The challenge is simple: if men can swim in pools without covering their chests, why not?Why sexualize female bodies?
It’s a controversy that has plagued many German local governments, especially after the central German city of Goettingen last year allowed swimmers of all genders to enter public pools shirtless on weekends.
With this decision, “the city has become a pioneer in the country when it comes to the debate on the equivalent remedy between the sexes,” writes L’Essentiel, “by allowing women to show their shirtlessness in aquatic recreational institutions such as swimming pools. “
After some recent court cases filed by women who were not allowed to enter public “oben-ohne” (topless) pools, the City of Freedom government that women, like men, deserve to be allowed to swim and sunbathe topless in pools if they want. The rule applies to indoor and outdoor pools, beaches and parks.
“After a successful discrimination complaint, bathing institutions in Berlin will long-term apply their home and bathroom regulations in a gender-equitable manner,” the Berlin state government said.
In this way, it makes it clear that the new resolution is only about topless swimming, but about justice, diversity and non-discrimination.
It’s not that topless swimming is expressly or legally banned in Berlin, but it hasn’t been blatantly accepted either.
As explained in The Local Germany, “despite some popular ideals around Germany’s relaxed attitude toward nudity, it can still lead to a confusing mess as to what the regulations governing nudity entail. “
For the Directorate of Justice, Diversity and Fight against Discrimination of the Senate, “the internal and beach regulations of bathing institutions do imply specific gender requirements and only prescribe the use of “commercial swimsuits”.
Pool regulations in Berlin state that swimmers will be required to wear “standard suits” such as suits, swimsuits, bikini, suit and burkini.
Doris Liebscher, head of the ombudsman’s workplace at the State Office for Equal Treatment, applauded the new regulation, adding that “the resolution creates equal rights for all Berliners, whether male, female or non-binary, and also creates legal certainty for those who bathe. “Establishments
Following a successful discrimination complaint, Berlin’s swimming pools will change their bathing rules in a gender-equitable manner.
“Female breasts, like Adam’s hair and apples, are a secondary sexual characteristic. Why not treat them the same way? CNN commentator Holly Thomas asks. “Those who are allowed to show their bare breasts, and if everyone has the same freedom to do so, they continue to haunt us. The problem, it seems, is how we technify nudity in the first place.
And this concept is addressed culturally, socially and politically in other countries and even regions. For example, in a case known as “Free the Nipple” (@freethenipple), the U. S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from 3 women fined through a New Hampshire town for exposing their breasts in public.
They argued that banning female but male topless violates the U. S. Constitution.
For all bodies to be equal, the argument goes, we will have to treat them that way.
In his column, Thomas asks, “But what if breasts weren’t the challenge and therefore not the challenge that needs a cure?The solution, as the city of Berlin has so well demonstrated, would be simple. For all bodies to be equal, we will have to treat them like this.
Berlin’s decision, which, as was the case in Göttingen, has gained abundant national and foreign attention and should be noted in the context of the German Freikörperkultur – “the culture of the loose body:” a tolerance and, in some cases, a penchant for “loose textiles. “
This is also a component of the discussion on gender equality. “If men are allowed to do anything and women are not, it’s not just unfair, it’s sexist,” Lotte Mies, who filed one of the court cases with Berlin’s Equal Treatment Commission. The office that introduced the new regulation, told Berliner. Zeitung. “After all, I don’t intend to go topless to restaurants or movie theaters, but neither should men go topless. “