While women across the globe are demanding a right to walk freely without being victims of objectification, molestation or rape, women in Asheville have gone a step further protesting to get equal rights to walk bare-breasted on Sunday, August 21. The protest demanded for gender equality in the society which says nothing when a man takes off his shirt but the moment a woman does, a hundred eyes turn.

The protest attracted many gawkers due to which traffic on city streets slowed to a crawl. Onlookers jammed into the area around the Vance Monument cheered and snapped photos of topless women, accompanied by men wearing bras or bikini tops. According to Police estimates approximately 2,000 people participated in the protest.

The protest was one of several across the country organized by the group GoTopless.org, which maintains that laws and social stigmas against women baring their breasts in public are unfair.

While North Carolina has no law against women baring their breasts in public, some states and cities do. Police spokesmen said that these topless women were not breaking any law. North Carolina's indecent exposure law bans the exposure of private parts below the waist.

Organizers at the event collected signatures on a petition seeking a constitutional amendment declaring the practice legal. “Constitutionally, men and women are supposed to be equal,” said Livienne Love, who helped put together the rally. “But in the area of toplessness rights, that’s not the case in most places… Before this event, a lot of women didn’t know they had the right here in Asheville and North Carolina,” she said. “We want to say to women: You have this right if you so choose to exercise it.”

Meanwhile, there is more than the whole breast thing. The protest was more for gender equality than just the right to walk topless. It shows that women demand equal status in the society and not be subjected to different rules and regulations.

Team MSN She