ROCHESTER, NY – “Show Us Your Tits! Show Us Your Tits!” Chants can be heard throughout the city this Mardi Gras as women strenuously lift layers of sweatshirts and turtle-necks to expose their breasts in exchange for plastic beads. Some are mothers, some sisters, some heavy-set men passing a tired joke as an original. Whoever they are, we can all agree they are FUN! In the middle of it all stands recent Feminist Lit Studies grad, Ashley VanderHausen, 24.
We asked her what she thought about all of this. “I mean, is it feminist if I flash my tits? Is it sexist if I don’t?” Ashley wondered, donning a “Nasty Woman” t-shirt over her Bills Mafia sweatshirt over her UnderArmour turtleneck.
“As a sex-positive feminist I reserve the right to show my body in whatever way I want. But, like, if all these guys are yelling at me and telling me to do something I wouldn’t usually do, I mean do I want that for Me? Or do I want it for them?”
She lit an American Spirit and distractedly sucked in smoke.
“Like I was about to do it, I was, but then I was like ‘What would Gloria Steinham think of me?’ And then, like, this really old guy who kind of looked like my dad – er, well, that picture of my dad – started chanting too, so I just went inside and did a ton of blow.”
