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Women's topless court victory 20 years later
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CBC News- When university student Gwen Jacob removed her top to cool off on a sweltering summer day in July 1991, she unwittingly spearheaded a movement to give all women in Ontario the legal right to expose their breasts — though most still choose not to.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of Jacob being charged with committing an indecent act in Guelph, Ont., after walking home with her top off in 33 C weather.
Police had acted on a complaint from a mother who was concerned after her young children had seen Jacobs walking topless.
At the time, the 19-year-old Jacob said she got the idea to take off her top after watching a group of shirtless men playing sports. By removing her top, she drew attention to the double-standard in law that deemed it acceptable for men, but not women, to go bare-chested.
"There were men [who were topless] walking right past the officers who arrested me and they didn't do anything about them," Jacob told CBC News in an interview in 1991. "But being a woman and having slightly different-shaped breasts, I was arrested for it."
CBC News was unable to reach Jacob for an interview Tuesday.
She recently spoke about the impetus for her actions 20 years ago on a podcast for The Naturist Living Show.
"I spearheaded this movement. I didn't really mean to start a movement. I was just trying to a catch a breeze. I was 19 years old. Today, I may take my shirt off occasionally, but it's not something like, 'OK, we can, so let's all do [it]' … I didn't care what was done in the past, this was the way we were going in the future."
Despite the court victory, most women, like some on the University of Toronto campus who spoke to CBC News, don't choose to go topless even in hot weather.
Donna Moss said there are still taboos around women walking around bare-chested.
"I think it's not seen as appropriate, like as appropriate as when guys do it. It's a social thing," Moss said. "There are cultures where it's OK to do that, it's perfectly fine. I actually don't see any problem with it in and of itself."
Adrienne Batke said she'd never go topless.
"No, because of the interpretation of the behaviour. It's still deviant, right?" Batke said. "If you are going to make something legal, that's one thing, but the culture has to change around it."
The fact that women still don't choose to go topless is not the point, said Judy Williams, with the Vancouver-based Top-free Equal Rights Association, a grassroots group started in the wake of Jacob's legal battle.
"The whole point is we have the right to divest ourselves of our tops.… It's not a moral issue. It's a civil rights issue," said Williams. "If a woman is hot and wants to enjoy the sun all over, why is it that she can't, while a man, who may have larger mammary glands, can?"
Williams, a retired teacher, said she occasionally goes topless "and no one blinks an eye" in Vancouver, where the practice has also been accepted after a court fight.
"Canada needs to grow up like our European brethren. There are enough oppressive laws and social mores that restrict our freedoms," she said.
While Jacob's court case did open the door for women to breastfeed in public, little else has changed since that sweltering day in July when she went topless to get relief from the heat, said Judy Rebick. She was president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada's largest women's group, at the time Jacob went to court.
"In 20 years I don't think I've ever seen a woman topless on the street," Rebick said. "Women don't walk around topless because they get hassled, they get harassed if they do. People stare at them. It's cultural, something about North America and the Puritan history."
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