Sexuality and Gender

Last week, I ranted on Twitter about the sexualization of women’s breasts and how that relates to breastfeeding.  I want to expand on that, because I think this is an important part of the discussion about women’s bodies and objectification.

American culture has an obsession with breasts, in particular breasts as having explicitly sexual function.  It’s extreme enough that the attitude bleeds into our view of infant feeding and what is or isn’t appropriate.  The kinds of comments I’ve heard:

• It’s gross the way your nipples get all pulled out of shape when you feed the baby.
• I guess you can breastfeed past a year, but much beyond that and your kid shouldn’t be thinking about breasts anymore; that’s disgusting.
• I wouldn’t feed a girl baby, only a boy, because having a girl suck on you is homosexual.
• If you need to do that, go in the bathroom.  No one wants to see you whip it out in public.

Some things I learned in grad school when doing my research on the topic:

• The number one reason adolescent moms don’t breastfeed is body image concerns/sexuality.
• Women in some parts of the world cover head to toe, but their breasts are exposed while breastfeeding, even in public markets.
• Breast implants can, but don’t always, affect ability to breastfeed.
• Breast reduction nearly always affects breastfeeding.

The thing all of those have in common is that they are, in some way, associated with sexuality.*  This idea that breasts are for pleasure and not for functionality contributes to the justification of ogling women’s bodies and then excusing it by saying she wasn’t properly covered.  After many of us objected to the framing of the arguments in both the chocolate cake post and the glittertits post, the response was nearly instant: “But they were exposed!  Of course they were going to have people stare!”

The problem with that is that there’s no line.  When does staring become acceptable?  When a woman has her breast out and there’s a flash of nipple as the baby latches on?  When she has large breasts, even though they’re completely covered with nary a cleavage line showing?  When she’s got a low-cut blouse and glitter?  When a man is confused about whether or not she ought to have her top button undone in church?  If we start saying that any of those are okay reasons to gawp, we give permission for all of them.  If the justification is that the breasts have something about them that’s “distracting,” then any kind of breast-related distraction becomes a reason to leer.

I’m not suggesting a slippery slope, actually–I’m laying out a poor argument.  Saying, “But her breasts were right there in my face, covered in glitter.  How could I not look?” is pretty nebulous.  It could be used in just about every situation:

• “But she was feeding her baby right there!  How could I not look?”
• “But her breasts are just so huge!  How could I not look?”
• “But she had that button undone and I thought it should be fixed!  How could I not look?”

That’s not one thing leading to worse things; it’s finding ways to justify what men were already doing by blaming women for living their lives.

Let me share two stories with you about my experiences with breastfeeding.  When my son was a newborn, we struggled to adapt to the change.  I had a hard time breastfeeding, including poor latch (which was probably due to the epidural I had), infant reflux, and stubborn yeast infections.  We made it, though, and I’m glad we did.  Because of all the challenges, our church attendance was sporadic for a while.  I was nervous about breastfeeding anywhere but home, since it was still difficult to get my son to latch.  The first time I fed him at church, I went to the bride’s ready room in the outer part of the ladies room.  Before anyone gets all upset, it’s a gorgeous space with comfy chairs, and it’s quiet in there–I wasn’t sitting on the toilet to nurse.  It’s not a bad place to feed a baby, but the reality is that I was hiding in case anyone was offended.

A woman came in and asked why I was sneaking away to the bathroom.  I made noises about how the pew wasn’t a comfortable place to feed my son, and she asked why I didn’t go in the library where I could sit on a couch and listen to the service through the speakers.  The next week, I did just that.  I was mortified, though, when a group of men in their 40s and 50s decided to also sit in there.  You know what?  None of them were fussed at all about the breastfeeding mom on the couch.  They smiled, said hello, made eye contact, cooed over the baby, and sat down.  Not one of them stared at me.  Nor did they avoid me; they just carried on as usual.  I think one of them may have commented about how it brought back nice memories of his wife feeding their own newborn some thirty years prior, but that’s it.

Fast forward to my second story.  At the church we attended when our daughter was a baby, it seemed like no big deal.  The auditorium was dark, so I just fed her and let her doze off during the service.  Kept her quiet, she got her morning nap, and I got to enjoy church.  Win-win.  Once or twice, I had to take her out because she was fussy, so I would sit on the chairs in the foyer and watch the service on the screen.  I thought it wasn’t too bad, but the chairs weren’t comfortable; the pastor even joked about that once.

But there was a problem: the nursery.  I never fed her in the nursery because I was told I was required to sit behind a screen where we couldn’t even see the service on the closed-circuit television.  We were supposed to hide in the nursery, and then hide within it.  Not only that, one of the pastors gave a sermon in which he felt free to tell women how long they should breastfeed.  He said that beyond a year was inappropriate.  I was shocked and upset; I had already done extended breastfeeding with my first, at his doctor’s urging, in part because of his stomach issues.  I was planning on the same with my second.  It had nothing to do with breasts and everything to do with their health.

In that church, I learned that breasts were something to be covered and ashamed of.  There was a constant thrum of “if she dresses like that, it’s no wonder men treat her like an object.”  There was hiding to feed babies and being told how long we should do it.  There were men fixating on the buttons of my shirt.  And yes, there were smokin’ hot wives (even though the wording was different).  There was blame and there was shame when it came to women’s bodies and an unspoken rule that our bodies belonged to our men, in private, for them to enjoy.

As you can see from my first story, it is entirely possible for men–a whole group of them, even–to sit in the presence of a woman with her breasts at least partially exposed and not ogle her.  It’s possible to make eye contact instead of staring, to ooh and aah over babies instead of boobies, and to have a conversation that isn’t strained because of the presence of breasts.  I guarantee that if men can do it when nipple exposure is a certainty, they can do it when wardrobe malfunction is only a possibility.  There’s no reason for any church to police women’s bodies–not ever.  Men are capable of reining in their own behavior, and women are not responsible for causing or curing it.

Women, don’t let cultural obsession stop you from nurturing your baby with your body or wearing that bikini or putting glitter anywhere you want to put it.  Men, you are not animals.  A lot of you behave decently, and while I’m not going to give you a prize for it, you should know that it’s appreciated.  And for those of you who have issues with breasts and what women do with them?  Find a hobby.  You’ve obviously got too much time on your hands.

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*Breast reduction isn’t always associated with sexuality; sometimes it’s health-related.  However, most women who have never given birth but plan to in the future are not told that the reduction can cause problems with breastfeeding because of the removal of some of the milk-producing tissue.  When a woman’s health is not immediately at risk and she intends to have biological children, if she wants to breastfeed it’s better to hold off on the surgery until afterward.  She should at least be informed of the risk.