Legally yes, a woman has to cover her upper body while men do not. Where I am you can also control women more in the workplace by mandating impractical shoes like heels.

Pockets, you'd be surprised! Quite often women's blouses, blazers and trousers will have "false pockets" which are just a seam made to look like a pocket, whereas the men's version has actual deep pockets.

Makeup and the social expectations around that is also another discussion.

You haven't answered the parent comment's request for your country, which is very relevant as things differ a lot.

Here in the UK (which is what the article is about), it is illegal for either (/any) gender to expose their genitals in public [1] - that is called "indecent exposure". Breasts are not genitals and it is not illegal to show them.

Admittedly, it would be very unusual to see a topless woman walking down a UK high street. But it is not that unusual to see one sunbathing on a beach. Probably the main factor restricting that is the attention she would get from people who do not object.

Breastfeeding in public is not only allowed but legally protected.

[1] That includes if you are on private land but have a reasonable expectation that you could be seen from a public location. I recall a court case a few years ago where someone was regularly nude in their kitchen but could clearly be seen from a public footpath. The court decided that it still counted as indecent exposure.

> Here in the UK (which is what the article is about), it is illegal for either (/any) gender to expose their genitals in public [1] - that is called "indecent exposure". Breasts are not genitals and it is not illegal to show them.

That's not correct in England and Wales law (UK law varies between the nations). The current law (as amended in 2003) says:

A person commits an offence if— he intentionally exposes his genitals, and he intends that someone will see them and be caused alarm or distress.

It may well be different in practice though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indecent_exposure

Oh, very interesting, I didn't realise intent was part of it. There's even advice from the CPS (linked from that Wikipedia page) about what to do about someone claiming to just be generally a naturist [1]

[1] https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/nudity-public-guidance...

It includes this:

> Nudity in public alone with no aggravating features is very unlikely to amount to [public nuisance] (or any other) offence.

> Breastfeeding in public is not only allowed but legally protected.

The law is an interesting mirror and anti-mirror of social norms. My guess is that if some activity needs legal protections there are significant social norms prohibiting that activity.

Hi, I didn't answer that point because I worried that it would de-rail the conversation a little bit by focusing on the particular laws of one country and applying that to the wider shared culture of our global HN community.

To answer, though, I'm from Northern Ireland, where breastfeeding in public is legal but not protected. Northern Ireland is actually part of the UK, so what you're saying is incorrect and I'm not sure where you're getting your information from? Over here we have ad-hoc solutions were businesses can mark themselves as friendly to mothers (see: https://www.breastfedbabies.org/) while the presumed norm is that mothers should go elsewhere.

I'd say it could be a good idea to check out this article from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing_laws_by_country) if you want to balance out your views about what's going on outside of your local area.

> Northern Ireland is actually part of the UK, so what you're saying is incorrect and I'm not sure where you're getting your information from?

As a sibling comment says, the law differs between the nations. I was just referring to England and Wales. Sorry, I don't know why I didn't just say that (I think I assumed you were American and thought that much detail would complicate things). Anyway, here in England and Wales, breastfeeding is indeed protected. E.g. from a random law company's website:

"According to the Equality Act of 2010, treating a woman unfavourably because she is breastfeeding a child of any age is considered sex discrimination. This applies to any business or premise providing services to the public, including public institutions, associations and higher education bodies. Service providers dealing directly with the public must not discriminate, harass or victimise a woman because she is breastfeeding. Discrimination includes refusing to provide a service, providing a lower standard of service or providing a service on different terms."

> I'd say it could be a good idea to check out this article from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing_laws_by_country) if you want to balance out your views about what's going on outside of your local area.

Are you saying that because I claimed England and Wales' law applies to the whole UK? Apologies again for that, it was a slip. But, ironically, you seemed suggest that your local laws apply to the whole world! That's what caused my initial reply in the first place.

> Legally yes, a woman has to cover her upper body while men do not.

Apologies for the confusing wording, I actually meant "we" more as the global community of HN users and had the article I linked in mind, rather than we here in Northern Ireland.

Thanks for recognising it at a mistake to say the UK when you mean England and Wales. It's very common to see that and it only gets more and more annoying the older you get when you come from one of the forgotten nations. Do you know when the whole UK got abortion access for example?

> Legally yes, a woman has to cover her upper body while men do not.

In the U.S., female toplessness is illegal in only two states (Tennessee and Missouri). In the rest, legal status is either unclear or it's expressly legal.

So as a general statement, this is clearly untrue—it's not illegal everywhere.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topfreedom_in_the_United_State...

The trousers I‘m wearing right now have fake pockets at the back. I‘m a man. It has nothing to do with men or women.

Many women do not wear makeup.

Again, this depends a lot on the country.

Many women choose to wear makeup or dress uncomfortably just like many men choose to work out and dress uncomfortably to look more attractive. Many men seemingly invest a lot of time into styling their beard or hair.

Here in the UK, school are only recently obliged to allow gender neutral clothings, and it's still legal for workplaces to require women to wear high heels.

Completely true. However, my experience at working for companies that required "smart casual" was that men were required to wear shirt and smart trousers everyday of the year (including summer with no aircon in the office) and women where allowed to wear pretty much anything they wanted.

It's not a legal issue but a weird fashion issue that women's clothes sometimes have fake pockets. Or no pockets at all, but fake pockets are truly the weirdest aberration of them all.

I think it needs to become normal for women to return clothes because "the pockets don't work". I'm pretty sure that soon enough women's clothes will have normal pockets.

You can already return (confection) clothes for a full refund for any reason within a certain time frame (two weeks is common); even just 'I don't like it'.

Don't think they were saying it needs to become possible, only it should become more of a social expectation that these intentonally impractical clothes are rejected and better demanded from the manufacturers.

It's so weird when all the women I know have "favourite" articles of clothing that are purely the only version of a particlar garment they could find that had pockets.

It's not only pockets too it's also often things like the quality of the seam etc.

Exactly. Too often people keep clothes that are needlessly crippled or otherwise don't really meet their requirements because at least they fit. It's often hard enough to find something that fits, that we just accept other needless limitations. But if enough people do it, we can demand better. But for that, it has to become common, and not merely possible.

> But if enough people do it, we can demand better.

'If' is the problem. As it is, selling clothing means following trends and offering fast-fashion for a large part of the market. There is a sizeable group of people who are completely fine with getting the latest trend cheaply at Primark. These people might like real pockets (and post memes about it on social media), but you won't activate them to actually make that a requirement. The people who do find brands which simply do offer it (the economic model works so far), and those brands know that this is a feature people like, and they can afford to invest in the extra costs this brings (sewing, design) and the raised cost of their end product. But a large part of the market simply won't bear those costs.

Pockets on dresses is not much different from sustainable clothing (both in terms of production and in terms of durability) and fair pay for people who work in the garment industry: most people do not care enough to change their behaviour (or can't afford to).

What's strange to me is that you don't know any women who fit the norm of wanting clothes that don't gape and/or show unexpected forms due to pockets. Men's suits have sewn up pockets too for the same reason.

Aren't most clothing buyers for and designers for high-street shops women? Yet this is always presented as some sort of conspiracy against women.

Look at it this way: there's a societal pressure for women to appear secondary, by presenting as more aesthetic than practical. That's patriarchy and it's enforced both by men and women.

We raise girls in this climate and they develop what's called internalized misogyny. At the same time we chastise men who wear things for pure aesthetics for being weak, unmanly and feminine.

Everyone then reinforces this stuff through design and consumer habits.

Then we come online and argure that it's just an inherent thing about the sexes, or that women actually want to be dressed less practical because they're just aesthetic creatures.

It's not a conspiracy where men are trying to hold women back. I hope I didn't imply that. It's the tide of a strong patriarchal system. Yes, it could change faster if it wasn't benefiting those in power so much, but it's inaccurate to say it's a directed conspiracy (though there is an increase of this with a lot of alt-right YouTube stuff these days).

Have you not consider the idea that women actually want to buy clothes with no functional pockets? Most women buy clothes to feel atractive, and pockets, if they have something inside, are bulgy and ugly. Plus most women like to buy and use bags, so they don't need pockets the same as men do. Again, you can think that this is wrong, sexist, patriarchal or whatever, but it will only change when the people making shopping decisions actualy ask for that change with their money.