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National Cleavage Day – “keep your bra and burn your brain”

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With thanks to riotgrrrrrrl.tumblr.com for this image, showing another way in which capitalism uses gender to sell stuff and how feminists often respond.

Sarah Cheverton
WVoN co-editor

Kudos to cartoonist Angela Martin for today’s headline and you can buy her fantastic work here.

So, lots of you have already been in touch with us about National Cleavage Day.

And many of you have been asking what it’s all about, or as I expressed it – WTF?

Well, we have Wonderbra to thank for this gem:

“We view this as a day for women to acknowledge that their cleavage is something unique and encourage you all to be proud of it.”

Be proud of it? You want me to be proud of my tits?

I’m proud of many things in my life – being a WVoN writer and being part of the feminist movement, for example. Hell, given how hard it is to be female (let alone feminist) in western society, I’m even proud to be a woman.

But I’m no more proud of my cleavage than I am of my feet. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great feet. It’s just that, as with my breasts, I was born with them and as such, don’t really count them as achievements.

I mean, most of the time, I’m glad my breasts are there – well, not so much when strange (by which I mean both unknown and freaky) men feel the need to comment on them.

But proud of them? That’s taking it a bit far…

Ann Summers are using their Real Women campaign to “empower” women today by sending 30 of their Real Women trooping down Oxford Street as part of Ann Summers promotion to launch a new store.

This is both a stroke of postmodern genius and an illustration of capitalism doing what it does best – making a tit out of everyone it goes near.

Capitalism is what it is: soulless, amoral and resoundingly inhumane in its pursuit of the dollar, for a start. So I don’t expect much better from it than the likes of NCD.

The real problem I have with NCD is that it brings to the yard all the usual and more dangerous perils of sexual objectification – even and especially in the mainstream news.

Step forward The Sun which proudly declared:

“NCD is held annually to celebrate women’s independence and power in their careers and relationships.”

Really? I’d love to read more detail about exactly how that’s working out for us, but the Sun were too busy falling over themselves about women in lingerie to explain.

Meanwhile, at least the Huff had the sense to file its cleavage coverage under ‘Weird News’. But the comments following their story highlight how confusing some men find NCD, as one opines:

“Yes, but England wants to pass a law making it a crime to look and whistle. But women want us to. It’s a hypocrisy joke.”

Yes, it’s awfully confusing for women to have breasts and not want any Tom, Dick or Tosspot to look, comment or perv at them, isn’t it?

Particularly as the small number of women walking down Oxford Street for Ann Summers are obviously representative of all women, everywhere, who want nothing more than to be reduced to a selection of our body parts.

And speaking of Tom, Dick and Tosspot, the MailOnline took the opportunity to promote the day with a feature on Wonderbra’s empowering survey of 1000 British women, particularly the claim that two-thirds of British women use their cleavage to ‘get ahead in life’.

They didn’t ask any of us here at WVoN, but I’m sure they’ll be in touch now that they realise the absence of women who prefer their achievements to be down to, well, their actual achievements.

In the meantime, I’m eagerly awaiting the result of their survey of British men to find out how many blokes wear tight trousers or go topless to ‘get ahead in life?’

And I’m particularly looking forward to National ‘Are those socks in your trousers or are you packing a serious bulge and a half?’ Day (potential sponsors Speedo, and of course, Nobby’s Nuts).

Although unless they come up with a catchy title (National Under the Trousers Suspense Day, perhaps) I admit it’s less likely to trend on Twitter.

  1. Bravo Sarah! Excellent. 😉

  2. Oh My Word!

    Thank goodness I don’t live in the UK – because if needed to use my little A – Cups to get ‘ahead’ I don’t know if I would have much luck :0 but thanks wonderbra for showing me where I would be going wrong – so empowering.

    Love the style in which this is written 🙂

  3. vicki wharton says:

    I think the sad thing is that guys are so unaware of how much they affect the climate for women. Like that comment – women want us to look but then get offended … well the problem is that if we don’t play the game, women feel they will be ignored completely. The lack of feminists exploring of the options in the media to give girls another point of view is dire …

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