Why I Don't Wear Bras

Hi, my name is Olivia. I never wear bras and my female coworkers harass me about it every single day. I was raised like most girls. As soon as my breasts started to bud, my mother bought me training bras. It was magical in a way. Having boobs that were big enough to fill up a bra made me feel powerful. I wore bras with pride throughout most of my adolescence. Then in my last year of high school I stopped.

You’re probably wondering what happened. What life-altering realization did I come to? Did I go through a radical phase of acting out my internalized misogyny by rejecting something as traditionally feminine as a bra? Of course I went through a phase of internalized misogyny in my early teens. I hated the color pink and slut-shamed feminine girls for just talking to guys. I’m not proud of those years. But they had nothing to do with my abstaining from wearing bras. The truth is, there wasn’t any specific event that made me stop. Bras weren’t comfortable and didn’t add anything to my life so I quit wearing them.

Yes, that’s really it. It was as casual as someone deciding to take a different route to work because it’s less congested. I don’t make a big deal of it. I don’t talk about it to strangers (until now). I honestly never think about it. It’s just not part of my routine. I don’t tell other people that bras are a form of oppression and that they should stop wearing them, but the women I work with make a point to tell me every day how I offend them by not wearing one.

I walk into work and the first thing I hear is my coworker yelling, “Barker! Your nipples just said ‘Good morning’ to me!” I laugh with everyone because I don’t want to seem thin-skinned or uptight, but the novelty wore off a long time ago. The comments are annoying, uncreative, and they make me uncomfortable, but I’ve let it go on for so long now that I feel like I can’t do anything about it. And I’m not exaggerating. Every single day I hear, “God, Barker, put your jacket back on”, “Guys, I think we should start a fund for Barker to get a bra”, Your tits look like saddle bags when you lay down”, “I’m pressing charges. Your nipples just assaulted me”, and of course, “You know your boobs are gonna sag, right?”

No one ever said anything to me about it in high school or college, so getting so many comments on it now at a job where the dress code is relatively lax was jarring. I thought if anyone was going to harass me about my breasts it’d be men, but I was wrong. I know it would be simpler to just wear a bra to work so they stop making me feel self-conscious, but I’m stubborn and don’t want them to win. Compromising on something that I’ve been (not) doing for the last 5 years would mean submission. It would mean sacrificing my comfort for the sake of theirs. It also frustrates me that another one of my omissions (I don’t drink or eat meat either) is so controversial.

I know I don’t see my not wearing a bra as a statement, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s not seen as one all the same. Everything I do or don’t do as a woman is a statement. I’m either a radical man-hating feminist or a “Pick me!” girl. What if society decided that saggy balls were unattractive and not masculine? Imagine if men had to wear a special garment to hold up their scrotums. What if they were targeted in ads to buy an expensive oil to fight signs of aging or a pair of pants that made their butts plumper. It’s unfathomable. But I have to worry about whether or not my boobs defy gravity and sit perfectly centered on my chest.

I’m not trying to normalize going braless. I would never tell the masses to throw away their bras and free the nipple. I don’t even want people to accept or support my decision. I just want people to stop caring/talking about my tits. I don’t understand why they think they can and I don’t understand why they’re paying so much attention to them in the first place. Something we should normalize, though, is letting people do what they think is best for their bodies and not making rude comments. But the next time my coworker tells me that my nipples are saying “good morning” to her I’m going to tell her to say it back.