burn one's bra(In fact, this is about the 1960s, when women in the USA started fighting for equal rights, protesting against being seen as housewives and mothers only more actively than they had done before. google.comElen Molokovskikh)
upstate(США) an area north of the suburbs of the largest city in a state in which the city is at the southern end of the state; used especially in New York State.)