Men dominate the fashion world and dictate those rules.
That sounds like a load of feminist cowshit to me. The fashion industry provides what women are buying. Women totally dominate and are the market place for women's fashions.
Men were in control of the sexist business world back in the seventies, when women began to be stuck in bras again for employment and success reasons. Women started wearing them again however in all other instances all by their insecure peer pressured selves.
Women, in my life long experience, dress to please other women, the heard. Women generally ignore the desires and requests of men, including husbands.
If you google "do men dominate fashion" there is plenty of statistical information. Majority, something like 2/3 to 60%/40% of top designers and controllers are men. Most of them are gay.
Women generally wear bras in the workplaces to be seen as professional as fashions dictate. Enforcement of this comes from other women as much as men. They want to be judged on their work merits, not so much as having nipples being a distraction, or morals looking anything less than stringent, aka conservative. It is akin to uniformity, too. They get used to it and mitigate with lighter bras and outside coverage, or they are unsnapping on the ride home and slipping them off at the door.
Yea Bob, women do take their cues from other women, as men do, too. But, if you point out how something exaggerates something that they feel some insecurity about, they will listen. Women are often more knowledgeable than men about fashion trends, but that doesn't mean that they have better taste. None of this indicates that women don't care what men think and don't want to feel attractive, or are not concerned about being unattractive to men. Many women compete for the opposite sex, as do many men. I don't see it as the generality that you state. All of this stuff is cultural. Culture here and there varies, like workforce to outside of work, picnic, pool party, out on the town. There are many devious ways that people are sold things that they do not need, especially fashion.
This is about stripping away the requirement for clothing. To me, any incriminate is a victory. The places that will unravel textiles first, and then ripple out across the boarder pond are where to make progress. This has been the case historically as we have slowly as a culture allowed more and more skin to be exposed and then an acceptable norm. The beach is the most dramatic example. Trends and changes don't generally flip over night, or even in one swoop. There is an avante guarde which gets notice, then it is picked up in fashion and reaches a broader acceptance, in degrees among the others. The hippies thing changed fashion, the hiphop thing did too, as two examples. Identity and symbols of it are important and must not be overlooked. We need to use this principle, because it works.
Freeing the breast particularly the nipple is important. It started in France and has brought significant changes, including more complete nudity acceptance. The buttocks are another piece of taboo that has been liberated to an extent. When these converge and one is nearly naked, one will see how foolish covering the last vestige, genitals are. People will drop the rest easier. Nude is probably before its time, but if we keep pumping away at it, others will catch up as they near the precipice. Advocating topfreedom as a naturist, isn't advocating for covering the other body parts.
How to make any process/progress work quicker is the key. Advocating body freedom and naturism, people seeing it is a different front in the same war. You weaken the supply line as you assault the front.
Bras are uncomfortable, oppressive, cumbersome, and gender unequal, as anything and more so. It is a weakest link in the chain. It is a good place to start change. The young women that I knew in the early seventies, loved getting rid of the bras. It isn't much of a step further to consider that it is wrong to confine the rest. Some stopped there, some went further.
Yea, we must work toward dropping nudity restrictions, but picking on a weakness toward that goal here and there and lending some support to topple that increment doesn't require so much energy.
Jbee
