Why Are Bare Breasts Seen As "Inappropriate"?

Socio-political and sexual repression preys on all women folk across the world. Women have always felt that they are not even allowed by society to exercise agency over their bodies, let alone express their sexual feelings or even enjoy sex in many contexts. UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has banned an ad campaign for Adidas’ sports bra, featuring bare breasts.

First released in February, the ad’s promotional material included a tweet, along with two posters and a grid of cropped photographs showing the breasts of several women, belonging to all races, shapes, sizes and skin colours. “We believe women’s breasts in all shapes and sizes deserve support and comfort,” said the caption of the tweet. “Which is why our new sports bra range contains 43 styles, so everyone can find the right fit for them,” it further added.

Adidas Bare Breast Ad Ban

UK’s media watchdog, also known as the ASA, held that it received a total of 24 complaints as some people thought that the ad objectified women while others felt that nudity was unwarranted, offensive and inappropriate. Now what drives sexualisation of women? Although the mechanism underlying this uncalled activity is unclear, it is evident that that society’s misogynist minds views women solely as instruments to gratify sexual goals.

If this does not perpetrate objectification, it is unrealistic to figure out what else does. According to the 2019 findings by the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, women have become so exposed to objectification and sexualisation that it is hard and takes a lot of vigilance for them not to be objectified. The double standards and blatantly misogynist reactions to the ad only supports this truth.

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Those who objectify women view them as less deserving of respectable treatment by others. Although some women are objectified more than others, the male gaze is equally petrifying for all women. Women who appear sexualised, “more tightly-fitted”, “revealing” or “wearing provocative clothing”, “applying more cosmetics”, find themselves as susceptible to sexualisation as a woman whom society deems “pious” because she is fully clothed.

A study published by the Women’s Studies International Forum, a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Netherlands-based academic publishing company, Elsevier, and with Kalwant Bhopal as its editor-in-chief, examines the decade-old sexual and socio-political repression of the women in Spain. Another study conducted by the Review Of General Psychology, the 1997-established quarterly scientific journal of the American Psychological Association Division (APA) points out the double standards of sexual morality. It says that patriarchal agents have always condemned a woman’s choice of what she would wear while allowing men to wear anything, or nothing at all.

It is also weirdly true that men and women do not objectify women equally and may not do so for the same reasons and the same ways. It is disappointing that appearance, especially outward appearance influences all social judgements and biases, including prefixed and preconceived personality traits. In addition, her external appearance, what clothes she chooses to wear, the men she meets in a day - sadly all of this become the yardstick of her professional success. For society, a woman who is conventionally beautiful, with Caucasian features and body type, can only be fit to be indulging in romance and the irony is, if she is free to choose her partner for the “romance,” she automatically becomes “immoral.”

Through the active and passive consumption of multimedia, as well as daily interpersonal interactions at personal spaces and at work, women frequently face sexual objectification. No wonder then, that women internalise the societal perspective of the “female” body in how they view themselves physically. This leads to shame, anxiety and depression - a constant state of self-monitoring, a state of self-consciousness is directly proportional to poor mental health, including disordered eating habits. The “literature” of patriarchy, indeed makes it very clear that constant sexual objectification of women leads them to internalise society’s perpetual scrutiny. This is exactly the reason why it feels like a threat to any woman even on receiving a compliment from a man.

Views expressed by the author are their own.