Last edited Mon Mar 3, 2014, 01:36 PM - Edit history (1)
that is, a caricature rather than an actual observation. The author apparently was drawing on her own youthful misguided view that as a feminist she should tell other individual women how to dress. The feminist discussion is a broader one of whether the cultural norm is benign or encourages gender inequality. When women are told that they must dress modestly and there is no similar standard for the men of that culture, it's a cultural norm that deserves to be questioned especially when the dress code is so extreme that it causes women to be disadvantaged. Women required by their culture or government to wear burquas or niqabs in public, both completely neutralizing their faces and their individuality, are clearly oppressed even if they believe that it is a free choice to wear such garments. If a woman will be beaten, jailed, or killed for showing her face or hair in public, it's a problem.
The cartoon also seems to use a topless woman as a proxy for something else. I'm guessing here that the author doesn't actually have experience telling a topless woman on the beach that she was oppressing other women and I can't imagine she's encountered many women dressed that way in other venues. So instead it seems to be an attempt to reduce an anti-porn argument to a clothing issue.
If that's the case, it's sadly an oversimplification. If instead the author is using the topless woman as a proxy for women dressing in ways that are uncomfortable or that enhance objectification, I'd need to see a few more words to understand what her perspective is before addressing that.
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