You’ve probably heard about the controversy over whether or not it is appropriate for women to breastfeed in public. While it is legal to breastfeed in public without restrictions in 47 states and Washington D.C., it has yet to be thought of as socially acceptable.
There was a case in a Washington D.C. government building where two female guards told a woman breastfeeding in a corridor that she was “guilty of indecent exposure.”
There was another incident in Greenville, South Carolina when Walmart employees allegedly harassed and shamed a mother breastfeeding her child in the store. They picked the wrong mom to mess with, and her breastfeeding support group, Upstate SC Breastfeeders, organized a nurse-in at the same store.
Probably the most ironic incident happened at a Victoria’s Secret in Texas, when a mother asked an employee if she could breastfeed in one of the dressing rooms, but was denied and directed to nurse in an alleyway nearby.
Since it is perfectly legal to breastfeed in public, the people asking the women nursing to leave were in the wrong, but their words and actions are evidence of some extremely ingrained social norms in our society.
I’m dumbfounded as to why it offends so many people, because in our country we are exposed to breasts daily, and yet when women breastfeed, the sight of breasts becomes indecent and makes people uncomfortable.
Especially growing up and living in Las Vegas, the amount of especially female nudity we as a city, and as children, have been exposed to is much higher than other places. Boys would always giggle at the Peep Show billboards on the way to a Shark Reef field trip, but female nudity never felt anything but normal to me. So when I see a woman breastfeeding in public, it also seems normal. After all the human body is normal, and so is eating and getting nourishment, but for some reason not everyone feels that way.
Take the Victoria’s Secret incident for example. They are a company that sells lingerie. The models on the posters in the stores and in the magazines are revealing just as much skin as a woman breastfeeding would, if not more. Breasts are visible in both instances, and yet only one is acceptable. A Huffington Post article title says it all, "Breastfeeding Mom Learns Victoria's Secret Doesn't Always Support Boobs." So, why is there a double standard?
In our society, women are too often objectified. So much so that the female body is almost exclusively seen as something sexual in purpose. Breasts in Victoria’s Secret and “Playboy” magazines are accepted, because their purpose is something society sees as relatively natural, sex, but just mention the words breastfeeding and many people with shift in their seats or lose eye contact.
That’s because when it comes to breastfeeding, the purpose of the female body changes from being sexual. When a woman uses her body to nourish her baby, it’s not sexual, it’s survival, and the ideology present in the patriarchal society we live in doesn’t find that acceptable.
Now, I’ve never breastfed, and I was too young to pay attention to it when my little sister was born, but this issue isn’t just about breastfeeding- it’s ultimately about body shame.
By telling women that they are indecent for doing something so natural, innate, and organic with their bodies, it’s sending the message that their body is gross and somehow shameful. The same thing happens when people slut-shame, call women fat, ugly, or old. All of these instances reinforce the idea that there is something wrong with the female body when there isn't, and that can be detrimental to a woman's psyche and self esteem.
This ideology is a Catch 22, because while women are shamed for being too modest, and performing acts entirely nonsexual like breastfeeding, women are also shamed for being too sexual with their bodies. The standards expected from women in this society are impossible to meet.
Body shame is so prevalent in our culture, that we often don’t even notice it’s existence. But take a minute to remember the last time you thought something like: “that woman should not be wearing that shirt with her figure,” or “that woman is too old to be wearing a skirt this short,” or even back to the initial problem “gross, why is that woman breastfeeding in public?”
Whether or not you say it, thinking it, is what shows that there is still a problem with the way we as a society think about women and the beautiful nature of the human body.
