A lot has been said about Facebook’s hypocrisy regarding the way they treat breastfeeding images and other images of partially or fully exposed breasts. You’d have to be living under a rock to not know about this if you are a part of the online breastfeeding community. That topic has been really well covered by many smart people already. I’m not going there today.
Here’s where I’m going.
Sometimes the strangest things intersect with breastfeeding. That was my first thought when I read a Jezebel piece on a Facebook group that was left up for months before being being taken down a few weeks ago. What was the topic of the group you ask?
Rape.
No – really. Rape.
So my first reaction was to be surprised about the intersectionality of breastfeeding and rape. On the surface they seemed worlds apart to me. Then I read hortense’s take on the whole mess situation over at Jezebel and thought about it a bit more.
Interesting, isn’t it, that in the eyes of Facebook, a woman shouldn’t be allowed to show her breasts while feeding her child, but it’s perfectly acceptable for men to make a highly public “sport” out of rape.
OH! I thought. I get it. Level UP to drill back down.
This is the culture we live in folks. It’s the culture we work in every day trying to normalize breastfeeding and support breastfeeding mothers. It’s a culture where women are hood ornaments, and breasts are put to work selling beer, vodka, and other alcoholic beverages, as well as magazines, rock-and-roll (or more magazines as the case may be), computers and of all things – pudding. We’ve even managed to sexualize breast cancer. Are we good at this or what?
Ours is a culture where breasts are so sexualized that a woman can actually buy into it herself and then give away autonomy over her own body to her baby or partner. We meet our hypothetical nursing mother when she finds herself struggling with breastfeeding because -
- Her partner is jealous of a baby using “his”* breasts and is making breastfeeding stressful. She’s looking for support as she weathers this or ideas for how to deal with the attitude that another adult feels they have a right to her body. The idea that her breasts belong to her since they are part of her anatomy and that her partner doesn’t have a right to any part of her body is often not part of the equation for her or her partner. Maybe she and her partner can’t see that breasts can be multi-functional. Feeding baby – Erogenous zone. They don’t see that it’s a situation where you could think in terms of AND not OR.
- She’s dealing with any number of issues related to breastfeeding in public. She’s struggling to become comfortable with it herself. Possibly she’s been shamed by a stranger while exercising her legally protected right to feed her baby in any venue where she and the baby would otherwise have a right to be.
- She’s struggling with that slippery slope known as “discreet” and how it’s impacting her.
- A corporation like Facebook is telling her that images of her breastfeeding her baby are offensive and are being removed to protect teen members. Her account is being threatened with suspension or deletion and she embarrassed, infuriated, disappointed.
This culture of ours is also a culture where rape of women is acceptable. Don’t believe me that rape is acceptable? I want you to think about that -
- the next time you hear a rape joke and have to decide whether to laugh (at rape – because rape is funny)
- the next time it’s explained to your that the rape wasn’t really rape.
- the next time you discuss how to end rape and the idea that rape will end when men stop raping gets you uncomprehending looks.
Intersectionality at last. Drilling back down.
A. Women are not valued equally with men.
B. Breastfeeding is not viewed as normal in our society which sexualizes the body parts used to nourish our children. Male Gaze anyone?
C. Breastfeeding is not protected by (mostly male) lawmakers because (see A).
D. Rape culture exists because (see A)
At the same time Facebook, a private company, was (and is) removing certain breastfeeding images because they consider them to be obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit they left a pro-rape group up (regardless of their stated policies) for months. Two faces of the same culture. Both faces expose the devaluation of women and their experiences.
Facebook is a private company making their own site rules. I respect their right to do that and at the same time I support efforts to affect change in those rules. I think the rules relating to breastfeeding are wrong. I realize that they are a reflection of a culture that doesn’t value women. They are a reflection of a world where women and their concerns are not important. Breastfeeding images are viewed as offensive or sexual because we live in a society which sees women’s bodies through a prism of male needs and desires.
In a world where women were valued equally breastfeeding photos on a privately owned social networking site would not be a problem because they would be viewed as normal and appropriate. Breastfeeding would be protected and well supported. Groups supporting and encouraging rape would be filtered off the site immediately and those members involved would find their accounts permanently disabled. It would be a complete 180. We’d be through the looking glass.
I fear we have a LONG way to go.
* I have yet to meet a lesbian couple articulating this issue. That does not mean it isn’t happening – just that I haven’t encountered it.
Facebook’s Breastfeeding Ban [LA Times]
Facebook breastfeeding pic takedown gets backs up [The Register]
Breaking it down for facebook [PhD in Parenting]
Censoring Breastfeeding on Facebook [New York Times - Motherlode Blog]
Elite college students proud of ‘pro-rape’ Facebook page [The Sydney Morning Herald]
“Anti-Consent” College Students Create a “Pro-Rape” Facebook Group [Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux at Care 2 Make a Difference www.care2.com)
Images
Image courtesy of Simon-Davison at flickr
Image courtesy of sofakingsweet28 at flickr
Image courtesy of viZZZual.com
Image courtsey of True-Russian-Vodka at flickr
Image courtesy of Klearchos-Kapoutsis at Flicker
Image courtesy of nDevilTV at flickr
Image courtesy of owen-jp at flicker
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Great post Carol!
Unfortunately I have heard of a case of non-lactating lesbian partner ordering her partner to stop nursing. It was Rosie O’Donnell. Not because the breasts were “hers”, but because she was jealous if Kelli bonding with the baby.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05060907.html
That makes me sad. Rosie has a lot of good things to say and I really wish she had been more supportive of Kelli. That goes to show that the little twinge in my head regarding partners wasn’t for nothing. =(
Well said. This hits close to home to me as a rape survivor, but also as a currently nursing mother. My father-in-law will think nothing of commenting on how great it was that all the girls at the beach have on skimpy bikinis, yet he also says how it bothers him to be in the same room with me if I’m feeding his grandson.Nevermind that once the baby is latched on, you see nothing of the nipple, let alone my breast. The girls at the beach show off far, far more skin, but somehow, that’s less immoral than what I’m doing.
We have a long way to go.
Yes we do. The double standard can be so infuriating! Here’s hoping that your example causes your father-in-law to rethink and shift his attitude.
Its ridiculas isn’t it! The double standard of it.
Though, after months and months of sheepishly hiding away while I breast fed my inlaws grandchild, in my own home, I now feed out and proud – and let them shift uncomfortably on their seats. My house. My son. My breasts. Not sure why anyone would feel the need to comment? Unless the comment is “hey thats awesome your still feeding! High-five!”
Great post, and thank you for including the images that speak volumes in one glance. We are trying to appeal to and reach women who are squeamish about breastfeeding, and can not imagine using their breasts in any non-sexual way. These are women who might want to breastfeed but have difficulty getting past their cultural comfort zone. So we are meeting them in their comfort zone, and using lots of AND language: yes, you can be powerful, nurturing and glamorous at the same time! Essentially, we are telling them that they can include breastfeeding IN their tightly-held identity, and we are giving them images that they can relate to and that can bridge the gap, much as the nude picture of very pregnant Demi Moore changed the way our culture viewed and supported expecting mothers. We need to speak the visual and spoken language of the vast mainstream if we want to affect change, much as the green, fitness and cause industry has done.
I had planned to write about this same thing this afternoon, but I think you hit the nail on the head far better than I ever could. It’s bizarre, in a sad wth is wrong with this world kind of way.
I would love to see your take on this Summer.
I think there is a lot to be said around the issue(s).
Not to disagree with any of this, because I think you have some really valid point about sexualizing of female bodies and so on (and the jealous partner was an issue in our book club book this month, in fact), but a couple of things to throw in:
- I’ve always seen the discomfort of viewing breasts as simultaneously for feeding and sexuality as being uncomfy for our society because it then allows the idea of breastfeeding as erogenous, and if we want to keep the idea of children’s sexuality at bay, that muddies it in some people’s heads, making it easier/safer (?) to keep them far apart. Not to mention, it keeps mothers in the “asexual beings” category where we are often considered to belong.
- Rape is tricky because it’s not just a human construct and therefore while it is theoretically/logically as easy as men not raping, that is to deny our baser aspects. Rats, for example, begin to rape in overpopulated settings, and keep harems. So yes, it should be that easy, it should be that clear, but people aren’t as civilised as we like to think. SADLY.