In their own words: why people were celebrating International Go Topless Day on Sunday

Women and men in approximately 60 cities across the globe took part in the International Go Topless Day on Sunday.

Demonstrators in cities like New York, Paris and London took to the streets in order to break taboos around female nudity, protest against double-standards and to make it easier for women to breastfeed.

In their own words, here's why people were willing to bare their chests in public:

We’re not protesting. We’re exercising our right to bring awareness to the subject.

This is about equality. There’s no problem with men not wearing shirts at the beach. I made the drive here to take away the stigma for women.

• Emilee Hyland speaking to the Boston Globe

As long as men are allowed to be topless in public, women should have the same constitutional right. Or else, men should have to wear something to hide their chests.

• Claude "Rael" Vorilhon, founder of GoTopless.org

In our society, men and women are supposed to have equal rights. But women are commonly arrested, fined and humiliated for daring to go topless in public, a freedom men have had for decades. To protest this unconstitutional gender discrimination, GoTopless.org is holding National Go-Topless Day events in cities nationwide. Thousands of women will be baring their chests that day in the name of equal rights.

• GoTopless.org statement

It’s logical. Why can a man go outside topless and a woman can’t. We should be able to do it without anyone harassing us. It’s just meat, it’s just breast and it’s nature.

• A demonstrator in New York speaking to the Guardian

It's absurd that someone has judged topless women as obscene, and yet topless men is considered normal in our culture.

We just abhor the double standard. We are practicing our rights. We think everyone should try it — it's a lot of fun.

• Carolyn Estes, a demonstrator in Austin, Texas, speaking to NBC

The significance is really to challenge the double-standard and to challenge this notion that there’s something morally reprehensible about women being topless when men have been able to be topless for so many years. It’s just about loving your body in whatever state it is in.

• A demonstrator in New York speaking to the Guardian

A woman’s nipple being criminalised and so hyper-sexualised make certain things like breast-feeding really difficult, especially in public... It is discrimination based on gender to tell women to cover up.

• Demonstrators speaking in New Hampshire

The main problem people have with breast-feeding is they sexualise breasts, so it offends them. If we could make them less taboo, breast-feeding would be much more acceptable in society.

• Jessica Wardell, a demonstrator in New Hampshire speaking to Reuters

There should be no reason why my breasts should be different from his chest.

• A demonstrator speaking to CBS Local in Denver

More: Policeman tumbles into wall as he tries to tackle topless protester