While I was in Canada some years back, courts deemed that it was legal in Ontario for women to go around topless if they wanted to, just as men could. This was a particularly big deal in the city of Guelph, where I was living at the time, because the woman at the centre of the case had committed her offence of “indecency” in Guelph, while she was at university there.

After the judgement came down, I wondered whether lots of women would begin to exercise their right to wander around town, carrying on with their regular business, with no tops on. I thought it would be kind of awesome if they did. But it didn’t happen. In the four years that I was in Canada, I did not see a single topless woman in a public place. Disappointing.

Anyway. Public female toplessness (or topfreedom) is also legal in New York, unless it takes place in a commercial context (see the text of the relevant court decision), and photographer Jordan Matter has taken a series of photos of women going topfree in New York City.

The informal and humorous nature of these images celebrates women without sexualizing or objectifying them, while creating the illusion of a tolerant world in which shirtless women go casually about their lives. Uncovered represents just one aspect of what America could look like if we were free of shame and liberated from moral judgment.

For more on topfreedom, see the webpage of the Ontario-based Topfree Equal Rights Association.

[via, in part, kottke]

1303 days ago