A U.S. federal court has ruled that women can now legally flash their boobs in public, halting an ordinance that prohibited the public baring of female breasts.
U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson granted an injunction last month, writing that the municipal ordinance discriminated against women and reinforced negative stereotypes.
Disclose.tv reports: The case was brought before the judge because of a specific law that had been passed back in the year 2015 in the township of Fort Collins, Colorado. That law determined that it was unacceptable for any woman to expose their breasts in public, aside from those breastfeeding newborns or any female under the age of 9.
After taking that law and the debate against it into heavy consideration, district judge R. Brooke Jackson determined that not only was such a law discriminatory against the female population, but that it cemented the idea that female breasts should be seen as sexual in nature, the exact mindset activist groups such as Free the Nipple have been fighting to oppose. Furthermore, Jackson ruled that the only real and measurable difference between male and female nipples is women having the ability to breastfeed a child and that such a detail should not be substantial enough to discriminate against one party.
Jackson wrote:
“I find that the ordinance discriminates against women based on the generalized notion that, regardless of a woman’s intent, the exposure of her breasts in public (or even in her private home if viewable by the public) is necessarily a sexualized act. Thus, it perpetuates a stereotype ingrained in our society that female breasts are primarily objects of sexual desire whereas male breasts are not,”
While the debate will no doubt rage on as it has for quite some time, and there are still hurdles to be cleared for true and unblemished equality, this no doubt represents a step in the right direction for females fighting for their rights.