Modern women have been socialized to believe that perky breasts are desirable. Laura Tempesta, bra expert and founder of bra manufacturer Bravolution, stated, "Lifted breasts are considered attractive in our culture which is why bra-wearing is a cultural development." Jennifer Maher, a gender studies professor at Indiana University, says wearing or not wearing a bra is no longer "a feminist tenet".
Feminist reaction During the 1960s, a few feminists embraced bralessness. However, most Western women continued to wear bras, despite complaining about how uncomfortable they were. which were among items the protesters called "instruments of female torture" and accouterments of what they perceived to be enforced
femininity. A local news story in the Atlantic City
Press reported that "the bras, girdles,
falsies, curlers, and copies of popular women's magazines burned in the 'Freedom Trash Can'". But individuals who were present said that no one burned a bra nor did anyone take off her bra. Reporter Lindsy Van Gelder drew an analogy between the feminist protesters and
Vietnam War protesters who
burned their draft cards, and this parallel between protesters burning their draft cards and women burning their bras was encouraged by some organizers including
Robin Morgan. "The media picked up on the bra part",
Carol Hanisch said later. "I often say that if they had called us 'girdle burners,' every woman in America would have run to join us." Feminism and "bra-burning" became linked in popular culture. While feminist women may or may not literally have burned their bras that day, some stopped wearing them in protest. Feminist author Bonnie J. Dow suggested that the association between feminism and bra-burning was encouraged by individuals who opposed the feminist movement. Some feminist activists believe that
anti-feminists use the bra burning myth and the subject of going braless to trivialize what the protesters were trying to accomplish at the feminist 1968 Miss America protest and the feminist movement in general. The
trope of feminists burning their bras was anticipated by an earlier generation of feminists who called for burning corsets as a step toward liberation. In 1873
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward wrote: Some feminists began arguing in the 1960s and 1970s that the bra was an example of how women's clothing shaped and even deformed women's bodies to male expectations. Professor
Lisa Jardine listened to feminist
Germaine Greer talk about bras during a formal college dinner in
Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1964 (Greer had become a member of the college faculty in 1962): Greer's book
The Female Eunuch (1970) became associated with the anti-bra movement because she pointed out how restrictive and uncomfortable a bra could be. "Bras are a ludicrous invention", she wrote, "but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression."
Susan Brownmiller in her book
Femininity (1984) took the position that women without bras shock and anger men because men "implicitly think that they own breasts and that only they should remove bras." In March, 2017, actress
Emma Watson was braless in a
Vanity Fair photo shoot. She was criticized by some who thought she was a hypocrite for supporting feminism and showing some skin. She responded, "Feminism is about giving women a choice; feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It's about freedom, it's about liberation, it's about equality. I really don't know what my tits have to do with it."
Impact on sales In 1970, bra and
girdle sales were about $900 million, down from $1 billion the prior year. But the reduction in sales was due to sharply lower girdle sales, which have been negatively affected by the increasing popularity of
panty-hose and
shorter skirts. Manufacturers designed and marketed products that appealed to consumers' personal pride. Themes included "Be Some Body with Formfit Rogers" and "Exquisite Form Loves Women in Full Flower". Bra sales increased sharply. But bra makers also noted the beginning of a trend in which women would rather not wear bras, especially when relaxing at home or in other informal surroundings. In 1966, during the height of the
hippie era in San Francisco, two women students at San Francisco State College protested a proposed law that would require women to wear bras by walking
topless near the campus. On August 1, 1969, an Anti-Bra Day was declared in San Francisco to protest societal pressure to wear constrictive, feminine garments. The protest drew large crowds, blocking traffic, and a few women took their bras off from under their clothing in the Financial District.
Bralessness as a fashion In 1968, shortly after the feminist protest against bras and other feminine products at the
Miss America pageant, actress
Marlo Thomas began going braless on the prime-time television series
That Girl. "God created women to bounce, so be it." Thomas said in an interview in
Good Housekeeping magazine. "If I bounce, I'm glad to be a girl." On August 5, 1970, the
New York Times wrote that "the braless look has established a beachhead in Manhattan. ... Generally speaking, the braless woman is under 30 and small-breasted. But grandmothers are also among the throngs, as are C and D cuppers—who get the most comment, both pro and con, from male oglers." In 1971, activist and actress
Bianca Jagger broke tradition and wore a tailored
Yves St. Laurent Le Smoking jacket to her Catholic wedding with nothing underneath. Singer, songwriter, model, and actress
Debbie Harry was well known for going braless during the 1970s. Model and actress
Jerry Hall set an example during the same period when she was frequently photographed braless and featured in fashion magazines. French journalist, writer and social influencer
Sabina Socol is known for never wearing a bra. She attributes it to discomfort. The young female characters on
Lena Dunham's controversial HBO show
Girls (2012–2017) were often without bras." An increasing number of women question previously accepted medical, physiological, anatomical, and social reasons for wearing bras. They recognize that they wear bras for psychological, aesthetic, or practical reasons. An informal movement advocates breast freedom,
top freedom, bra freedom, or simply going braless. There are a large number of magazine articles and YouTube videos in which women describe their motives and offer guidance on how to go braless.
Religious issues In 2009 Somalia's hard-line Islamic group
Al-Shabaab forced women to shake their breasts at gunpoint to see if they were wearing bras, which they called "un-Islamic". A resident of
Mogadishu whose daughters were whipped said, "The Islamists say a woman's chest should be firm naturally, or flat."
Free the Nipple campaign Women took part in the
Free the Nipple campaign after a
movie of that name was made in 2015. They protested the legal prohibitions and cultural taboos attached to exposing female breasts in places where it is legal for men to be topless. The Free the Nipple campaign was sparked in part due to double standards and the censorship of women's bodies on social media. Its advocates believe that women's nipples should be legally and culturally acceptable. In many Western countries, women used social media to show their support of the right to go topless or without a bra. In Iceland during Free the Nipple day in 2015, some female university students purposefully wore clothing that revealed they were not wearing a bra and a few others chose to go topless for the day.
Teen Vogue reported that the Free the Nipple movement may have initially focused on being actually topless, but it has grown to include the idea of going braless under clothes. Women are seeking to free the nipple beneath the outer clothing they wear.
No Bra Day One outgrowth of the resistance to bras was the formation of
No Bra Day in 2013. In 2017, the unofficial day was observed by women in 30 countries, including New Zealand, Romania, Malaysia, Scotland, India, and Ghana. More than 82,000 women posted pictures on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #nobraday.
Empowerment of women Some media outlets have capitalized on the no bra phenomenon with exploitative stories. The tabloid website
TMZ posted an item about "Happy No Bra Day" with an image of
Selena Gomez wearing a see-through top. Another site featured a photo gallery titled "#NoBraDay: 15 Celebs Who Frolick About With Their Fun Bags Freed". Whether a woman wears a bra or not has progressed in some social circles from discussions about appropriate clothing to "the body shaming and sexualizing of women" One woman commented, "The reason is that I tried being braless, and I liked it better. It wasn't a political decision, except insofar as everything a woman does with her body that isn't letting someone else dictate what she ought to do with it is a political decision." French journalist
Sabina Socol commented, "I never liked wearing bras; I always felt suffocated in them." She grew up in a household where going braless wasn't seen as sexual or taboo. "Even as a woman with breasts, I do what I want with my body. Every human has nipples. There shouldn't be any shame [in showing them], but if you want to hide them, that's okay, too, as long as the choice is yours." The protest's purpose was to show that nipples and breasts are not sexual objects. Some of the marchers went braless, others topless, and others fully clothed.
Opposition to training bras In Western culture, the bra is sometimes viewed as an icon of popular culture, Within Western cultures that place great value upon youth, bras are marketed to women of all ages by emphasizing their ability to preserve a youthful appearance. Some believe that girls who are developing breasts may be self-conscious and desire a bra to conceal their emerging breasts and for psychological comfort. A girl developing breasts has no physical need for support, so training bras serve only social and psychological purposes. Bras of all kinds are often designed and marketed for fashionable rather than functional purposes. The training bra is marketed to help young girls become accustomed to wearing
lingerie. Critics of training bras say companies are appealing to very young girls' desire to feel more sexy and attractive. The opponents believe that manufacturers market training bras as a way to
sexualize young girls and indoctrinate them into thinking about their breasts as sexual objects. == Legal issues ==