According to at least 5000 readers of BabyTalk Magazine, the picture above is offensive, disgusting, horrifying and gross. I just don't get it. With a little effort I could get offended by the isolation of the mother's breast, reducing her to her food-dispensing function (by analogy to commercial photos of women with their heads cropped out), but I can't imagine that is what bothers a quarter of Babytalk's readers about this cover.
I nursed each of my two children for about six months, despite returning to work within a month of each birth. I'm sure it was very good for my children, and it was generally good for me, too, but it would have been much better if I could have nursed in public without feeling obliged to hide what I was doing. Two months before I gave birth, my physical mothering seemed to be a completely public business, inviting strangers to instruct me, comment, and even pat my belly. Two months after I gave birth, physical mothering had become something indecent, like urinating in public. I recall one hot summer day when, infant strapped to my chest, I toured a local art museum with visiting family. Now that museum must have had a dozen representations on its walls of women nursing their children, but could I be left in peace to do the same on a bench in a gallery? Not a chance.
I'm usually pretty good at working out how a particular piece of irrational custom figures into the grand patriarcho-capitalist plot, but I confess that this one defeats me. What is disgusting about nursing?
Thanks to Alas, A Blog
2 comments:
My opinion on this is that breastfeeding violates the role women have been assigned: to be sex toys for men. Breastfeeding isn't arousing, therefore it's "wrong". I think this factor is much more important than general Puritanical views of Americans (those matter too).
"Now that museum must have had dozens of representations on its walls of women nursing their children, but could I be left in peace to do the same on a bench in a gallery? Not a chance"
ooooh......that's a good one, it has some kick to it.
I second elephant's assertion that
"breastfeeding violates the role women have been assigned: to be sex toys for men."
But I'm going a bit farther.
There is a certain sexism at work here, a certain malice the seeks to subordinate women, I think we'd agree that this malice is a reason why working women who also raise children have such little support in our society.
But here I think population control and sustainable development come into play and blur things a bit.
Disgust at breastfeeding is really sublimated disgust with the role of the mother, in turn disgust with the idea of reproduction, the idea of children and the idea of the family.
We are headed for a brave new world, Kc.
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