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Scores of women bare their breasts to celebrate Go Topless Day
Women all over the world celebrated the fourth anniversary of Go Topless Day, a date that coincides with the date women in the U.S. gained the right to vote. 'We just want equality, we want to show our support for other women who want to take their tops off and don't know that they can,' said participant Heather Orr.
Scores of women around the world publicly bared their breasts Sunday as some vibrantly shook their chests, exclaiming: "The bells of liberty, let them ring!"
So was the scene at an estimated 30 cities from as far south as Caragena in Colombia to New York City, where both women and men celebrated Go Topless Day's fourth anniversary.
"If it's hot out and guys can take off their shirts, why not women?" said bare-chested Dylan Hall, 20, who was celebrating her second year's participation at Bryant Park. "We're all skin and bones, what's the difference between how much fat we have on our chests? We're all the same."
Alongside her were fellow veterans of the cause.
"The first time I did it was in Washington Heights and everyone was hanging out their windows looking at me," said Holly Van Voast, 48, of her first time in 2011.
Voast said that even though she proudly supports the movement which is legal in New York, it's still not easy for her to go without a shirt.
"I've been all over the city from Staten Island to the Bronx and it's very threatening doing it alone," she explained. "It's very strange for people, it makes them uncomfortable. And that makes me uncomfortable. Most women have to do it together for something like this."
That sentiment was shared as far northwest as Vancouver where it is also legal, but not always publicly accepted.
"We just want equality, we want to show our support for other women who want to take their tops off and don't know that they can," participant Heather Orr told the Vancouver Sun while marching through her city's downtown.
Around her others uniformly chanted, "Free your breasts, free your mind!"
Beside her, like in other parts of the world, a man marched in a black bra to show his support.
"I don't think that naked bodies should be seen in purely a sexual light, so the more people situated to seeing nudes and not being turned on or thinking it's perverted the better," the man named Pierus told the paper.
Just south in San Francisco, a handful of participants followed suit.
"I'm a healthy senior citizen and I think it's so unfair that men with bigger boobs than mine are free to bare them in public," a woman who identified herself as Judy P. told the SF Gate. "I'm here for gender equality."
Of the three U.S. states where it is illegal for women's breasts to be bared in public, two of the states, Tennessee and Indiana, hosted events in three cities according to GoTopless.org's Boob Map.
Utah, the third state, sat out the event entirely, while people in Knoxville, Nashville and Lake Michigan went totally T free.
Held every year, the event commemorates Aug. 26, 1920, when women earned their right to vote. In 1971 U.S. Congress named it Women's Equality Day.
In Washington, D.C., several women posed for pictures bare-breasted before Capitol Hill.
The event spread as far east as Paris, where women — tops on — used a megaphone to protest their desired right.
There the penalty for going topless in the street, regardless of sex, is 15,000 euros or one year in jail, according to the organization. The same goes for parts of Italy.
"Women's legs were once deemed indecent in public, so was women voting! But gender equality has always had the word," the organization's president, Nadine Gary, said in a statement.
Women all over the world celebrated the fourth anniversary of Go Topless Day, a date that coincides with the date women in the U.S. gained the right to vote. 'We just want equality, we want to show our support for other women who want to take their tops off and don't know that they can,' said participant Heather Orr.
Scores of women around the world publicly bared their breasts Sunday as some vibrantly shook their chests, exclaiming: "The bells of liberty, let them ring!"
So was the scene at an estimated 30 cities from as far south as Caragena in Colombia to New York City, where both women and men celebrated Go Topless Day's fourth anniversary.
"If it's hot out and guys can take off their shirts, why not women?" said bare-chested Dylan Hall, 20, who was celebrating her second year's participation at Bryant Park. "We're all skin and bones, what's the difference between how much fat we have on our chests? We're all the same."
Alongside her were fellow veterans of the cause.
"The first time I did it was in Washington Heights and everyone was hanging out their windows looking at me," said Holly Van Voast, 48, of her first time in 2011.
Voast said that even though she proudly supports the movement which is legal in New York, it's still not easy for her to go without a shirt.
"I've been all over the city from Staten Island to the Bronx and it's very threatening doing it alone," she explained. "It's very strange for people, it makes them uncomfortable. And that makes me uncomfortable. Most women have to do it together for something like this."
That sentiment was shared as far northwest as Vancouver where it is also legal, but not always publicly accepted.
"We just want equality, we want to show our support for other women who want to take their tops off and don't know that they can," participant Heather Orr told the Vancouver Sun while marching through her city's downtown.
Around her others uniformly chanted, "Free your breasts, free your mind!"
Beside her, like in other parts of the world, a man marched in a black bra to show his support.
"I don't think that naked bodies should be seen in purely a sexual light, so the more people situated to seeing nudes and not being turned on or thinking it's perverted the better," the man named Pierus told the paper.
Just south in San Francisco, a handful of participants followed suit.
"I'm a healthy senior citizen and I think it's so unfair that men with bigger boobs than mine are free to bare them in public," a woman who identified herself as Judy P. told the SF Gate. "I'm here for gender equality."
Of the three U.S. states where it is illegal for women's breasts to be bared in public, two of the states, Tennessee and Indiana, hosted events in three cities according to GoTopless.org's Boob Map.
Utah, the third state, sat out the event entirely, while people in Knoxville, Nashville and Lake Michigan went totally T free.
Held every year, the event commemorates Aug. 26, 1920, when women earned their right to vote. In 1971 U.S. Congress named it Women's Equality Day.
In Washington, D.C., several women posed for pictures bare-breasted before Capitol Hill.
The event spread as far east as Paris, where women — tops on — used a megaphone to protest their desired right.
There the penalty for going topless in the street, regardless of sex, is 15,000 euros or one year in jail, according to the organization. The same goes for parts of Italy.
"Women's legs were once deemed indecent in public, so was women voting! But gender equality has always had the word," the organization's president, Nadine Gary, said in a statement.
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