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geminigirlhttp://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/060727/x072722.html
(See the cover in question here.)
Magazine's 'breastfeeding' cover reflects larger debate on public nursing
17:02:13 EDT Jul 27, 2006
JOCELYN NOVECK
NEW YORK (AP) - "I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one person wrote. "I immediately turned the magazine face down," wrote another. "Gross," said a third.
These readers weren't complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine - yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breastfeeding itself gains greater support from the government and medical community.
Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more than 4,000 readers, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, calling the photo - a baby and part of a woman's breast, in profile - inappropriate.
One mother who didn't like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.
"I shredded it," said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. "A breast is a breast - it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that."
It's the same reason that Ash, 41, who nursed all three of her children, is cautious about breastfeeding in public - a subject of enormous debate among women, which has even spawned a new term: "lactivists," meaning those who advocate for a woman's right to nurse wherever she needs to.
"I'm totally supportive of it - I just don't like the flashing," she says. "I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."
Another mother, Kelly Wheatley, wrote Babytalk to applaud the cover, precisely because, she says, it helps educate people that breasts are more than sex objects. And yet Wheatley, 40, who's still nursing her three-year-old daughter, rarely breastfeeds in public, partly because it's more comfortable in the car, and partly because her husband is uncomfortable with other men seeing her breast.
"Men are very visual," says Wheatley, 40, of Amarillo, Texas. "When they see a woman's breast, they see a breast - regardless of what it's being used for."
Babytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breastfeeding in public. "There's a huge Puritanical streak in Americans," she says, "and there's a squeamishness about seeing a body part - even part of a body part."
"It's not like women are whipping them out with tassels on them!" she adds. "Mostly, they are trying to be discreet."
Kane says that since the August issue came out last week, the magazine has received more than 700 letters - more than for any article in years.
"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob," wrote Lauren, a mother of a four-month-old.
The evidence of public discomfort isn't just anecdotal. In a survey published in 2004 by the American Dietetic Association, less than half - 43 per cent - of 3,719 respondents said women should have the right to breastfeed in public places.
The debate rages at a time when the celebrity-mom phenomenon has made breastfeeding perhaps more public than ever. Gwyneth Paltrow, Brooke Shields, Kate Hudson and Kate Beckinsale are only a few of the stars who've talked openly about their nursing experiences.
The celeb factor has even brought a measure of chic to that unsexiest of garments: the nursing bra. Gwen Stefani can be seen on babyrazzi.com - a site with a self-explanatory name - sporting a leopard-print version from lingerie line Agent Provocateur. And none other than Angelina Jolie wore one proudly on the cover of People. (Katie Holmes, meanwhile, suffered a maternity wardrobe malfunction when cameras caught her, nursing bra open and peeking out of her shirt, while on the town with husband Tom Cruise.)
More seriously, the social and medical debate has intensified. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently concluded a two-year breastfeeding awareness campaign including a TV ad - criticized as over-the-top even by some breastfeeding advocates - in which NOT breastfeeding was equated with the recklessness of a pregnant woman riding a mechanical bull.
There have been other measures to promote breastfeeding: in December, for example, Massachusetts banned hospitals from giving new mothers gift bags with free infant formula, a practice opponents said swayed some women away from nursing.
Most states now have laws guaranteeing the right to breastfeed where one chooses, and when a store or restaurant employee denies a woman that right, it has often resulted in public protests known as "nurse-ins": at a Starbucks in Miami, at Victoria's Secret stores in Racine, Wis. and Boston, and, last year, outside ABC headquarters in New York, when Barbara Walters made comments on The View seen by some women to denigrate breastfeeding in public.
"It's a new age," says Melinda Johnson, a registered dietician and spokesperson for ADA. "With the government really getting behind breastfeeding, it's been a jumping-off point for mothers to be politically active. Mommies are organizing. It's a new trend to be a mommy activist."
Ultimately, it seems to be a highly personal matter. Caly Wood says she's "all for breastfeeding in public." She recalls with a shudder the time she sat nursing in a restaurant booth, and another woman walked by, glanced over and said, "Ugh, gross."
"My kid needed to eat," says the 29-year-old from South Abingdon, Mass. And she wasn't going to go hide in a not-so-clean restroom: "I don't send people to the bathroom when THEY want to eat," she says.
But Rebekah Kreutz thinks differently. One of six women who author SisterhoodSix, a blog on mothering issues, Kreutz didn't nurse her two daughters in public, and doesn't really feel comfortable seeing others do it.
"I respect it and think women have the right," says Kreutz, 34, of Bozeman, Mont. "But personally, it makes me really uncomfortable."
"I just think it's one of those moments that should stay between a mother and her child.
(See the cover in question here.)
Magazine's 'breastfeeding' cover reflects larger debate on public nursing
17:02:13 EDT Jul 27, 2006
JOCELYN NOVECK
NEW YORK (AP) - "I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one person wrote. "I immediately turned the magazine face down," wrote another. "Gross," said a third.
These readers weren't complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine - yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breastfeeding itself gains greater support from the government and medical community.
Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more than 4,000 readers, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, calling the photo - a baby and part of a woman's breast, in profile - inappropriate.
One mother who didn't like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.
"I shredded it," said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. "A breast is a breast - it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that."
It's the same reason that Ash, 41, who nursed all three of her children, is cautious about breastfeeding in public - a subject of enormous debate among women, which has even spawned a new term: "lactivists," meaning those who advocate for a woman's right to nurse wherever she needs to.
"I'm totally supportive of it - I just don't like the flashing," she says. "I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."
Another mother, Kelly Wheatley, wrote Babytalk to applaud the cover, precisely because, she says, it helps educate people that breasts are more than sex objects. And yet Wheatley, 40, who's still nursing her three-year-old daughter, rarely breastfeeds in public, partly because it's more comfortable in the car, and partly because her husband is uncomfortable with other men seeing her breast.
"Men are very visual," says Wheatley, 40, of Amarillo, Texas. "When they see a woman's breast, they see a breast - regardless of what it's being used for."
Babytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breastfeeding in public. "There's a huge Puritanical streak in Americans," she says, "and there's a squeamishness about seeing a body part - even part of a body part."
"It's not like women are whipping them out with tassels on them!" she adds. "Mostly, they are trying to be discreet."
Kane says that since the August issue came out last week, the magazine has received more than 700 letters - more than for any article in years.
"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob," wrote Lauren, a mother of a four-month-old.
The evidence of public discomfort isn't just anecdotal. In a survey published in 2004 by the American Dietetic Association, less than half - 43 per cent - of 3,719 respondents said women should have the right to breastfeed in public places.
The debate rages at a time when the celebrity-mom phenomenon has made breastfeeding perhaps more public than ever. Gwyneth Paltrow, Brooke Shields, Kate Hudson and Kate Beckinsale are only a few of the stars who've talked openly about their nursing experiences.
The celeb factor has even brought a measure of chic to that unsexiest of garments: the nursing bra. Gwen Stefani can be seen on babyrazzi.com - a site with a self-explanatory name - sporting a leopard-print version from lingerie line Agent Provocateur. And none other than Angelina Jolie wore one proudly on the cover of People. (Katie Holmes, meanwhile, suffered a maternity wardrobe malfunction when cameras caught her, nursing bra open and peeking out of her shirt, while on the town with husband Tom Cruise.)
More seriously, the social and medical debate has intensified. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently concluded a two-year breastfeeding awareness campaign including a TV ad - criticized as over-the-top even by some breastfeeding advocates - in which NOT breastfeeding was equated with the recklessness of a pregnant woman riding a mechanical bull.
There have been other measures to promote breastfeeding: in December, for example, Massachusetts banned hospitals from giving new mothers gift bags with free infant formula, a practice opponents said swayed some women away from nursing.
Most states now have laws guaranteeing the right to breastfeed where one chooses, and when a store or restaurant employee denies a woman that right, it has often resulted in public protests known as "nurse-ins": at a Starbucks in Miami, at Victoria's Secret stores in Racine, Wis. and Boston, and, last year, outside ABC headquarters in New York, when Barbara Walters made comments on The View seen by some women to denigrate breastfeeding in public.
"It's a new age," says Melinda Johnson, a registered dietician and spokesperson for ADA. "With the government really getting behind breastfeeding, it's been a jumping-off point for mothers to be politically active. Mommies are organizing. It's a new trend to be a mommy activist."
Ultimately, it seems to be a highly personal matter. Caly Wood says she's "all for breastfeeding in public." She recalls with a shudder the time she sat nursing in a restaurant booth, and another woman walked by, glanced over and said, "Ugh, gross."
"My kid needed to eat," says the 29-year-old from South Abingdon, Mass. And she wasn't going to go hide in a not-so-clean restroom: "I don't send people to the bathroom when THEY want to eat," she says.
But Rebekah Kreutz thinks differently. One of six women who author SisterhoodSix, a blog on mothering issues, Kreutz didn't nurse her two daughters in public, and doesn't really feel comfortable seeing others do it.
"I respect it and think women have the right," says Kreutz, 34, of Bozeman, Mont. "But personally, it makes me really uncomfortable."
"I just think it's one of those moments that should stay between a mother and her child.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 11:24 am (UTC)But the article? Same old, same old. It's much easier for them to report a fluff piece on, "Ooh! It's gross!" than actually address the underlying issues of why so many women feel like they don't even have the option to breastfeed.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 11:29 am (UTC)Someone should point out to this woman that this can never happen.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 12:54 pm (UTC)Ghods, how patronising is that?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 01:37 pm (UTC)The time it was funny is when I was nursing at Dore Alley or Folsom, I forget which; here there are people running around in black leather and skin and showing all sorts of body parts, and everyone was all excited that I was nursing. Geez.
I did it anywhere she was hungry and I didn't use a blanket because she'd just toss it off anyway.
Another funny one was when I was doing it at the reception for my husband's grandfather's wedding, and he was checking me out and his wife swatted him.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 03:38 pm (UTC)"Would we put up with a "my kid needs to poop right here right now"?"
Yes we do. It's called diapers/pullups. And public restrooms for when they're older - I mean we COULD just make them wait until they got home once they're toilet trained.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 04:33 pm (UTC)Like someone else said, some breastfed babies will not take bottles from anyone (my son would go 10 hours with about 2oz - MISERABLE, but refused to take more than that out of bottles, and don't think the babysitters and papa didn't try!), and I think the vast majority of exclusively breastfed babies won't take a bottle from mama, ever. They know how it's supposed to work. :o)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 04:16 pm (UTC)I really don't get why people are so offended by it. As someone who really pushes breastfeeding towards my new mothers, I'm always amazed by the resistance, especially by women. Many won't even discuss it, either with me or with the female lactation consultant. It just drives me nuts.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-29 02:06 am (UTC)This whole thing has left me speechless. You can see more looking at Britney Spears naked on the cover of Bazaar magazine. This is a baby with his/her mouth attached to a boob. A breast. For the love of G-d can we all grow up?
Apparently not. I'm really beyond puzzled by the whole thing. It was in a doctor's office.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 06:18 pm (UTC)I breast fed for 18 months. I breast fed in public. I will not ever apologize for that. I nursed while walking the mall. I nursed at the zoo. I nursed in CA. I nursed where Tatiana needed to eat. I had nursing bras and nursing tops and nursing dresses. I was discreet. If you got to see my boob you were looking too hard. I did not cover her head with a blanket, that would have pissed her off. She never took milk from a bottle after she was about 4 months old. She decided bottles were yucky and refused them. Lots of breast fed babies do.
If people are uncomfortable they shouldn't look. Babies were meant to eat from breasts. It is the most natural and most healthy choice. There are times when babies can't be nursed and that is unfortunate IMHO. If I could have another child I would still want to breast feed even though it would mean going off of all my meds. I would nurse the next one just as long or longer.
All the babies we know well are breast fed. Tatiana always has "nursed" her doll babies. My mother-in-law bought her bottles for her dolls and Tatiana said "why would I give THAT to my BABY."
Breasts are just a body part made taboo by society and sexual by society as well. It's the same as a hand or an arm. or a knee. If a knee was featured that wouldn't be an issue. Nursing is not a sex act it is a nuturing act. There is nothing shocking about it.
I find it shocking that people would react so negatively to it. There is nothing nasty or gross about it. It disheartens me that people react that way.
When I was pregnant my mother-in-law said, "Why can't you give that baby a bottle like a normal person?" My answer, "I'm not a normal person." I wanted my daughter to have the best start in life and to me that meant breast feeding. I wanted her to get the boost to her immune system by getting antibodies from me. I wanted the closeness that nursing brings. I wanted her to have the most recommended feeding. I wanted her to have the food that was designed to be the best food for her.
People choose to bottle feed for different reasons. I try not to be judgemental about that choice. Although when I'm told it's because it's easier I have to try not to laugh. Washing bottles, mixing formula, heating it and such seems like a lot more bother than lifting up your shirt.
I made my choice. I support other people making that choice. I don't think that there is anything to be ashamed of in breast feeding and in breast feeding in public. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't look. It's a baby and a body part working as it was designed by nature to work. All mamals were designed to produce milk to feed their young. Each species own milk is the most perfect food for that species infants. That's why it works that way.
No one ever says nursing puppies or kittens are gross. No one ever says that a calf drinking from it's mother is gross. Nipples on dogs or cats or utters are not viewed as sexual parts. It's sad that people think so little of men of the species that seeing the side of a breast of a complete stranger would be such a turn on to all men.
Wow. Apparently I have a knee jerk emotional reaction to such things. Personally though, I believe there is nothing wrong with nudity in general and it's people that react poorly that are the problem not the nursing mother. It seems silly to me that women have to cover their tops when men do not. It's a societal taboo. I nursed in public before and would do it again.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-29 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-30 04:25 pm (UTC)What I really wonder about is how breastfeeding is seen in other countries around the world. What societies see it as normal, and where is it seen as dirty?