July 10, 1997
PETITIONERS CALL FOR LAW
A CHATHAM GROUP WANTS THE PROVINCE TO BAR OR LIMIT WOMEN'S RIGHT
TO GO BARE-CHESTED.
By Roxanne Beaubien
Free Press Chatham Bureau
CHATHAM -- A handful of people in Kent County are planning another push to make
it illegal for women to go topless by piggybacking onto a Windsor-based group's
petition, an organizer says.
"We feel that toplessness is an attack on everything we value in society
and that it was done undemocratically," Shirley Faas said.
The Windsor-based coalition hopes to collect 250,000 signatures to urge the
federal government to pass a law that will either bar or restrict women from going
topless, Faas said.
POOR STANDARD: Chatham Mayor Bill Erickson said city council has already
endorsed one petition that has been sent to the province and to the federal justice
minister. "We are saying it sets a poor standard for youth in our community,"
Erickson said.
Last month, council passed a motion asking for legislation to make toplessness
illegal for women in Ontario. The resolution has been sent to other municipalities
across Ontario for approval.
Faas and the other grassroots members of the Kent County branch of the Coalition
Against Toplessness are holding a meeting Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Chatham Christian
high school to distribute copies of the petition that will be delivered to the House
of Commons in the fall. The branch has about five members, Faas said.
A woman's right to go bare-chested "is not more important than my right
to protect myself and my children from the view of half-naked women," Faas
said, the mother of four children between the ages 10 and 17.
But some people say the whole debate is a red herring.
"I think this topic is really derailing us and taking us away from important
equality issues," said Michelle Schryer, executive director of the Chatham-Kent
Sexual Assault Crisis Centre.
But if there were to be restrictions on toplessness, they should apply equally
to men. "You can't convince me that some people aren't stimulated or offended
by men's naked chests," Schryer said.
Chatham police deputy chief Carl Herder said he is only aware of one incident
of a woman going topless in the city since December, when the Ontario Court of Appeals
overturned a 1991 indecency conviction against a Guelph woman who walked down the
street topless. And so far, no women have tried a topless swim in any of the city's
pools, a city official said.
"I can't see it happening much here," Herder said, adding that
no problems were reported during the hot, humid days of Chatham's recent Festival
of Nations.
Faas said she has heard of more than one incident.
STRAIN: Allowing women to go topless is an attack on what women have accomplished
with their brains and it puts an "unnecessary strain" on relationships
when a man looks at another woman's breasts, Faas said.
And in the end, it is just plain confusing to young people, whose hormones
are already raging, she said.
"Why restrict young people from going into strip joints? Why put pornographic
magazines in brown wrappers on the back shelf . . . and yet say to (youth), `It's
OK, you can just look at it on the streets.' "