Women can now swim topless in swimming pools in Berlin, Germany.
News outlets around the world widely reported on this development in one city in Germany, probably because a story about topless women was likely to yield lots and lots of clicks.
Admittedly, it’s a good and important reform. It’s utterly ridiculous and stupidly Puritanical to allow someone like me to walk through the world topless with near impunity while a woman cannot.
How infantile and silly can we be?
But this new law in Berlin is hardly groundbreaking. Most people don’t know it, but women have legally been allowed to be publicly topless in New York City since 1992. Few women choose this option, but if you’re in Times Square on a busy day, you’ll likely see topless women on the street, oftentimes with their breasts painted. And women have successfully sued the city when an uninformed (or perhaps prudish) police officer arrests them for public nudity.
But women can feel free to shop in Brooklyn, stroll through the Bronx, or relax on a bench in Central Park, completely and legally topless
As it should be.
Other injustices certainly deserve our attention, and many admittedly have far greater deleterious effects on people, but every injustice is worthy of our attention, particularly when they set unequal limits on any segment of society.
Particularly those involving needless, childish, prudish inequalities.
