Back in the day, well actually sorta kinda before my day, bra removal (and in the mythologized version of history, maybe even bra burning) was a countercultural pheonomenon. If not real hippies than at least radlibs and feminists rebelling against the hated symbol of the patriarchy.
Today, it's The Man (yes, the man), the TLAs the TSAs, behind “Taking off your bra for national security”:
… According to the Associated Press, [Lori] Plato set off security alarms when she and her husband were entering a federal courthouse in Coeur d’Alene. Plato told the AP that the U.S. Marshals Service not only asked Plato to remove her bra but gave her no viable options for doing so with any measure of privacy: “I asked if I could go into the bathroom because they didn’t have a privacy screen and no women security officers were available. They said, ‘No.’”
Does this count as progress?
Maybe it will after the lawsuit.
It's worth reading the AP version of the story to see just how weak the defense is:
McDonald acknowledged that security workers told Plato that she couldn't pass through security wearing the bra but said she wasn't ordered to remove it.
“She's inflating it,” U.S. Marshal Patrick McDonald said. “All of a sudden she just took it off. It wasn't anything we wanted to happen and it wasn't anything we asked for her to do. She did it so fast.”
I could do that cross-examination. I'd enjoy it.
