Please disregard this part:
“The following is unfuckingbelievable… (up to I couldn’t figure out if my colleagues were just plain incompetent or deliberately malicious.”

The following is unfuckingbelievable:
“Is asking him for the time or for directions a crime?… No.”

Asking for the time is NOT the same as staring at someone’s tits, you stupid morons!!!

You need brain transplants – or you are just being assholes for trying to sneak this under the radar. Your disingenuousness is a little too obvious.

This reminds me of when I was being sabotaged at work after a sexual harassment complaint: I couldn’t figure out if my colleagues were just plain incompetent or deliberately malicious.

In meantime, on the subject of what we wear – or, in my case, don’t – here’s a post I made this summer:

It’s been 12 years since women won the right to go topless in Ontario, thanks to the Gwen Jacob decision of 1996. You’d never know it even happened.

It was hot out the other day, so I took my shirt off at the Beaches: not exactly a black tie dinner at the Imperial Tea Room. The worst harassment I endured came from other women, though men joined in also.

My tits scared the hell out of the whole neighbourhood.

First, three teenage girls followed me for fifteen minutes yelling: “Put a shirt on!” Finally, I turned around and snapped: “Gwen Jacob. 1996. Supreme Court of Ontario. Look it up.” Another girl said: “You look like you’ve lost your shirt.” On Queen Street, an old man informed me there was “a sale on shirts across the road.” In both cases, I repeated my earlier mantra. After that, a trio of young boys muttered loudly at me to put a shirt on. I was getting protest fatigue. I ignored them.

One man offered moral support, opining that the hostile women were “jealous”. I’m 42, with grey hair, and weigh 170 pounds. The girls harassing me were young, slim and conventionally pretty. His argument echoed the stereotype that women are constantly poised to gouge each other’s eyes out competing for men’s attention.

I’m afraid the likelier explanation for the female hostility is something called “internalized imperialism”. The young women in question reacted as if they were men. They are conditioned to believe, just like their male counterparts, that only beautiful women must be allowed to disrobe – and then only for the enjoyment of men, not for their own comfort and wishes. It’s as if we have to go back in the Barbie box, where nobody wants to play with us anymore, should we live for anything other than male approval. Meanwhile, men can do whatever they want.

A recent survey says 56 per cent of American women are concerned about diet and weight, while only 23 per cent express the same degree of concern about cancer.

The vast majority (84 per cent) of women surveyed say they feel they are overweight, with four in 10 women reporting that they are more than 20 pounds too heavy. Now: while it’s true we have an obesity epidemic going on, it isn’t up to 84 per cent of the population. The math is wrong. Only half to two-thirds of the population is really overweight, and men more so than women. This means a good 20 percent or more of women are worried for nothing.

This isn’t to say we should never wish to be beautiful. It’s about beauty as a choice and a pleasure, rather than a constant obligation. I doubt Ariel Sharon ever worried much about his beer belly or double chin while negociating prisoner exchanges. Yet we have to wring our hands over our pantsuits.

I never applied for the job of being pretty. That isn’t what I was going for when catching a breeze. It isn’t what I do and I don’t care. I have zero interest in shouting out to the world that “my booty is spectacular,” as Unilever would have me do. I can’t picture Ariel Sharon, or even Stéphane Dion, doing this in a crowded theatre. Why should I?

You would think that if every old fat ugly guy has the right to walk around topless without anyone yelling at him to put a shirt on, so do I.

However right I feel I am, each time someone got hostile toward me and I responded in kind, my knees would feel like gelatin. I was shaking. It scared me to stand my ground. I did it anyway. It doesn’t happen often.

***

One feminist magazine has responded to my rant. The editor points out that freedom of expression means people are free to tell me what they think.

This raises a crucial issue: what, exactly, constitutes freedom, and what constitutes a limit upon it?

Social conservatives will argue that the only constraint on freedom which ought to be recognized as a concern is state oppression and injustice. Those more to the left of the spectrum will argue that non-state action can also be an important constraint; and that state failure to act can constitute a violation of rights, especially where there is unequal protection. Here’s an example: if a particular state does not prosecute the so-called “honour killing” of women with nearly the same vigour as other types of murder. This is discrimination and a violation of human rights – even if the killings are carried out by non-state actors.

A classic extreme example of this argument, ironically, is when men complain they “can’t say anything anymore” because of “those feminists.” And what do “those feminists” do to, apparently, take away the men in question’s freedom of speech? Why, they disagree with the men! They talk back! They even frown at them! I guess this is a job for Amnesty International. It’s like the men in question are expecting women to say something like: “I’m so sorry for oppressing you by not applauding enthusiastically enough at the way you kick me in the teeth.” And no one is calling them on it.

So: yes, freedom is, to a certain extent, a product of personal power. To what degree it may be hampered lies somewhere between receiving a frown, and the other extreme of state execution and torture.

There are things that men aren’t allowed to do that women are, and things men are allowed to do that women aren’t. This is not hatred of women. I agree with most of everything else on this and other feminist blogs, but the notion that men and women are not just equal but the same has always struck me as odd.

How about you explain to me why it’s necessary that every culture have gender-specific taboos and I’ll ask myself whether not wanting to see hairy dudes in school girl outfits means that I should give up on this whole notion of “patriarchy” and “equality”

But I admit that I do agree with these laws as they stand. Like it or not, believe it or not, accept it or not, every culture must have gender-specific taboos. It’s necessary. And these are ours. If you don’t like it, ask yourself if you’d like to see hairy dudes walking around in school girl outfits. If that image doesn’t make you reconsider your view that “women should be able to do anything men can do,” well, I suppose you’re just beyond help

That said, I totally agree – I can understand a man being shirtless in his backyard or while up on a roof – but as soon as he is going to set foot IN PUBLIC, the shirt should go on. It’s only civilized. Too bad so many men are not taught any manners.

And good point, Jessica. I’m in Austin, TX where it is perfectly legal for women (or any human) to walk around topless. They never do though, as I frequently point out to my friends. And I think we all know why. At the very least there would be a lot of oogling, but I think most of us fear the worst.

This is how the patriarchy operates: with the constant threat of violence.

As usual, you make well thought out and accurate points in a funny and cutting way. I just have one little nit-picky item to point out.

In my particular section of “the Bible Belt,” it is perfectly legal for people of either sex to work, walk around, or relax topless, or to remove certain parts of the top in use and expose certain body parts at any moment they damn well please. And I know this because where I live, they frequently do. You can not be arrested for a lack of bra.

(Exceptions include rules imposed in public pools, office buildings, etc)

Now, I am definitely not disputing the double standards and the underlying psychology at work here, I’m just pointing out that the rules that enforce them are social, not necessarily legal. That doesn’t make it right, or fair, or any less of an issue.

However, I’ve been fighting stereotypes all my life, both gender related and otherwise. I love your blog because you so brilliantly dispute evil little generalizations and lies about women. True, because I’m a woman I’m not dumber/weaker/a less valuable human being than men. Please don’t assume that I’m backwards/patriarchal/stupid because I’m from the South.