If burning bras in the sixties was about women's lib, some might say the Wonderbra is regression.

Feminists claim the Wonderbra forces a woman to fake something she feels she should have. They say it encourages men to look, and encourages women to expect men to look. The thinking, intelligent, independent woman does not wear a Wonderbra.

Well, I am here in defense of cleavage. It is not a weakness, it is an asset.

When I was last home, I saw an ad on TV. It begins with a close-up of a rather pallid looking man as he regains consciousness. A concerned doctor leans over him, asking questions. Are you sick, he asks. The man shakes his head. Fever? No. Flu? No. The doctor shrugs his shoulders and leaves. The camera pans to the doorway as the man's girlfriend enters the room, wearing a Wonderbra and not much else. The man groans and passes out again.

Now, who is taking advantage of whom in this situation? Perhaps it makes a difference that this commercial was made for British television. After all, England still has only four channels, and it is a country where pizza delivery is still a novelty. The English put mayonnaise on their fries.

All rather backward behavior. Perhaps they haven't yet realized that women are frail creatures who crumble at a wolf-whistle.

But England is also a country renowned for its bloody queens and tough women. Nobody calls Maggie a wallflower. Perhaps "Iron Lady" is a reference to her unfeminine attributes, but I doubt she views it as an insult. Her confidence in her beliefs is as stubborn as her hairstyle. She did not campaign for fairer treatment of women; she just got on with her job, without reference to the fact that she is a woman.

Compare her to Hillary, who has tried to be a role model for women -- albeit an unelected one. She walked into a web of conflicting expectations and was forced to change the lifestyle she promoted as often as her underwear.

I do praise Hillary for her decision a few years back to pose for Vogue. After all those horrendous pictures of her as a student at Yale, she had a right to reply. She is no longer ugly, so let her flaunt it.

As any proponent of the Wonderbra would say, if you've got it, flaunt it, and if you don't, fake it. It may be false advertising on the part of the woman, but then again, it may just be a clever disguise. Lady Macbeth said "look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't." Well, the innocent flower look is out, honey.

There is a wonderful scene in the film "Mystic Pizza" in a pool room (the feel-good place for all bruised male egos). Two college boys are showing their girlfriends how to play pool, as the girls giggle and ask why they can't hit the little black ball first. Then Julia Roberts (aka townie chick) strolls in, wearing a dress that begins too late and ends too early, as my grandfather would have said. She picks up a cue and clears the table.

Perhaps the boys couldn't concentrate on a table with legs shorter than hers. Perhaps she showed too much cleavage when she leaned over to make a shot. But it was that same pair of breasts that sunk the eight-ball.

Occasionally a little cleavage or a kick-ass game of pool says a lot more than a rally or a petition or a women's support group. It's feminism à la Wonderbra.

While the subject is breasts, check out Bernadette Noll's girdle grief in Please Release Me.