I recently wrote (disparagingly) about Muslim craziness with covering up women. Shortly after, I heard a radio discussion about public breast-feeding and, more generally, laws against “indecent exposure.” Some callers (all female) decried the “sexualizing” of women’s breasts, and argued that if men can go topless in public, so should women.
I consider myself a feminist. But some feminists seem to say women are not only equal to men, but the same as men. Thus they pilloried Harvard’s Lawrence Summers in 2005 for suggesting women’s under-representation in science and engineering might be partly due to innate brain differences. (Yet feminists celebrated a 1986 book, Women’s Ways of Knowing, that did argue women’s brains work differently. I guess it’s feminist when women say it but anti-feminist when men do.)
![Let Women Go Topless in Public? images](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/97/977092/let-women-go-topless-in-public-L-u_BKNi.jpeg)
But seriously: is “sexualizing” women’s breasts wrong? True, their headline function is feeding babies. But because breasts are thusly associated with female fecundity, evolution has made men sexually attracted to them. It’s a handy visual cue. This is why breasts are positioned front and center. Men whose genetic makeup attracts them to mate with persons having noticeable breasts would tend to leave more (and healthier) offspring than men indifferent to breasts (who might mate with the wrong thing altogether). Hence genes favoring breast attraction have spread.*
![Let Women Go Topless in Public? images-1](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/97/977092/let-women-go-topless-in-public-L-udivLx.jpeg)
Furthermore, in addition to their child-feeding role, during a small part of a woman’s life, breasts do have a sexual function too, for a much longer time – breasts are highly erogenous – for women themselves. (I speak from happy experience on this.)
![Let Women Go Topless in Public? Unknown-1](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/97/977092/let-women-go-topless-in-public-L-A8Pd1J.jpeg)
Yet these same women are the ones saying they should be allowed to go topless in public. Hey – if you object to men “sexualizing” your breasts, maybe going topless is the last thing you’d want to do.
![Let Women Go Topless in Public? images-2](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/97/977092/let-women-go-topless-in-public-L-x8N_7l.jpeg)
*But humans are complicated; acculturation is a factor too; and bigger is not always better.