Topless in Toronto: how my breasts terrorized the neighbourhood

It’s been 12 years since women won the right to go topless in Ontario, thanks to the Gwen Jacob decision of 1996. You’d never know it even happened.
It was hot out one day this summer, so I took my shirt off at the Beaches: not exactly a black tie dinner at the Imperial Tea Room. The worst harassment I endured came from other women, though men joined in also.
My tits scared the hell out of the whole neighbourhood.

First, three teenage girls followed me for fifteen minutes yelling: “Put a shirt on!” Finally, I turned around and snapped: “Gwen Jacob. 1996. Supreme Court of Ontario. Look it up.” Another girl said: “You look like you’ve lost your shirt.” On Queen Street, an old man informed me there was “a sale on shirts across the road.” In both cases, I repeated my earlier mantra. After that, a trio of young boys muttered loudly at me to put a shirt on. I was getting protest fatigue. I ignored them.
One man offered moral support, opining that the hostile women were “jealous”. I’m 42, with grey hair, and weigh 170 pounds. The girls harassing me were young, slim and conventionally pretty. His argument echoed the stereotype that women are constantly poised to gouge each other’s eyes out competing for men’s attention.
I’m afraid the likelier explanation for the female hostility is something called “internalized imperialism”. The young women in question reacted as if they were men. They are conditioned to believe, just like their male counterparts, that only beautiful women must be allowed to disrobe – and then only for the enjoyment of men. It’s as if we have to go back in the Barbie box, where nobody wants to play with us anymore, should we live for anything other than male approval. Meanwhile, men can do whatever they want.
A recent survey says 56 per cent of American women are concerned about diet and weight, while only 23 per cent express the same degree of concern about cancer.
I never applied for the job of being pretty. That isn’t what I was going for when catching a breeze. It isn’t what I do and I don’t care. I have zero interest in shouting out to the world that “my booty is spectacular,” as Unilever would have me do. I can’t picture Ariel Sharon, or even Stéphane Dion, doing this in a crowded theatre. Why should I?
You would think that if every old fat ugly guy has the right to walk around topless without anyone yelling at him to put a shirt on, so do I. This isn’t to say we should never wish to be beautiful. It’s about beauty as a choice and a pleasure, rather than a constant obligation.
However right I feel I am, each time someone got hostile toward me and I responded in kind, my knees would feel like gelatin. I was shaking. It scared me to stand my ground. I did it anyway. It doesn’t happen often.
Some will argue that, since freedom goes both ways, those people were free to express their opinion. Where is the line between harassment and freedom of speech?
Social conservatives argue that the only true constraint on freedom is state oppression. Others point out that non-state action and state failure to act can also violate human rights. Here’s an example: if a particular state does not prosecute the “honour killing” of women with the same vigour as other types of murder, this is discrimination and, therefore, a violation of human rights – even if the killings are carried out by non-state actors.
Often, men complain they “can’t say anything anymore” because of “those feminists.” And what do “those feminists” do to, apparently, take away men’s free speech? Why, they disagree with the men! They talk back! They even frown at them! Looks like a job for Amnesty International, no?
So: yes, freedom is, to a certain extent, a product of personal power. To what degree it may be hampered lies beyond receiving a frown, but far closer to this than the other extreme of state execution and torture.