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Naturism
is especially consistent with feminism and the struggle for
women's freedom
78.
The repression of healthy nudity, especially for females, has been
one of the chief means of mind and destiny control by the
patriarchy. Breaking this pattern shatters the invisible bonds of
an inherited sex role.
79.
Limitations on women's nudity, an acceptance of pornography, and
demanding fashion requirements may, individually, seem like minor
issues. Taken as a whole, however, they form a pattern of
repressive male-oriented expectations.
Marilyn Frye explains: "Consider a birdcage. If you look very
closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other
wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by
this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down
the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not just
fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere.
. . . There is no physical property of any one wire,
nothing that the closest scrutiny could rediscover, that will
reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the
most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking
at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic
view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go
anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. It will require no
great subtlety of mental powers. It is perfectly obvious that the
bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related
barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its
flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as
confining as the solid walls of a dungeon."
80.
Topfree inequality (requiring women, but not men, to wear tops) is
demeaning and discriminatory toward women, and reinforces patterns
of male domination over women.
In our culture, breasts may be exposed to sell drinks to men in
bars, but women may not be topfree on a beach for their own
comfort and pleasure. Reena Glazer writes: "The
criminalization of women baring their breasts, therefore,
indicates that society views women's bodies as immoral and
something to hide. There is something potentially criminal about
every woman just by virtue of being female."
Herald Price Fahringer writes, "men have the right to cover
or expose their chests as they see fit-women do not. Men have
the right to enjoy the sun, water, and wind without a top; women
do not. Few men would be willing to give up this right. Then why
shouldn't women enjoy the same advantage? . . .
Requiring women to cover their breasts in public is a highly
visible expression of inequality between men and women that
promotes an attitude that demeans women and damages their sense of
equality. . . . For centuries, men have held the power
to generate these misconceptions. The male view on the exposure of
a woman's breasts is crucially influenced by the need of men to
define women. . . . This reaction stems from a masculine
ideology that has . . . doomed generations of women to a
secondary status."
Raymond Grueneich writes: "So what is really at stake is
whether women will be free to bare their own breasts in
appropriate public places for their own personal purposes on these
occasions in which they feel free to do so, or whether they will
only be allowed to bare their breasts in public on an occasion
that can be exploited commercially and that reinforces the idea
that the sole function of the female breast is for the
satisfaction of male fantasy. It is as though it is a crime for a
woman to be undressed in public, unless she was undressed in the
service of a corporation or a commercial entrepreneur."
81.
Laws banning exposure of female breasts do so in part because of
the reaction such exposure would supposedly cause in men. Such
laws are written entirely from the male point of view, and ignore
the point of view of women, who may want to go topfree for their
own comfort.
82.
By refusing to accept the need to "protect" themselves
from men by covering their bodies, women gain power, and shift the
burden of responsible behavior to men, where it rightfully
belongs.
Reena Glazer notes that "male power is perpetuated by
regarding women as objects that men act and react to rather than
as actors themselves. . . . their entire worth is
derived from the reaction they can induce from men. In order to
maintain the patriarchal system, men must determine when and where
this arousal is allowed to take place. In this way, the
(heterosexual) male myth of a woman's breasts has been codified
into law. Because women are the sexual objects and property of
men, it follows that what might arouse men can only be displayed
when men want to be aroused." This emphasis on women as
temptresses "shifts the burden of responsibility from men to
women; because women provoke uncontrollable urges in males,
society excuses male behavior and blames the victim for whatever
happens. . . . To sanction the concept that men have
uncontrollable urges implies that violence against women is
inevitable."
83.
Patriarchal laws strip women of the right to control their own
bodies, but there have always been "exceptions" to
obscenity laws which permit the use of women's bodies in consumer
seduction. Thus female nudity is considered inappropriate on the
beach, but is ubiquitous in advertising and pornography.
84.
By enforcing arbitrary clothing requirements for women (requiring
them to cover their tops), the government acts in loco parentis,
in the role of a parent. This is demeaning to women. Like
children, they aren't conceded the ability or right to decide how
to dress, much as they formerly weren't allowed to vote, own
property, or exercise other rights.
85.
The repression of healthy female nudity fuels pornography.
Herbert Muschamp observes: "To object to the nude figure in a
general interest magazine while allowing it to remain in men's
skin magazines is one way of keeping women in their place."
86.
Pornography, in turn, limits women's ability to participate in
healthy nude recreation, and to be casually nude in other ways.
Naturism breaks the power of pornography over women.
As mentioned earlier, in many places it is legal to display
Penthouse on drug-store magazine racks, yet it is illegal for a
woman to publicly bare her breasts to feed an infant.
Pornography seeks "freedom," particularly "freedom
of expression." But an acceptance of pornography restricts
women's capacity to go topfree or nude for their own enjoyment. It
limits the freedom to control their own bodies, and silences their
own freedom of self-expression. Our pornographic culture has
contributed to attitudes which often discourage women from even
trying clothing-optional recreation, even though Naturism is in
many ways the antithesis of pornography.
87.
The fight for freedom should mean civil rights for women-not
license for pornographers.
88.
Clothing fashions and legal requirements have historically
contributed to the repression of women.
For example, in the mid-nineteenth century, a tiny waist was
considered a sign of beauty, and, in order to achieve this
standard, women bound themselves into corsets designed to
constrict the stomach (and other internal organs) inward and
upward, creating the appearance of a tiny middle. In addition,
women wore up to fifteen layers of petticoats and crinolines under
their floor-length skirts. In the latter half of the century the
wire hoop and spring-like bustle were also added for the
appearance of fullness. The weight of this assemblage came close
to 20 pounds. We now know that many of the physical
characteristics associated with the "frail sex" resulted
from such restrictive clothing, including "bird-like"
appetites, a tendency to fainting spells, and reduced physical
activity. Thorstein Veblen has observed that "the corset is
in economic theory substantially [an instrument of] mutilation for
the purpose of lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her
personally and obviously unfit for work." A variety of
respiratory and reproductive ailments (including frequent
miscarriages) from which women once suffered have been directly
linked to the unhealthy dictates of the "hourglass"
fashion. Many of the associations of female frailty which have
their roots in the nineteenth century remain with us today, though
they are now unsubstantiated.
Corsets and, in modern times, cosmetic breast surgery also damage
the internal physiology of the breasts, often eliminating the
capacity to breast-feed.
89.
Naturism defies relationships based on a balance of power, and is
thus consistent with contemporary feminism, which seeks to break
down power hierarchies.
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