Women should have the right to go topless at public swimming pools, Catalan authorities said on Wednesday, amid accusations of double standards between genders.

The Catalan regional authorities launched a campaign to support women’s right to bare their breasts after complaints that they had been barred from doing so.

In a video to support the campaign, it said: “The sexualisation of women starts when they are young, and it accompanies us all our lives. That we must cover up our breasts in some spaces is proof.”

It comes after Spain’s government encouraged plus-size and older women to visit the beach this summer, prompting accusations that it is patronising the public.

The Left-wing government launched a summer advertising campaign, featuring a topless woman who has had a mastectomy, with the taglines: “all bodies are beach bodies” and “summer is ours too.”

Read more: The Telegraph