where to look, don’t want to be caught looking, or manhandling the wrong parts, and are just doing their duty.
But no one really cares in today’s progressive society.
Social mores dictate that modesty should be shown, and as styles change, so do attitudes. I assume most women are horrified by the Go Topless fad, but then what do I know?
Still, it indicates a pretty secure and contented society when the big issue of the moment is whether women should have the right to stroll the streets topless. Certainly takes one’s mind off Libya and Afghanistan