‘I don’t know why our boobs are so frightening’: why musicians in Spain are going topless as a radical gesture
In the middle of her performance at the Sonorama festival in the northern Spanish town of Aranda de Duero on Saturday, Eva Amaral was about to lead her band Amaral into her song Revoluciónwhen she took off her red sequin top and threw it on the floor.
“This is for Rocío, for Rigoberta, for Zahara, for Miren, for Bebe, for all of us,” she said, listing the names of fellow artists before uncovering her breasts. “Because no one can take away the dignity of our nakedness. The dignity of our fragility, of our strength. Because there are too many of us.” In a concert marking the Spanish band’s 25-year career, going topless was a way of defending women’s dignity and freedom to go nude, and “a very important moment”, Amaral later told El País.
But it was also a show of solidarity with a growing number of Spanish artists who are resorting to nudity to defend women’s rights, and have been censored or attacked as a result.
In June, police stopped a concert by the singer Rocío Saiz during Pride in Murcia after she took off her top to perform her song Como yo te Amo, something the singer says she has done during performances for over 10 years. The local police have since apologised and opened an inquiry into the incident, adding that a police officer acted “incorrectly”.
Last year, Rigoberta Bandini’s hugely popular ode to motherhood Ay Mamá became a kind of feminist anthem in Spain, thanks to lyrics such as “I don’t know why our boobs are so frightening” and “sticking out a breast, Delacroix style”. The singer drew both applause and criticism for showing her breasts on stage while performing the song – and was later accused of censorship when actual breasts were noticeably absent from the song’s music video.
Amaral also made a reference to the singer Bebe, who in 2011 was ridiculed for displaying one of her breasts in a concert in Logroño, and to Zahara, a singer whose poster for a new album was censored in Toledo two years ago, after Catholic groups had described it as an offence to the Virgin Mary.
Feminist politicians quickly applauded Amaral’s gesture, including deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz, who thanked her for “representing all the women in the country” and for “defending rights that today are threatened”. Equality minister Irene Montero retweeted a picture of Amaral with the words “for the dignity of our fragility, of our strength”.
For Nuria Varela, who was involved in the creation of the country’s first Equality Ministry in 2008 and is the author of several books including Feminism for Beginners, Amaral’s gesture echoed a feeling of “being fed up”.
“Since 2018 there has been a very clear demand for women’s rights and it has experienced a significant setback in recent years,” said Varela. “There is a sense that we are going back to things that we thought we had overcome.”
Two years ago, the far-right Vox party led efforts to remove a mural in Madrid celebrating an array of women from Nina Simone to Frida Kahlo, which it said contained a “political message”.
That going topless is overtly political in Spain can partly be explained by the country’s history. Varela says that it wasn’t until the transition to democracy in the 70s and 80s that female nudity became an act of rebellion and sexual liberation in a strict Catholic system. “Amaral’s message is that we have worked hard for our freedoms and we are tired of having to reconquer them every 10 minutes,” she said. “It seems like our bodies still don’t belong to us, despite so much fighting. So women’s bodies continue to be a battleground.”
The feminist group Femen, known for organising topless protests, was a more integral part of the Spanish feminist movement than in other European countries, Varela argued. “[It] is not only recognised but respected.”
Women’s right to go topless in public seems to be under threat even at the beach and swimming pools, where it has been widely accepted for decades. Though Spain continues to be the country where the highest number of women choose to sunbathe with their tops off, a study by the French pollster Ifop found that the practice is declining, with younger women leading the trend. Half of those who choose to cover up said that the main reason was a “fear of sexual aggression”.
Earlier this week, the regional government of Catalonia put out a statement to local authorities in which it said that women must be allowed to go topless in municipal swimming pools.
Though the right to go topless is enshrined in a 2020 law, some public swimming pools have prohibited the practice, leading to several complaints of discrimination.
But in a letter from the Department of Equality and Feminism, local authorities were told that stopping women from going topless “excludes part of the population and violates the free choice of each person with regard to their body”.
Any town hall found to have breached the norm could receive a fine of up to €500,000.