Authorities said women in Spain should have the right to go topless at public swimming pools, following accusations of double standards between genders.
The Catalan regional authorities have launched a campaign to support women in showing their breasts after complaints that they had been banned from doing so.
“The sexualisation of women starts when they are young, and it accompanies us all our lives. That we must cover up our breasts in some spaces is proof", the video campaign said.
Spain's left-wing government has been taking a positive stand in encouraging women to feel better in their bodies.
They have been encouraging plus-sized and older women to visit the beach this summer, and said every new law and government spending package in Spain must be feminist.
A summer advertising campaign featured a topless woman with a mastectomy, saying “all bodies are beach bodies” and “summer is ours too”.
“We wanted to try to combat the discrimination that women suffer sometimes when they go topless in some situations like swimming pools. Women should have the right to freedom of expression with their bodies,” Neus Pociello, executive director for the Catalan Women’s Institute, which is part of the regional government, told The Telegraph.
In Spain, women are legally allowed to go topless on beaches but local councils decide regulations related to public pools.
Women started taking a stand, and last year Mariona Trabal, co-founder of Free Nipples, won a campaign giving women the right to go topless at public swimming pools in Barcelona. She said they should have the same rights as men to bare their chests if they wanted.
Spain is set to become the first country in Europe to offer guaranteed menstrual leave from work for women with severe period pain.
Irene Montero, Minister of Equality of Spain, is also widening access to abortion, allowing more support for victims of gender-based violence and changing the threshold for a rape offence to include any sexual activity without explicit consent.
