What is it about boobs that makes people act like idiots?

Today I read an article in De Volkskrant (well, its online version) that I thought so good that I felt it needed to be translated. It's an incredible example of how sexism is still pervasive and why sexism is just STUPID AS HELL.

The original article (http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/13166/Joyce-Brekelmans/article/detail/3502529/2013/09/02/Wat-is-het-toch-met-borsten-dat-mensen-er-zo-raar-van-gaan-doen.dhtml) is by Joyce Brekelmans and was published on www.volkskrant.nl on 2 September 2013.

'What is it about boobs that makes people act like idiots?'

It isn't the case that Joyce Brekelmans would like to become a member of the SGP [Dutch Fundamentalist Christian Party] or the Woudrichem Fishing Club, but sometimes someone just needs to say out loud that it is pure bullshit to not be allowed to do something just because you're a girl.

It never occurred to me to want to become a member of the fishing club of Woudrichem, but it's incredibly lame that I'm not allowed to do so in any case because I'm a girl.

I don't think having a meat-rod is a necessity to sit on a fold-up stool on the waterside whilst looking into the distance, donning a stupid cap. You also don't need a third leg to play football, but when she was a child, my sister still wasn't allowed to play with the local football club. She could play with the boys a bit futher away - good for them, because she was awesome at it - but when she started puberty it was all over. Breasts as the ultimate off-side [translator's note: don't think "off-side" offers the same connotations as "buitenspel" (which also means being put outside the game in Dutch) but I decided for a literal translation here].

What is it about boobs that makes people act like idiots? When last week, Bits of Freedom activist Ancilla Tillia tried to awaken the Netherlands to privacy issues, she was told that as an ex-Playmate she had no right to complain. As if the Google-ranking of her nipples has anything to do with the policies of Ivo Opstelten [Dutch minister of Justice and Safety], about which she was expressing her concerns. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention in Biology class, but as far as I am aware, taking off your jumper does not equal a frontal lobotomy.

My own naked everything isn't available for publicity, but if I would ever want to draw attention to these two important issues, I would hope to be able to continue doing my work after that. Whatever the Gordons [Dutch telly persona] of this world think of that.

In 2013 there are still people who are so incredibly scared of the magical effect a pair of women's breasts have that they keep trying to forbid girls participating in things. Even in the Netherlands, where we, in comparison to a majority of women, men and children all over the world have an incredibly privileged situation. Isn't it somewhat bizarre that I was forced to do gymnastics in PE whilst the boys got to play football? That I wasn't allowed a job in the Tour de France-crew because "women would mess up the social atmosphere"? That, as a student, I was not allowed to work as a barmaid because working the bar was guys' work and girls had to do the waitressing? That a guy friend of a girl friend now joins his father-in-law to the Freemasons because his daughter, who would love to accompany her father, isn't allowed in?

And then we still are in a privileged situation, as for instance the Afghani Malala would gladly change places. It would just have been nicer to have known beforehand that those pleasant boobs - which I once desperately wished for - could be such party poopers. It isn't that the membership of the Dutch Fundamentalist Christian Party, the Woudrichem fishing club or the group of people that Gordon thinks have a right to speak out against privacy invasion is very appealing, but sometimes someone just has to say out loud that it is pure bullshit that you are not allowed to do something just because you're a girl.