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The Current Transcript for October 2, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE 1: With what degree of certainty do you believe Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you?

VOICE 2: One hundred percent.

VOICE 3: None of these allegations are true? No doubt in your mind?

VOICE 4: Zero. I'm 100 percent certain.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Two statements under oath, uttered with certainty. Emblematic of the deep divide and explosive politics that continues to swirl around the U.S. president's choice for the Supreme Court. With the FBI just days into a restricted one week investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the partisans of Washington are in a fight that has spilled into the national psyche. Or is it the other way around? In half an hour, we hear from both sides of that wide divide. Also today, the dress code that launched a human rights fight. Can an employer dictate a woman's choice of undergarments, such as a bra or t shirt to mask the fact that there's no bra there?

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VOICE: Who outlined what exactly is considered professional. Why my breasts, sitting you know maybe a half an inch lower on my chest, what qualifies that as unprofessional?

AMT: Christina Schell lost her job over her dislike of bras. In an hour, we'll hear from her and from a woman tracking the controversial and controlling history of bras. But before we mine the past, we're looking to the future with a new free trade deal. Is it as good as he says it is?

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VOICE: I'm looking forward to signing this agreement with Presidents Trump and Pena Nieto. And I really would like to stress this will be good for workers in all three of our countries.

AMT: There are wins and losses in the new US-Mexico-Canada agreement. Whose wins and whose losses? We're asking. But first, a new political world in Quebec. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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François Legault's immigration proposals probably won't 'see the light of day,' says pollster

Guests: Christian Bourque

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VOICE: Aujourd'hui. Aujourd'hui on a marque l'histoire.

AMT: It certainly was history. Coalition Avenir Quebec party leader Francois Legault last night declaring that voters in his province had made history and they did. Decades of Liberal and Parti Quebecois domination came to an end last night. Though the CAQ has been steadily fighting for the top spot with the Liberals, the scope of its win was unexpected. A solid majority, 74 out of 125 seats. The Liberals took 32 seats. The Parti Quebecois nine seats, losing official party status and that's one less than the sovereigntist upstarts, Quebec Solidaire. Joining us to talk about the results is Christian Bourque, vice president and senior partner at the polling and marketing firm, Leger. He is in Montreal. Hello.

CHRISTIAN BOURQUE: Good morning.

AMT: How surprised were you?

CB: Well surprised to some extent. I mean the polls over the weekend were predicting a CAQ a victory, but a very slim majority if you looked at those who translate polling numbers into seat projections were saying that the majority would be fairly slim and but what a majority it was actually yesterday. And a couple of things that were really surprising beyond what we expected. We expected the PQ would have a tough evening, but basically the 25 per cent of popular support for the Liberal Party, it is the Liberals' worst result since Confederation and a striking one at that. When you look at the results by riding, even in their you know the west island seats that they usually have by 10 to 15000 vote majorities, those majorities actually melted yesterday meaning that a lot of the Liberal supporters just stayed home.

AMT: And that was the big take away? Their base just didn't get out?

CB: Absolutely. And our poll, the first poll of the campaign said 35-28 favoring the CAQ. Then because of campaign performance and François Legault having a tough time on immigration, that sort of margin of victory sort of narrowed for the CAQ. And yesterday I think we're sort of back to where we were when this whole campaign started out, which is Quebecers thirst for change and their feeling is that the only alternative to the Liberals was the CAQ.

AMT: And how widespread is that vote? Is it even around Quebec for the Coalition Avenir Quebec?

CB: One thing though is that where Francois Legault is in full command, is he's got seats in every region of the province, even in Montreal, where a lot of people were saying, maybe he could form a government without a single seat on the island of Montreal. He actually won two. He's got seat in the Outaouais, which usually always votes Liberal. He has all the seats almost in the Eastern Townships, except for Sherbrooke where usually again the Liberals win all of those seats. So he basically Francois Legault is present in every region of the province.

AMT: And does that give him the mandate on which he campaigned then, talking about a values test amongst other things?

CB: That's the one thing though. I think he's learned from the election campaign that his stance on immigration probably will not fly. I would be looking for the CAQ, not necessarily to flip flop on this issue over the next year or two, but I think out of all of his campaign promises, probably the last one to see the light of day would be his promises on immigration. Maybe late in the first mandate, if at all.

AMT: Christian, the Parti Quebecois no longer has official party status. Their leader Jean-Francois Lisee lost in his own riding. How significant is this?

CB: Well lost in his riding and resigned on the spot, yesterday night making his speech. When you look at this, this is the worst result in the in PQ history. In 1970, as a third party, the third option, they actually got 23 percent of the popular vote. With 17 percent of the popular vote, you're thinking where does that leave the PQ without a leader in the short term? And if you look at those who you would think would run for leadership, who will want it? A lot of people were saying well why isn't there sort of talk of a merger with Quebec Solidaire, but the reason why the PQ is in this position now is out of a failed attempt at a coalition with Quebec Solidaire. So there's a lot of animosity. If you listen to the speech from Jean-Francois Lisee, the PQ leader, as he was stepping down yesterday, he actually went back to this again the failed attempt at an electoral coalition with Quebec Solidaire. So there's a lot of bitterness there and they'll be seated, both of them side by side in the fifth row of the National Assembly. Both of them without official party status, but you would think with Quebec Solidaire having 10 seats, compared to the three that they had previously and now with Quebec Solidaire not only being a Montreal-based party, but having seats in four different regions that really people will be turning their mics or the media will be turning the mics on Quebec Solidaire and maybe not on the Parti Quebecois. Does this mean the end of the PQ? We'll have to wait and see, but certainly this is not only a defeat, it is a catastrophe for the PQ.

AMT: Christian, thanks for your thoughts.

CB: My pleasure.

AMT: Christian Bourque, vice president and senior partner at the polling and marketing firm, Leger. He joined us from Montreal.

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AMT: You are listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Who are the real winners and losers in the USMCA deal?

Guests: Christine McDaniel, Colin Roberston, Antonio Ortiz-Mena

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VOICE 1: When the Prime Minister offered to renegotiate NAFTA, there were no sunset clauses, steel tariffs or auto quotas. And we already had a dispute resolution mechanism. So these are not new gains in this deal. So we had hoped that the government might negotiate gains for Canada, like an end to the buy America policy that cost billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

VOICE 2: Canadians are pleased today that we are moving forward on a historic record that stabilizes, secures and offers certainty to investors to Canadian businesses, but mostly to workers and folks in the middle class.

AMT: So was it a win for Canada or not so much? You heard Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau going back and forth there yesterday in the House of Commons over USMCA, the United States Mexico Canada agreement, is set to replace NAFTA. I'm joined by trade experts from all three countries to help tally up the wins and losses for all involved. Colin Robertson is a former Canadian diplomat who helped negotiate the Canada US Free Trade Agreement and later NAFTA. He is now vice president and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. He is in Mexico City. Antonio Ortiz-Mena is an economist who was part of Mexico's negotiating team when NAFTA was first drafted. He's been head of economic affairs at the Mexican embassy in the U.S. He's now senior VP at the Albright Stonebridge Group, which provides strategic trade advice. He's in Washington, D.C. And for the U.S. Christine McDaniel is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Her research focuses on international trade and economics. She is also in Washington. Hi everyone.

CHRISTINE MCDANIEL: Good Morning.

ANTONIO ORTIZ-MENA: Hello.

AMT: First of all, USMCA, is anybody calling you US-M-CA or anything like that? Like what are we calling it?

CM: We're calling it USMC.

AMT: For now.

CM: We're trying to out how to say it really quickly.

AMT: OK. I'm going to go around the table quickly and just get a sense of what you see as the most important gain for each country. Antonio Ortiz-Mena, let's start. Most important gain for Mexico, quickly.

AOM: Quickly, the fact that there is a new agreement as opposed to just endless uncertainty, in general. Specifically I'm quite obsessed about dispute settlement mechanism. So I'm glad to see that there is a strong dispute settlement mechanism. I think apart from that everything is less important.

AMT: Colin Robertson. Hello, Colin. Colin Robertson did we lose you? OK while we try to find him, Christine McDaniel very quickly, what do you see as the most important gain for the United States?

CM: Well I think the biggest gain right now is just the sense of relief you know that we averted disaster. And you know investor confidence hopefully will be built back up you know to the extent it was sort of on the brink there.

AMT: OK. Colin Robertson what do you see as the biggest win for Canada?

CR: Well I think I agree with Antonio that dispute settlement mechanism, but importantly the market certainty. You saw the market track yesterday that we now have a deal in the kind of zombie NAFTA zone. That wasn't good for Canada or Mexico. That having access now once again to the biggest market in the world is important for Canada.

AMT: Colin Robertson, I want to ask you I'm looking at the CBC opinion page today. Neil Macdonald has a piece where he says that under this deal, if Canada wants a trade deal with China, it must signal its intent ahead of time to the United States. It must submit the text of any deal to the United States and then accept Washington's verdict on that.

CR: Well I think what it says is, if Canada has an agreement with a non-market economy and I think you're going to get some dispute as to because China is a member of the World Trade Organization, but is it a non-market economy. But it's not a clause I've seen before, others have commented on it, Peter Clark as well. We'll see how what it means in application.

AMT: And doe that worry you? Given that Canada the real push that came out yesterday from various sectors in Canada was to say Canada needs to diversify so it doesn't end up on a precipice again.

CR: No because I think what that there is pressure on China, Canada is part of that steel reduction and things to bring China more fully into how we trade amongst nations and I think the more likely you would see efforts to bring China into what we now call the comprehensive from progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, which I think is going to become the benchmark for trade agreements in the Pacific. And Canada and Mexico are both members of that and I see that as more likely to be the new benchmark and the encouragement to bring China into that and China will have to take on certain obligations.

AMT: Let's talk about some of the losses. Colin Robertson, we heard some negative reaction from dairy farmers on concessions regarding U.S. access to the Canadian dairy market. Canada has says it will compensate dairy farmers. What are we looking at there?

CR: Well if the United States had joined the Trans-Pacific partnership, we would have given the United States an additional three and a half percent 3.25 percent quota. Instead we're now giving them I think something like 3.75 percent quota. We've given the Europeans about 3 percent quota. So 90 percent of the market is still very much in Canadian hands, so it's a very small increase. And as you pointed out, the governments, provincial and federal, have offered compensation. We did something similar with the wine industry after the negotiations of the Canada-US free trade agreement and you know it really did turn around our wine industry. Now we sell Canadian wines all over the world. So I think rather than looking at it defensively, we should be looking at it the same way our beef and pork, our grains and our pulse, we we are world gangbusters. I don't see any reason why our dairy producers and you think of the superb cheeses we produce, strictly out of Quebec, why we can't turn that around and become real international competition as we are in other parts of the agriculture sector.

AMT: Christine McDaniel, if Canada is going to compensate the provinces and the federal government, dairy farmers for any losses. Is that how does the United States see that, does that go against free trade?

CM: Well that's their prerogative to do. You'll recall that the United States is doing something similar or are considering doing something similar on agriculture in terms of the effects on US farmers from retaliation from China and others. So you know as long as it's within the WTO rules and you stay within those parameters then it's the country's prerogative to do that.

AMT: And so what's the reaction in the United States that this deal has given more access to the Canadian dairy market?

CM: Well I think it's positive. It's definitely in the right direction. I think you know one of the bigger winners here are the Canadian consumers. You know in terms of dairy, wine, the de minimus threshold. I mean it was all in the right direction, you know in terms of you know easier access to goods and services abroad, lower prices and greater variety for the Canadian consumer.

AMT: Let's talk about wine for a minute. In BC, the wine industry is going to have changes because the winds have traditionally had exclusivity in grocery stores in the province. Listen to Karen Graham, a wine industry consultant.

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VOICE: For the BC wine industry it means a few different things. Some of them certainly today or by November 1, 2019 to be feeling the pinch a little bit in terms of increased competition on BC wine and grocery store shelves.

AMT: Colin Robertson, there's unhappiness on that front. What do you think?

CR: Well this is an example of a kind of what we call non-tariff barriers. No nation is immune from protectionism and essentially what was being practiced in British Columbia was protectionism on behalf of the local vintners. Now again, I say BC makes a very good product. The BC wines are going to have to share shelf space with wines from the US and others. Something we really should have been doing under our NAFTA obligations. And this was sort of rectified in this agreement. I don't see a problem because I think if you like BC wines, you're still going to be seeing BC wines, but when you go in and you look at their shelf, you're now going to have more choice. Yes, some of it is coming from the States, but you're still going to have the BC wines there. It is up to the consumer to choose, which one he wants to get. And the fact we're now in accordance with obligations we really undertook under the original North American Free Trade Agreement.

AMT: I want to ask about the auto industry. Antonio Ortiz-Mena, how will changes in that sector impact Mexico?

AOM: Well I think that the auto agreements are both a win and a loss for Mexico. I think they're a loss because Mexico would have preferred to keep the original regional content rule of 62.5 percent regional value added. The fact that it went higher and that it has some wage related requirements means that the rules are pretty complex, they're cumbersome and some companies might opt to trade under WTO rules, which only provide 42.5 percent tariff. And there's also a side agreement whereby both Mexico and Canada have a guaranteed quota of 2.6 million autos to be exported from Canada or Mexico to the US, should the US impose new tariffs on autos, under national security laws. So I think that the rules again are very high. They could be cumbersome to implement and we're looking at a world where this is some sort of an insurance policy. Why do we talk about quotas when we didn't have quotas 25 years ago? The only way to understand that is we're entering a new more protectionist world. So this sort of a sthe new agreements insurance policy provision. That's the way I see it.

AMT: Christine McDaniel, you've said you've had mixed feelings on this. How so?

CM: Well I think you know the North American auto industry has been a relatively competitive on a global scale, but US, Mexico, Canada, automakers in the region, they need access to globally competitive priced inputs. You know I mean if was profit maximizing for them to have you know done some of these things in the past, then they would have been doing that. So you know this is you know putting a restriction on how much you know particular firms in a particular sector must pay their workers, restrictions on where they can get their inputs, at what price and how much. You know these are things that will restrict automakers in the region. You know in a time where you know the real growth is in Asia, so we want a strong competitive globally competitive automotive sector. And these restrictions do not necessarily align with that you know investor confidence.

AMT: Colin Roberston, I'll just get you to be brief on the impact for Canada because I want to go to one more topic too.

CR: No, we've moved to similar to what we have in lumber, we've moved to manage trade in autos. Keep in mind this is something Donald Trump was insistent on and I make the bigger point is that these negotiations were not initiated by Canada or Mexico. This was very much initiated by the United States. I think the fundamental reason is that Canada and Mexico, 75 percent of our trade is with the United States. Only 18 percent or 17 percent of US trade is with Canada or Mexico. So the US exercised, under Donald Trump, exercised that leverage. I think we've come out of this OK. Is it perfect? No, but I think we're in any trade agreement you take wins and losses and I think overall this is good. And you saw the market reaction, the fact we still have continued access to the biggest market in the world, that's important for Canada Mexico.

AMT: Colin Roberston, what about patent protection on certain drug classes being extended another two years. There are concerns that that could really affect provincial pharmacare plans and Canadians buying drugs.

CR: I think that's correct, although the cost of that through and the fact that we act as a bit of a cartel when we buy the drug. So yes there's an additional two years protection for a particular stream of drugs called biologics. But you're correct, Anna Maria, is the potential for slightly higher costs over a period of time is there, but mitigated in part by the fact that Canadian provinces who are the sort of administer the health care, do act as a cartel to try and get best prices from those they're buying from.

AMT: Christine McDaniel, we know the pharma lobby in the United States is one of the biggest lobby is that they had to get this deal. What was going on there?

CR: Well remember back in our TPP days, they were lobbying very hard for 12 years on data exclusivity protection for biologics. And you know the end of the day, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, many others, banded together and really blocked that effort by the United States to do that. So the US was not able, it did not look like it was going to be able to do that in TPP. The fact that you know it appears to have sort of twisted Mexico's arm and then for Canada join in they had it you know reluctantly agree to something that they apparently didn't want to do earlier. You know that's I think that's interesting. Although they didn't get, US didn't get the full 12 years, they got 10 years.

AMT: I've got music coming up. Means we're running out of time. Thank you all of you for weighing in on some of these issues today.

CM: You bet. Thank you.

AMT: That's Colin Robertson, vice president and fellow at Canadian Global Affairs Institute. Antonio Ortiz-Mena, senior vice president of the Albright Stonebridge Group and Christine McDaniel at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Stay with us. This is The Current.

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FBI's Brett Kavanaugh investigation is a 'fishing expedition,' says Federalist Society member

Guests: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Sally Kohn, Adam White

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, back in the 60s women publicly protested against wearing bras. Today many young women are choosing to go bra-free and making YouTube videos about it. In half an hour, we're exploring the history of that undergarment and we'll hear from a Canadian woman who says she was fired from her job for refusing to wear one. It's more than a tempest in a sea cup. But first, judging the judge.

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VOICE: I want it to be comprehensive. I actually think it's a good thing for Judge Kavanaugh. I think it's actually a good thing, not a bad thing. I think it's a good thing. Now with that being said, I'd like it to go quickly. And the reason I'd like it to go quickly, very simple because it's unfair to him at this point. What his wife is going through, what his beautiful children are going through, is not describable. It's not fair.

AMT: US President, Donald Trump, yesterday sharing his thoughts about the FBI's investigation into his Supreme Court nominee. As the world watched last Thursday, Christine Blasey Ford accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers. The emotional testimony from Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh led to this scene of high drama outside the Senate Judiciary Committee room.

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VOICE 1: What you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit in the Supreme Court. This is not horrible. What are you doing sir?

VOICE 2: Don't look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn't matter what happened to me. That you'll let people like that go in to the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies.

AMT: While in the video, you cannot see the women's faces. You can see the Republican Senator Jeff Flake, shifting uncomfortably looking at his shoes. When he returned to the committee room, Senator Flake said that he would only vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh after an FBI investigation into allegations raised by Christine Blasey Ford. The investigation is now under way, but its scope and nature are the subject of intense political debate. To hear how this is playing out, I'm joined by Sheryl Gay Stolberg the congressional correspondent for The New York Times and she joins us from Washington. Hi.

SHERYL GAY STOLBERG: Hi.

AMT: What do we know about the investigation to date?

SGS: Well, so we know, what we know is that at first the FBI set out to interview four people at the directive of the White House and Senate Republicans. Those people are some high school friends of Judge Kavanaugh, a high school friend of Dr. Blasey Ford, and also a second woman Debra Ramirez who has accused Judge Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her when he was a student at Yale. After those names were revealed, Democrats kind of pitched a fit if you will, at the limited scope of the investigation and started calling on the White House to let the FBI have free rein to do as it saw fit.

AMT: And we heard President Trump in that clip from yesterday, setting out what he wants from the probe. What role does the president play in determining the scope of the investigation?

SGS: So this investigation is actually a background check. It's not a criminal investigation and because it's a background check the president actually has the authority to direct it. It is conducted on behalf of a client, if you will, the client is the White House. So the White House gets to dictate what the FBI does.

AMT: And what does the FBI is expected to find fact then? What do you expect it to come up with at the end of this?

SGS: Well I think that's unclear. I mean I think it's expected to see if it can prove the allegations of Dr. Blasey Ford and Ms. Ramirez. That is of course going to be very difficult. We know that other people have said they don't remember it. They're not sure it happened, but nonetheless it is the FBI and they will ask people to do interviews under oath. It's very difficult to turn the FBI down. It's a crime to lie to the FBI. So it's quite possible that they'll turn up additional information or that the initial interviews that they do will lead to yet more interviews with other witnesses. And don't forget the only witnesses who testified at the hearing last Thursday were Dr. Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanagh. So we haven't heard the accounts of other people and they haven't been grilled by you know professional interviewers.

AMT: Would we see necessarily more public testimony or is that up in the air as well?

SGS: I don't think we'd see more public testimony. I think what you'll see is the FBI will produce a report. It will deliver that report to the White House. The White House will share it with the Senate and then the Senate will go from there with the Republican leadership determining whether and when to hold a vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

AMT: Now we know a number of Brett Kavanaugh's former classmates have been vocally casting doubt on whether some aspects of his testimony from high school were truthful. He's been accused of understating how much he drank. His translation of several slang terms in his yearbook have been questioned. Would that become part of the FBI probe?

SGS: Well I think the White House is really trying desperately not to make that part of the FBI probe. The scope of the probe was always intended to be narrow. It was limited to one week and specifically the FBI has been asked to investigate "credible allegations" against Judge Kavanaugh. I presume that means credible allegations of sexual misconduct. Democrats would like to expand the probe to look at Judge Kavanaugh's truthfulness, but I don't think the FBI is going to go there.

AMT: On 60 Minutes on Sunday, Senator Jeff Flake said that if Judge Kavanaugh was shown to have lied to the committee, I guess that's his word, his nomination would be over. Is that what it's shifting to whether there was perjury involved in what he said under oath?

SGS: Well Democrats are really pushing this new line of attack. They are saying that whether or not something happened 30 years ago, when Judge Kavanaugh was a teenager, the question is his conduct right now. And they are pointing at his testimony of last week, his truthfulness, which they had already raised questions about in his previous confirmation hearings, as well as his temperament. He was very hot under the collar at that hearing. He berated Democratic senators, which is something that is unheard of. He accused the Democrats of waging a partisan investigation against him. A calculated political hit, he called it. And so there are now questions, mostly being pushed by Democrats about his truthfulness, his partisanship and his temperament.

AMT: Do we know how many people are part of this FBI investigation? Like how many people they put on it?

SGS: I don't have the answer to that. I don't know. I think you know, assuming that the FBI has to get it done within a week as the president said, you know I suspect there are a number of people, but that is not a question I have the answer to.

AMT: And you and the United States are just weeks away from the midterm elections. They still want to get this through, right? Cause that's the goal for the Republicans.

SGS: Well that is the goal. They desperately want to get this through. The Republicans want to get this through before the midterm elections for the obvious reason. It's possible that Democrats could win control of the Senate. Not likely, but it is possible and that of course will make confirming Judge Kavanaugh or any nominee from President Trump, a lot more difficult.

AMT: Really uncharted territory, huh?

SGS: It is. It really is. We've never seen anything like this. Certainly at least since 1991 when we had the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, but even that I think did not turn as nasty and unpredictable as this has been.

AMT: OK. Well, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, thanks for your time today.

SGS: OK. Thank you.

AMT: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, congressional correspondent for The New York Times, she joined us from Washington, D.C.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We don't do bipartisan things in the Senate very often anymore, but I felt it was important to do this. And so I pulled Chris out of the hearing. We talked about it. We brought some others in and we were able to make that arrangement and right now the FBI is investigating. And that's a good thing. We ought to have more information, not less.

AMT: Well, that is Republican Senator, Jeff Flake, speaking yesterday about why he and his Democratic colleague Chris Coons brokered the rare compromise last week. You can hear a bit of weariness in his voice there. He is in the thick of a highly polarized fight over the future of the country's highest court. For both Democrats and Republicans, Brett Kavanaugh is more than a Supreme Court nominee. He has become a symbol in a broader political battle, a battle that has spilled vicariously beyond U.S. borders. I'm joined now by two people from either side of the divide in that battle. Sally Kohn is a CNN political commentator. She's the author of the "Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity." She joins us from Brooklyn, New York. Adam White is an assistant professor of law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He's a member of the Federalist Society, an organization of conservatives and libertarians seeking reform of the U.S. legal system. Adam White is in Washington. Hello to both of you.

ADAM WHITE: Hello.

SALLY KOHN: Hello.

AMT: Adam White, I want to start with you. Based on what is known so far about this FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh, what's your sense. Is this process fair?

AW: Well, my contention all along has been that we're in a real risk of blowing the process up when we take allegations that were received before the hearings started and before the original FBI investigation and we begin to investigate them after the hearings. It's sort of an open-ended never ending process. I am worried about where this is headed. I think that the limits that everybody put on the post hearing investigation, I think they're reasonable and I'm looking forward to seeing what the FBI comes up with. But I do have this lingering fear that what we're embarking on is sort of an open-ended fishing expedition, ultimately coming down to questions about whether Judge Kavanaugh drank too much at a party you know at a bar somewhere one time in the mid 80s, totally removed from the allegations that Dr. Ford raised.

AMT: Sally Kohn?

SK: OK. Apart from the fact that that would seem to trivialize the more serious allegations that have been made against Judge Kavanaugh, not that he drank too much here and there, but that he is alleged, the allegations are that he committed or attempted to commit sexual assault was a serious allegations. But I think what's important here above all, is that we address this as a nation, as Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, in such a way that makes clear to women in this country, that if you step forward with allegations, you will be treated with respect, you will not be smeared and attacked, that you will, your concerns and your issues we take seriously and sends a signal to men that sexual assault will not be, our allegations of sexual assault will not be brushed aside, minimized, trivialized. That's first and foremost the most important thing. Now you know look, I'm old enough to remember when Republicans, there was a whole investigation, FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton. It found nothing around her e-mails and yet Republicans were still deeply insistent on yet another investigation and didn't believe and believed that she was guilty regardless of what the FBI found. So what's dangerous here is the way that partisanship is colouring what I should hope would be a real desire to make sure we do not appoint someone who is ethically and morally not qualified to a lifetime seat on the court.

AMT: Well in relation to that Sally Kohn, several of Brett Kavanaugh's former classmates have come forward, claiming that some of his testimony was false or misleading. Should that be part of what the FBI is looking at?

SK: Call me old-fashioned. I think someone who lies under oath should not be supreme court justice. And that's, I think that's part of what we need to assess. And again, you know here's the other dimension of this, to be honest, Democrats did already have their minds made up. We from the get go, seeing his record I mean the 7 percent of it that was made available to the Senate and the rest was hidden by Kavanaugh and the White House, but the misstatements and inconsistencies in his original testimony, his blanket broad support for unaccountable presidential power, the Democrats were already against this guy. The issue is look, it is well within the right of the Republicans to appoint a extreme right anti-choice, backwords you know idealogue to the core, that is their right. The question is there are a lot extreme right anti-choice ideologues you can afford to the Supreme Court. Are you like this one? And do you care about the allegations against him and the mounting evidence that he lied under oath.

AMT: Adam White, what do you say to that?

AW: Well I think first and foremost the over-the-top rhetoric we just heard exaggerating Judge Kavanaugh's record and understating the fact that the public had access to all of the hundreds and hundreds of his judicial opinions in public writings, I think shows that political stakes are an issue. But I do want to get back to something Mr. Kohn said at the beginning, it's very important. I agree we need to take allegations of sexual assault very, very seriously, but I don't think we've seen that at all in this process. These allegations were received many many weeks ago and they were not released to the public by Senator Feinstein, I think a real disservice. He should have commissioned a confidential FBI investigation to take Dr. Ford's allegations very seriously and now even today in talking about the hearings we just had, there's virtually no attentions been paid to the inconsistencies in Dr. Ford's own testimony, which were laid out very straightforward and very factually by Ms. Mitchell, the prosecutor that was brought into question both witnesses. I think we have to continue our focus on Dr. Ford's actual allegations and see if they're true or not. To this point, as far as I know, nobody at CNN or any other news source has actually corroborated a single one of Dr. Fords allegations. I think that's very troubling.

AMT: Sally Kohn?

SK: You know, she's not on trial here. By the way neither is Brett Kavanaugh. This is not a trial. The issue is not his innocence or his guilty issue. This a job interview and the issue is he qualified or not and I want to be really clear, there's something dangerous in what just happened here, which is why didn't she come forward sooner? Why didn't she come forward 30 plus years ago? Why didn't she come forward.

AW: No, no. I did not say that. I asked why did Senator Feinstein not bring it up?

SK: And then when she does come forward, we attack and smear her. No wonder she didn't want this to have to be brought up. I think it is very reasonable seeing the way that Dr. Ford has been treated in the public. It is very reasonable that she did not want to have to go here because she knew the price she was going to pay. Look he was always going to be scrutinized. That's part of the process.

AMT: I'm going to have to. I have a clip I want to play of of Brett Kavanaugh. One concern that people have raised is the way he framed the opposition to his appointment, along political lines. You've heard this clip. Let's listen again.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This whole two week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left wing opposition groups.

AMT: Sally Kohn Is this a political hit?

SK: You know that is as offensive to me. There's an underlying, oh you know Dr. Ford, these other accusers, they're be used, which is also taking away their agency not respecting them, not you know trusting. I mean so there's that layer to this. The point though in that clip and Judge Kavanaugh's testimony, apart from his demeanor, which I think a lot of people again, if we took off, you can imagine this was a nominee from Barack Obama, the Republicans going haywire about someone with his temperament on the court. But regardless, someone who expresses overt partisan views and frames that as a political hit job, which he hints that he will seek retribution. What goes around comes around, etc. That's a kind of you know revealing of a tainted viewpoint and a bias that honestly does not belong on our court. I would hope as a country, we understand that.

AMT: Adam White, I'm going to ask you about that. Both the temperament and the fact that you know this is a man on a Supreme Court who will have to decide big issues, many of which come with partisan baggage. How concerned should Americans be by those statements?

SK: Yeah, well I agree. Judges need to stay out of partisan politics. I think of all the things that Judge Kavanaugh was rallying against in that testimony, the one that I bristle at the most was his reference to the Clintons and his assertion that a lot of this is driven by friends of the Clintons who are still bitter by Kavanaugh's role as a junior lawyer or senior lawyer in the Ken Starr investigation. Judges need to stay out of partisan politics. We saw this in early 2016 when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been sort of a hero with the left, began to issue statements against President Trump in the middle of a presidential campaign. I thought that was beneath a judge and I think that I'm concerned about Judge Kavanaugh's statement about Clinton in the same way that I was concerned about Justice Ginsburg's statement about President Trump. I do think though that just as it's hard to put oneself in the shoes of Dr. Ford and again, I think my position was misstated earlier. I didn't say that Dr. Ford should be criticized for when she did or did not come forward. I think Senator Feinstein should be criticized for handling of those allegations. But at the same token, I think it's hard to put oneself in the shoes of Judge Kavanaugh, somebody who you know thinks that he's been falsely accused of the most heinous and vile of crimes possible, sexual assault. You know it's hard for me to criticize his demeanor in the hearing, when he's being pelted with allegations raising not just ranging, not just from Dr. Fords allegations, but other allegations from Mr. Ramirez and still further allegations that he participated in gang rape. I just don't fault him for losing his cool at a couple points.

AMT: OK. Well Adam White though, but he's a judge. Surely he has you know, judges sit before people who are accused and who are upset about being accused all the time and they want order in the courtroom. So the fact that he did become so emotional, if a woman had done that, people would be saying lots of things about her. The fact that he became so emotional and the fact that he became so partisan, does that give you like take away your political thing from it, does that give you pause as someone who cares about the reform of courts?

AW: Well no. Well first of all, I don't think that observers would have been more critical of a woman becoming emotional in this hearings. Dr. Ford became very emotional in these hearings and I think people held her up.

AMT: She didn't get angry. He got angry.

AW: Well, I'm sorry I misunderstood you. I thought you said emotional. But with Judge Kavanaugh, I think that the better judge of this is the fact that he's now served on the federal bench for 13 years or 12 years. His record has been very strong and straightforward. He's often ruled against his own political interests, most famously when he said that the federal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, should not go forward in federal court. So I think his record stands for itself. And I think that trying to exclusively focus on the fact that he became emotional and heated while being accused of the most vile of crimes, sexual assault, I think is really too narrow and too distortive a lens on what's happening right now.

AMT: What is the risk of not confirming, Brett Kavanaugh, Adam White?

AW: Well first of all, I think if we don't confirm Judge Kavanaugh, I think we are losing a great candidate for the federal bench. His record speaks for itself. But also I do worry about the process. I'm not somebody who believes the Senate has to vote up or down on any given nominee and I've been writing about that and lar views for over a decade now. But I do think that this new process of holding back information that senators have received, holding it back until after the FBI investigation and the hearings and then deploying it after the fact, is going to cause real problems in future nominations I think the next time we get a Supreme Court nomination we're all going to sit through the hearings wondering you know how soon can the hearings end, so we can get to the real action.

AW: Sally Kohn, what's the risk?

SK: You know what, there's no reason to rush this. I would you know look I would think Republicans who didn't even bring in Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, for hearings let alone a vote would feel some paying in hypocrisy in pretending that there's some reason now to really rush things. There's no rush. This isn't, this is a life time appointment to the highest court in the land. This is one that you would think Democrats, Republicans, conservative, liberals, we would all want to make sure we get the right and take the time to get right.

AMT: But Sally, isn't the problem that your view of right and his view of right are very different. I mean how do you come to the center here because do you actually see, even if Democrats take the house, do you think this fight continues in another way?

SK: It may. I can't predict that I think you know, look, I mean obviously that's part of the political reason that Republicans want to have this happen sooner and don't want to get too close. They don't want to be held accountable for this vote to close the midterms. They if it gets held until after midterms, it becomes more and more uncertain ground. But you know, again, the bigger issue here is are they going to, do they honestly the bigger issues, do they care? And what was disturbing was to hear from Republican senators Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, before Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh's round of testimony. Do they say things like, even if he did it, it doesn't matter or you know well I'm going to hear from the lady, but I'm still going to vote for her or If he did it, you know he's a good guy now and that kind of thing first of all, is that hurts our country. That hurts women, that hurts all of us.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Thank you both.

SK: Thank you.

AW: Thank you.

AMT: That is Sally Kohn, CNN political commentator, author of "The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity. Adam White, assistant professor of law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Stay with us. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM and online on cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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It's my human right not to wear a bra, says B.C. woman fired for doing just that

Guests: Christina Schell, Alison Matthews David

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Today I want to talk about why I don't wear a bra and why specifically I haven't for the last six months.

AMT: She's not alone in saying goodbye to her bra. A quick look online reveals, many women ditching the confines of their bras. They're singing the praises of going bra-free. Sometimes, literally.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Not wearing a bra has a huge role in my self-empowerment.

[Song]

VOICE 2: Today I'm going to do a test. Jumping with brassiere and jumping without brassiere. You know, as you know I don't like wearing brassiere.

VOICE 3: I get asked a lot about do my nipples show like oh my gosh and yes, but honestly for the nipps, like the female body is so sexualized, it makes me mad. Like boys can walk without shirts, but girls can't.

VOICE 3: I don't ever feel self-conscious or like oh no, are my nipples showing because I don't care. I stopped wearing bras to be more comfortable and because I'm more comfortable, I'm confident.

VOICE 2: Conclusion. There was no difference. So why do I waste my time putting a brassiere on.

VOICE 1: Give it a try. Even if you can change your mind. I did it and I don't plan to wear one ever again.

AMT: The voices of a few of the many women on YouTube, celebrating a new found braless freedom. My next guest has found herself fighting for the right to go braless. When she was working in B.C. Christina Schell was fired from her job for refusing to wear a bra. She's in Edmonton.

CHRISTINA SCHELL: Hi.

AMT: We just heard from women shunning their bras. Can you relate?

CS: Very much. And for the same reasons, I just don't find it necessary. It's a confidence thing. It's a comfort more than anything. I

AMT: So they all seem to think it was pretty easy to just stop wearing a bra, but that's what got you fired from your job at a golf course in B.C. Why did your employer insist that you wear a bra?

CS: Well there was a female board member of the board of directors that I had heard from afterwards that she had complained. She just said her and some women at her table were greatly offended by, not giving a reason why or what it is that she was offended by. And my female manager, at the time, she said I absolutely will not make her wear one. The board members went to the general managers, the higher up and therefore like the agreement was put in place that I was supposed to sign.

AMT: So your employer the Osoyoos golf course cited privacy issues for not speaking about this to us, but they had a uniform agreement that said you could wear what, an undershirt instead of a bra under your blouse?

CS: Yup. It said women must wear a bra or undershirt under their uniform shirt.

AMT: What reason to they give you for the must wear a bra?

CS: Well in the conversation I had with Doug Robb, it was, it was multiple reasons. One was for my protection and I asked what exactly are you protecting me from? And in a run around he gave me a I know what happens with alcohol and golf courses and we have a very specific clientele here. And I fought very, very hard on every issue, I asked exactly is it my nipples? Is it the fact that they move? And he kept saying no no no no no. I asked if it affects my ability to do my job and he looked me dead in the eye and said, no you are a pro. And he, yeah.

AMT: So what was he suggesting about his clientele?

CS: He was very like beat around the bush about it and I stated. I said I've worked at another golf course, I've worked at private restaurants, I've worked at chain restaurants, I've signed multiple uniform agreements and also I've served at another establishment in the town of the Osoyoos. I've served the same men, women, young, old. I said I've served all these people without a bra and I drilled him with every reason. I gave him a list of health benefits and reasons. I gave him like I came at him hard and nobody said a word to me until we got our new uniforms. We were so excited. They were a great colour. We were all blonde, it looked awesome and then all of a sudden I looked and I just started signing stuff and then I reread it and was like what is this? Exactly what is this?

AMT: Can I ask you? You could choose to wear an under shirt and why not?

CS: Because the men upstairs don't have to wear undershirts. I work in like the temperatures in Osoyoos are 35, 36, 38, 40 degrees and half of our restaurant's outside. And it is, these shirts were hot enough. We were just moving furniture and the guys were dripping sweat and because I'm a female I've got to wear an undershirt? I didn't really see why that was fair. I had to be uncomfortable in 38 degree weather and wear either two shirts or a bra, but my male counterparts did not.

AMT: And what about the argument that some make that there's appropriate professional attire and an employee needs to respect that.

CS: My question is what makes that respectable? The fact that is it the position of my chest. I want to know exactly who outlined what exactly is considered professional. Why my breasts sitting you know maybe a half an inch lower on my chest is unprofessional. Why like they don't move any more than any other part of my body. I'm not a small person like I I would like to know exactly what justifies, what qualifies that as unprofessional. My neckline was so high. My shirt was completely opaque. I had, I wear the exact same outfit that every other person wore. Why, who dictated and what decade and what decides that? I have nipples just like the men and I see those through their shirts, while they work, so I'd like to just know that reasoning for professional and why do I have to respect something that nobody can justify?

AMT: And you know we heard the women off the top in those clips who clearly don't want to wear bras and don't like them. What is it for you? Why don't you want to wear a bra?

CS: Largely it's comfort. I've benefited from all the other health benefits that come along with it, but initially it was just like these are miserable. I will say I don't know a woman in my life that wakes up every morning and goes I cannot wait to put this thing on. They are simply, I never liked them. From the moment I was a preteen and it was just my mother was very, I'm not trying to throw her under the bus, but very like this is what you do. And I remember being forced to kind of go to school and wear one and getting to school and taking it off and I was like 10 years old or eight years old and it was just completely outrageous to me. I never liked it. So now that I'm an adult and just miserable, well I now, why should I have to?

AMT: So you mentioned the health benefits, what are they?

CS: For me like my posture is improved. The actual shape of them have improved. I feel like I just I'm so much more comfortable and therefore, yeah I do feel like I sleep better. I feel like I breathe better. It's just overall made me so much happier.

AMT: Why do you think this is a human rights issue?

CS: It only qualifies under human rights because it's sexually discriminatory because it's men versus women. I found it difficult initially because I just felt like it was my right as a human being to like to decide the undergarments that nobody can see, but the reason that it falls under a human rights is because it's one sex versus the other. If it did say all employees had to wear an undershirt, I couldn't qualify it as sexual discrimination, but I would definitely be fighting kind of my right to choose my own undergarment.

AMT: OK. Well thanks for speaking with me about this.

CS: Of course. Thank you for having me.

AMT: Christina Schell spoke to me from Edmonton. Now there are people who would argue that a bra actually helps women in all kinds of ways. Take the women at Diane's Lingerie in Vancouver, for example. Listen to the conversation in the change room while one of our producers was being fitted for a bra.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: You know magic goes on every day behind these curtains. So let's get started.

[Music]

VOICE 1: Not quite filling it at the top here. So is this the best style for you? No. Is it workable? Yes.

VOICE 2: Why is it important for someone as small as I am to wear a bra?

VOICE 1: Because if we don't wear bras when you're small, we end up going east west rather than going south, which fuller chested women do. So what a bra does, whether it's a non-wire bra or not, is it just helps contain cause the breast is tissue. It's not a muscle, you don't want that spread.

AMT: It is not solely the people who fit bras all day who rally behind the garment.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I'm Professor Joanna Wakefield-Scurr and I am head of the Research Group in Breast Health at the University of Portsmouth.

AMT: Joanna Wakefield-Scurr started studying bras because she suffered from breast pain and now her main research focus is the science of breasts and bras.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We need a bra because there are no muscles in the breast and the breast is supported by two weak structures. Those structures are the skin and something called the Cooper's ligaments. And both the skin and the Cooper's ligaments are not strong enough to hold the breast in position. So when we move, the breast moves and it's that breast movement that causes us problems and it's that breast movement that dictates the need for a bra or the benefits that a bra can give us. So what we've seen in our research is that the movement of the breast has a number of negative consequences, firstly breast pain. So if we don't wear appropriate breast support, particularly during sporting activity, then we've seen a strong association to breast pain. Another negative consequence is that the skin and the Cooper's ligaments are quite weak structures. We know from our research that actually if we don't wear appropriate breast support, we're in danger of causing some potential sort of micro traumas to the skin for example and possibly to the Cooper's ligaments, as well. My opinion on women that don't want to wear bras is that I feel it's very much their choice. We have many women into our laboratory who struggle to find appropriate bras for them. What we always talk about a bra being very individual and what works for one person, won't necessarily work for another person, even if their breasts are the same size. However the bra market in general and the sports bra market has really progressed in recent years and I would really hope that there is a solution out there for many women.

[Song]

AMT: There are many theories about how and when the bra was invented. This is one of the more creative ones.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song about Otto Titzling]

AMT: Well it may be an entertaining story, set to a catchy tune, but of course Otto Titzling is a fictional character and so didn't actually invent anything. From the creation of the bra to bra burning and beyond, bras have an embellished past.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: They are a garment that has always aroused controversy because of the way in which they alter the supposedly natural female form.

AMT: That's Alison Matthews David, an associate professor at the Ryerson School of Fashion. She walked me through the long history of the bra.

ALISON MATTHEWS DAVID: They have found archaeological evidence of the bra from a castle in 600 years ago in Austria. They found these sort of linen garments that were called breast bags actually in medieval Germany. So they do have some evidence that women were wearing these upper garments you know 600 years ago, but really as a fashionable item, they start really coming in the early 20th century.

AMT: Corsets were before that period like longer than 600 years ago?

AMD: Yes, in the Middle Ages, men's and women's dress in Europe was very similar. Both genders wore long cloaks, tunics, robes. But women's dress starts to be more differentiated by gender and more form fitting and so you get sort of stiffened bodices that are a very form fitting, starting in the middle ages, but it's really not until the Renaissance that upper class women start wearing these very stiff, what are called boned garments. And they were meant to kind of provide a support structure for the heavy textiles and fabrics that women wore in terms of dress. You needed something to support these you know layers of velvet and petticoats and all of your clothing. So it was sort of a support structure that actually didn't emphasize the breasts at all. If anything flattened the breasts.

AMT: And what happened if a woman didn't want to wear a corset?

AMD: She was a loose woman.

AMT: Is that where the phrase comes from? Lose because.

AMD: Yes you're supposed to be laced. So yes it was very much associated with morality from the beginning to be tight laced in a corset was to be appropriately dressed as a woman.

AMT: I'm wondering now about the shift from the corset to the bra. What was the invention of the bra, where did that come from?

AMD: Well you know there's a huge shift in femininity from and kind of ideas of femininity from the late 19th century to World War One and silhouettes were changing as well, quite radically from a very curvaceous figure created by the corset in the 80s to this sort of new woman who's tall and slender and athletic in the 1890s to this very youthful figure that comes in the 1910s and is continued into the flapper.

AMT: Right and the flappers are almost like then the body becomes almost androgynous.

AMD: Exactly they're trying to be the Gaston and they actually wear breast flatteners to achieve that silhoutte.

AMT: So I want to ask you about a few shapes. The pigeon breast is what?

AMD: That's sort of the mono-bosom. It's considered sort of Edwardian, matronly curvaceous look that really didn't emphasise the fact that women had two separate breasts. You looked like you had sort of one pigeon breast and I've even seen ads for sort of if you couldn't achieve that naturally and it's not a natural shape, you could get inflatable pouter pigeon breasts and they could also because they were inflatable, they could also double as a life preserver if you were in the water.

AMT: Well how convenient. Then the bullet bras, we're moving into the 40s and 50s I think. The bullet bras, what is that?

AMD: Bras become increasingly, I mean we think of you know, women are liberated in the 20s, but in fact to achieve fashionable silhouettes in the 30s even, in the 40s and 50s, you required quite substantial underpinnings, including the bra that then starting in the 30s really tries to uplift and separate the breasts.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Well that's what this new Playtex fashion magic cotton bra does. It crosses your heart with with stretch, to lift and separate. You're suddenly shaplier.

AMD: And that kind of reaches its extreme in what's called the bullet bra or torpedo bra. And you can think of the sweater girls of the 1950s for example with these very conical shaped padded reinforced and often sort of stitched in imitation of what we think of Madonna's famous.

AMT: That was a takeoff of the bullet bra then, that Madonna was wearing.

AMD: Definitely, Gaultier wasn't did not imagine that for the first time. People talked about how the breast was designed almost like a you know the tail lights of Cadillacs of the same period.

AMD: We've got some tape of women trying on bullet bras. Let's listen.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: What is this? I hate this. This is hilarious. I'll wear this everyday.

VOICE 2: I'll point out the obvious, it's very pointy from the side. It's even pointier. I'm trying to find a way to make this bra look sexy. Oh it's never going to work. But I also feel like this bra in general is pretty comfortable. Looking down looks ridiculous, they're like obstructing my view.

VOICE 1: I want to wear it every day and just not say anything. Like someone's like what's wrong with your boobs? You're like what do you mean what's wrong with my boobs? I just feel that I want to punch somebody with my boobs right now. Like boom boom boom. Guys, ask me where the beach is. It's that way.

VOICE 2: I'm never going to wear this bra again after this.

AMT: Okay Alison Matthews David, you were laughing as you were listening to this. What was the look they were going after?

AMD: Well it's quite. It's the sort of pinup bombshell, literally if you're talking bullet bras. It's like the breast as weapon, as opposed to you know again these previous silhouettes that were, I mean one woman designed a bra actually that was just made of handkerchiefs. One of the early bras, it was very simple. They weren't padded or they were just cloth that you would wear quite simple. And so this is kind of the opposite of that.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Helen, I've got the solution.

VOICE 2: Not a padded bra.

VOICE 1: No this is slightly padded.

VOICE 2: Slightly padded?

VOICE 1: Just 16 of an inch lining. Add shaping not inches and it's a Playtex cross your heart.

AMD: Here you have again a kind of more fashionable silhouette being emphasized even for teenage girls.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The new Playtex, cross your heart, slightly padded bra. Sometimes a little can do a lot.

AMD: Also typical of the 60s, which is very much an era that emphasizes youthfulness. We think of twiggy, we think of and then going into the the early second wave feminist movement where there's a rebellion against bras.

AMT: What's Canada's contribution to bra design around this time?

AMD: The famous Wonder Bra.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When I look good, I feel good. And when I feel good, I look great.

AMD: Which was actually kind of shifted from the Canadian Lady Corset Company into designing in the early 60s that what became known as the Wonder Bra and became a world's kind of sensation by the 90s.

SOUNDCLIP

[Wonder Bra commerical]

AMT: They did the pushup underwire?

AMD: Exactly the push up bra that really raised the breast line and that was happening in couture sort of this was you know I think the Wonder Bra made this accessible on the mass market and was really carefully designed and engineered to do that. It's quite a Canadian design success story. I think they became wildly popular on the Canadian market and you know I think they had excellent advertising as well, as you can hear from the jingle that really sticks in your mind.

AMT: You mentioned the sports bra. How much of a breakthrough was that?

AMD: I think it was a again, I think it was a huge breakthrough. And I think it's interesting in that it was designed by women using men's support garments. So in the 1970s, jogging really took off as a fad and of course later aerobics. But first of all, like how were women who had you know, wanted to support their breast and be comfortable in this new jogging trend, how were they going to support their breasts and there really wasn't much on the market at the time that had more support. So an American woman took her husband's jockstraps and she cut them apart and put two of them together and used the actual jockstrap cups in order to create the first jog bra and then later developed it and patented it for the mass market.

AMT: So interesting. When did bras get political?

AMD: Ooh.

AMT: Or Have they always been maybe.

AMD: They have you know they've always been political, I think and I just I brought in a great department store ad from the 1930s because clearly women have always wanted to dispense with sometimes somewhat uncomfortable undergarment and so there's an ad that says it can appear quite tempting on a hot summer's day to take off one's brassiere, but it is dangerous, very dangerous. Only a few busts can do without the gentle support a brassiere can give and summer dresses mercilessly reveal flabbiness or defects underneath. So only a very few women can allow their figures to be quite free. So this sort of desire you know when it's hot or uncomfortable to take off your bra, I think is nothing new, but with especially in the 60s with kind of again this beach culture and kind of trend towards unisex dress, things like Rudi Gernreich's monokini that he developed, which showed off the breasts. That was that became a huge sort of political gesture and media sensation and he also designed a no bra bra that was very comfortable and nylon in the 1960s. And so I guess it really really hit the headlines in 1968 when we had women demonstrating against the Miss America Pageant.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from 1968 Miss America Pageant]

AMD: That's where the legend of bra burning comes from.

AMT: Tell us a little bit more about what really happened in the bra burning movement.

AMD: The second wave feminists were demonstrating against kind of the white slender body ideals that were being promoted by the Miss America pageant and they created a freedom trashcan, which was on the boardwalk and they were going to burn their bras. But in fact, they were asked not to because the wooden boardwalk was quite flammable so they were worried about a big blaze, but they did, what they did do is they threw in all these sort of symbols of idealized femininity. So they threw in curling irons, they threw in false eyelashes, they did throw in bras.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from protest against Miss America Pageant]

AMD: They didn't burn them, but it created a kind of became the legend about bra burning and this terror of women dispensing with these, what were seen as essential items creating femininity.

AMT: So in fact, no one actually lit their bra on fire?

AMD: They did not.

AMT: So interesting that that's the reality and what we think about as the history. And that brings us to the modern bra. What are some of the different shapes and looks bras are going for now?

AMD: Oh yes. I just went bra shopping with my daughter, my teenage daughter and you know I think what strikes me now is how many bras are padded now.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Hello bombshell.

AMD: We don't want to see things like nipples anymore. There aren't very many kind of just simple bras, most of them are underwire I would say.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Victoria's Secret new miraculous push-up instantly adds two cup sizes.

AMD: So you know you talk about how it's changing and how now that pushup and padded pushup is there for all ages and you think it's shifting again. What do you see? I see a kind of, I think we're in a time of somewhat extreme gender polarization. So I think you know we do have we have kind of people trying to you know say it claiming, rightfully so that in fact women should not be forced to wear bras. If you think about it from a practical point of view, my daughter said you know how expensive they are. It's an expense. Not all women are comfortable wearing them. You know it should not be an obligation and yet it's this time where there is also so much pressure coming from the media for example and from music, from all sorts of areas of popular culture stressing the opposite that women should hyper feminize themselves and the bra is part of that.

AMT: So interesting. It's interesting times for a garment that's been around for centuries. Thanks so much for coming.

AMD: My pleasure. It's been wonderful.

AMT: Alison Matthews David is a fashion historian and an associate professor at Ryerson's School of Fashion. She is the author of the book, "Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present." If you'd like to add your voice to what you heard today about bras, tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. E-mail us by going to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on contact. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Actor Ken Jeong from the Hangover, Community and Crazy Rich Asians is on the show. Remember you can always take the current with you to go on the CBC Radio app, free from the App Store or Google Play. While after all that talk about bras, we're going to leave you with a little more of that apocryphal story of the bra's invention. This is Bette Midler from the soundtrack of Beaches singing, "Otto Titsling." I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Song: "Otto Titsling" by Bette Midler]

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Oct. 2, 2018 episode transcript

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