{"id":2908,"date":"2004-10-25T13:40:52","date_gmt":"2004-10-26T03:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/25\/the-topfree-10\/"},"modified":"2019-12-11T11:47:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T19:47:52","slug":"the-topfree-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/25\/the-topfree-10\/","title":{"rendered":"The Topfree 10"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:9955,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/orlandoweekly.com\\\/news\\\/Story.asp?ID=4559&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20130718085519\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www2.orlandoweekly.com\\\/news\\\/Story.asp?ID=4559&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 23:45:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 23:45:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:8822,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000002&amp;subid=0&amp;type=4&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:6879,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DBT%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:9956,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DBT%2526albumTerm=Remember%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Realistically, there&#8217;s likely no real chance that they&#8217;ll win this case, but I&#8217;m definitely in support of <a href=\"http:\/\/orlandoweekly.com\/news\/Story.asp?ID=4559\" title=\"BUSTING THE BOOB BAN\">equal rights for breasts<\/a> (and not just because I&#8217;m a big fan of breasts in general &#8212; there&#8217;s definitely an element of sexual discrimination in here).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Athela &#8220;Beaner&#8221; Frandsen is like many 15-year-old girls &#8212; she loves science, computer games and her pet rat, Luna. But just beneath the surface of the quiet-voiced, well-mannered Melbourne teenager exists a passionate women&#8217;s rights activist who has been battling the court system since the age of 9.<\/p>\n<p>  Her struggle began a few weeks before her 10th birthday, when Athela got bad news from her mother, Jan.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;When I was playing at the park as a young girl, I would get hot, so I would just take my shirt off like the other boys my age did to cool down,&#8221; says Athela. &#8220;But one day, my mother informed me that once I turned 10, I would no longer be able to take my shirt off to cool down because the law doesn&#8217;t allow girls over the age of 10 to do so. I didn&#8217;t think this was very fair.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Her parents, Melbourne naturists Jan and Marvin Frandsen, agreed.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;It broke my heart to have to explain to her that she was considered different than the boys her age,&#8221; says Jan.\u00a0&#8220;I didn&#8217;t want to tell her because she was just about to turn 10, and that&#8217;s an age when a lot of little girls have a drop in self-esteem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Frustrated, Jan says she began calling old friends to see if they were interested in joining a lawsuit against Brevard County. Eight other women, ages 38 to 75, said yes, including a school teacher, a co-founder of a Fort Pierce nudist community and an ex-NASA worker who pled guilty to sprinkling white powder in an envelope with her water bill during the nation&#8217;s anthrax scare. Together, the women have been nicknamed the Topfree 10.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;I just began calling anyone I could think of to see if they&#8217;d be interested in coming together to fight the law,&#8221; says Jan, &#8220;Two of the women I knew from church, and the rest were from different walks of life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Once she garnered support for their cause, Jan approached married Merritt Island attorneys Mark and Lisa Tietig. Mark Tietig emphasizes that the case has less to do with a women wanting to go topless, and more to do with equal rights.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;This case is about changing a law that actually criminalizes and punishes women for doing something men can do,&#8221; says Mark Tietig. &#8220;It&#8217;s essentially one of the last laws on the books that works that way.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m pretty sure that the societal taboos are a little to ingrained in our culture for this to go much of anywhere. Still, the group makes some really good points:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  &#8220;Basically this type of law labels a woman as being genetically inferior,&#8221; she says. &#8220;The law then becomes government-sponsored discrimination &#8230; . Once you place a woman in an inferior position automatically from birth, it becomes a small step to other unequal treatment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  In the lawsuit, the Topfree 10 points out that the only legal means to expose female breasts is for the gratification of others, not for a woman&#8217;s comfort.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;Only by baring breasts in a commercially sexual context; e.g., for strip-show spectators, commercial marketers, or others with interests apparently deemed more compelling and\/or immediate than the woman&#8217;s own interests, heath, or comfort; may women legally bare their breasts in public at times other than those when their breasts are allowed to be exposed for breastfeeding children.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Jan says people who view breasts in an uncomfortable manner because of their sexual connotation need to &#8220;grow up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;It&#8217;s ridiculous to define women by their gender. It&#8217;s like saying that black people by their color or Indian people by their heritage are dangerous &#91;and should be criminalized&#93;,&#8221; says Jan, &#8220;when they should be judging people by who they are and what they do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Topfree member Shirley Mason thinks this lawsuit isn&#8217;t about exposing breasts; it&#8217;s about exposing discriminatory laws. &#91;&#8230;&#93; &#8220;If it&#8217;s not the color of skin, the age of skin, the covering and uncovering of skin, then it&#8217;s the gender of the person&#8217;s skin that people find a reason for irrational prejudice and discrimination,&#8221; says Mason.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You go, girls.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000002&amp;subid=0&amp;type=4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" width=\"61\" height=\"15\" alt=\"iTunes\" src=\"http:\/\/images.apple.com\/itunesaffiliates\/logos\/iTunes_sm_bdg61x15.png\"><\/a> &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DBT%2526albumTerm=Remember%2526songTerm=Remember (Mood II Swing)%26partnerId%3D30\">Remember (Mood II Swing)<\/a>&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DBT%26partnerId%3D30\">BT<\/a> from the album <em><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DBT%2526albumTerm=Remember%26partnerId%3D30\">Remember<\/a><\/em> (1997, 7:36).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the lawsuit, the Topfree 10 points out that the only legal means to expose female breasts is for the gratification of others, not for a woman&#8217;s comfort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2028],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-2908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-links"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}