is this really something I need to warn you about?
Are they really that obscene? The answer is no... or at least is should be. Women's nipples are strikingly similar to (and almost exactly the same as) male's. But a woman's nipple is "obscene" while a man's is completely acceptable. This double standard allows women to be objectified, and treated unequal to men.
Why do I have to wear a shirt but my male peers do not?
This is not something I would have typically think about because it is a norm that is completely ingrained into our culture. However, it is a question that has striked me as the "Free the Nipple Campaign" has become relevant in feminist culture and society. So...why should a man be allowed to run shirtless around the neighborhood, but a mother is asked to leave a public area and judged by those around her for breast feeding her child?
As a young girl going shirtless is a natural and logical occurrence when the weather is warmer and you are outside. However, as young girls grow older they are judges, penalized, and criticised for not wearing a shirt. When in a young girls life does it become unacceptable to show your chest, to be confident in you body, and when do women become objectified?
Countless mammals, both male and female, possess nipple. This includes human males. The difference between and human male and female's nipples are the amount of fat surrounding it and the ability to lactate. The nipple itself appears the same. So, why is a woman's censored and a man's not?
The censorship of women's bodies and not men's shows the power men hold over women in all aspects of life, including a person's own body. Historically, men have had more power, and while women are emerging as leaders, men's abilities to objectify women and dictate what is allowed to be shown and what isn't is a way that they continue controlling woman.
It has created a culture in which if a woman shows her nipples, she is asking for sexual advances. Woman can be "asking for it" simply by being comfortable in her own body. This can cause some woman to feel uncomfortable in their own body.
In actuality, the use of nipples as a means of feeding infants should make a female's nipples less sexualized than a males. After all they are there for a greater purpose whereas men's serve no purpose other than being an erogenous zone ("an area of the human body that has heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may generate a sexual response" (Wikipedia))
The censorship of women's nipples is a double standard that gives men permission to objectify woman and gives men more power; it is inherently unfair.
Why should a women's nipple be "obscene" and get someone arrested while men are free to forget their shirts?
There is no reason. None. I urge you to come up with some in the comments so that I can show you just how stupid those reasons are.
The "Free the Nipple Campaign" urges women to, as it openly says, free their nipples, to go out in public without a shirt or bra, to breast feed in public. By not allowing female nipples to be censored, we are fighting for equality, for the desexualization of a part of the body that all humans have. Female nipples were not meant to be hidden away, but to provide nourishment to infants. If anything should be censored it should be the useless male nipples. But instead, how about we "free the nipple" for everyone.
So next time you judge a woman (including yourself) for not wearing a bra or showing their nipples in another way... as yourself
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