The first time I didn’t wear a bra in public, it was by accident.

One afternoon, I came home from high school, took off my bra, and laid down in my bed for a quick power nap. I was awoken an hour later by a phone call from my best friend, who was in my driveway picking me up for color guard practice. Shocked to have overslept, I leapt out of bed and rushed to get out the door as quickly as possible. It wasn’t until we arrived at the field that I realized: oh my god, I forgot to put my bra back on.

I was mortified, and felt extremely uncomfortable for the entire practice. The awareness that my breasts were unsupported by a bra made me hyper self-conscious, and I did everything I could to make sure no one could tell. The thought of anyone seeing my nipples through my flimsy shirt made me very uncomfortable.

Despite this experience, I am now known among my girl friends in college as the one who hates wearing bras the most. As soon as I get back to my dorm room after class, the first thing I do is take my bra off. My roommate made the comment: “wow, you hate wearing bras more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

And it’s absolutely true. Bras are very uncomfortable, even the high-quality Victoria’s Secret ones. The underwire presses up against you all day, and can sometimes poke through the fabric and stab you in the side. The cups of the bra shift and move, forcing you to frequently readjust. And forget about laying down while you’re wearing a bra.

But I’m preaching to the choir here. There is no reason for me to tell girls how uncomfortable bras are. We all know.

So why do we wear them? Because our patriarchal society tells us to.

Society expects women, when they reach puberty, to begin wearing bras, and to wear them for the rest of our lives, with the exception of wearing a bathing suit top instead. And all a bathing suit top is is a bra that goes in the water.

Aside from the support that bras offer to large-breasted women, I think the main purpose of a bra is to cover the female nipples, which receive a lot of cultural hate. Women who use their nipples to breastfeed their babies in public continue to be shamed. As for any female celebrity who happens to suffer the dreaded “nip slip” in front of paparazzi, the media will never let it go.

We all know that breastfeeding is the purpose of the female nipple, yet we can provide no answer as to what the purpose of the identical male nipple is. Aside from this, what is the difference between a female and male nipple? I can’t seem to find a difference in terms of appearance of the nipple itself, not the breast on which it exists. Yet, when a man’s nipples can be seen through his shirt, no one bats an eye. But if a woman’s nipples can be seen through her shirt, everyone loses their minds.

Bras protect the female nipples from visibility, so that when a woman puts a shirt on over her bra, no one can see her nipples. If a woman were not to wear a bra, however, the most striking difference would be, perhaps, at the right angle, a tiny little lump that is the nipple.

This makes us, as a society, notably uncomfortable. If we see a woman’s nipples poking through her shirt in public, we feel uncomfortable, for ourselves and for her. This is because, for some reason, society has decided that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Who is it to decide what women (and men) should and shouldn’t wear in public? It isn’t up to society. It is up to the individual.

The female nipple is a functional body part used to breastfeed babies, and society has sexualized the nipple to the point where a woman swimming in the ocean whose bathing suit top slips a bit to expose her nipple is undeniably embarrassed. Having the waves pull down your bathing suit top is a scarring experience that women remember for the rest of their lives.

Meanwhile, men go shirtless all summer, especially at the beach. Public exposure of the male nipple is so societally accepted, and expected even, that the man who wears a shirt while swimming may raise some eyebrows.

So why is it, with the exception of the occasional nude beach, men can freely expose their nipples while women are forced to cover up by societal norms and the law? Any woman who dared to go topless on a non-nude beach would no doubt cause an uproar. It is more than just double standards at work here.

Why is society so scared of the female breast and nipple? Why does such a stigma exist?

As a female, the prospect of going out into a public place topless immediately makes me feel anxious. But then I ask myself, why? And I know the answer: because society tells me to. Thus, the Free the Nipple movement was born. These feminists have taken a public stand against the heavily-instituted cultural norm that forces women to keep their nipples concealed, even while breastfeeding. Men, on the other hand, are free to do the exact opposite.

Us women “naturally” feel the need to cover our nipples and prevent their exposure, which, if we fail, subjects us to extreme embarrassment and ridicule. The reason behind this is because society has so deeply rooted in us women to be ashamed of our bodies. Society forces women to restrict our bodies in ways that men do not have to do. This is not simply double standards; this is institutionalized sexism, by which society assures men superiority while systematically oppressing women.

I think it is accurate to say that most of us women would not feel comfortable going topless in public, nor at a nude beach. But why is it that in some of the more primitive tribal societies of Africa, both men and women of the tribe go topless on a daily basis, and it is completely normal to them? This is not only because the tribal society has not sexualized the female breast and nipple, but also because the tribal society hasn’t body-shamed the women into covering themselves. These women are just as free to be shirtless as their male counterparts.

There are other more primitive societies in different areas of Africa where women’s breasts are sexualized and oppressed in much harsher ways than in America. In some of these more oppressive African societies, females who reach puberty endure mutilation of their genitalia and painfully tight wrapping or ironing down of the breasts in order to prevent the female from being raped. By ridding the developing female of her growing breasts, the society holds, she becomes physically unattractive to men, including any potential rapists who are aroused by her body. By decreasing her bodily sexuality, the society believes, she is protected from future harm by men. Is something similar at work here in America?

In America, a woman in private, at home with her husband, will expose her breasts in a sexual situation, and will be considered sexy. Her husband may feel as though he owns her body, and he is the only one entitled to see her exposed breasts. Because of this, a woman seen topless in a crowded public place would not be seen as sexy or attractive, but as deviant; she would stick out very badly and may even be persecuted by police due to laws against indecent exposure.

My theory is that we have been trained by society to see women’s breasts and to reveal our own breasts, as women, in private only in order to perpetuate male domination over females. If women’s breasts are only attractive or valuable in private with her lover, she will not want to expose her breasts in a public setting to a larger audience. She knows that she will not be considered attractive if she were to do such a thing.

By training women this way, women are held down to their lover only, and are less likely to be approached by competing male suitors. If a woman is always covered up except for when she is in bed with her lover, the male lover wins in that he is the only one who sees her naked body.

So what if the stigma surrounding the female breasts was eradicated? What if the female breast and nipple were no longer sexualized, making women equal to men in terms of going topless and people not being bothered by it. While it is perfectly normal for a man to remove his shirt on a hot summer day, a woman who did the same would raise eyebrows and, if she were not wearing a bra underneath, would cause a huge scene due to the way people would react.

This is the way it is. But it doesn’t have to be this way. What would it look like if this powerful double standard were eliminated? The process wouldn’t be easy, and it wouldn’t be quick either. What would it take to upheave this oppressive cultural norm and move closer towards equality of the sexes (also known as feminism)?

Would you stop wearing bras in order to let your nipples show through your shirt? Would you go topless in public to break down the cultural norm prohibiting it?

Do you have what it takes to #FreeTheNipple? How far will you go for equality?

http://freethenipple.com/