A Year of Celebrating the Breast
Images by Blue Fitz Photography. Event co-hosted by Sage Beginnings Doula Services. Thank you to all who participated in this calendar!
Category: Feminism
Female Nipples Aren’t Obscene
To promote acceptance of human bodies as inherently natural, innocuous, and not obscene, I’m proud to share this project celebrating Women’s Equality Day, Go Topless Day and the “Free The Nipple” movement.
By expressing this vision through art, we aim to encourage a change in societal and legal censorship norms to view bodies of women as truly equal to others.
This project was hosted in collaboration with Your Labor Neighbor | artist Melissa Rose Tylinski | artist Kellyn Kimbrell | North Houston Studio
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If a woman wishes to feel the warm sun on her skin at the beach like her brother… to lay in the grass, babies grazing upon her chest while she picnics with her partner… to pop out of her home to retrieve something from her car without fussing to scramble for an appropriate ensemble… to garden in her yard without needing to keep the neighborly peace by donning a button-down… if she wishes to do these things, why can’t she?
On one level, because of the law. Did you know it’s illegal for women to be topless in public in 35 states, including while breastfeeding?
In a few states, women have a legal right to go topless in the same areas as men, but even those women cannot properly enjoy the freedom (rather an illusion of equality) when faced with risk of harassment and humiliation. Protection from this risk is a privilege men have enjoyed for a long time without even realizing it.
Men have legally been allowed to be topless in public since 1936, a freedom they too had to fight for in ways similar to today’s Go Topless movement. Gaining this legal freedom finally secured their right to go bare-chested on public beaches, in parks, pools, and so on. Men don’t always want their tops on, which is why they fought for their right to choose toplessness without fear of stigma or lawbreaking. Read More
Breastfeeding With a History of Sexual Abuse: Women Speak
A few things you might not know, starting with the numbers:
A reported 27% of childbearing-aged women were sexually abused in childhood, and an estimated 40% including adolescent/teen years. According to LLLI, 90% of abusers are male, 70-90% are known to their victims; and for girls, 30-50% of abusers are family members.
These are just numbers. Numbers don’t speak, but many of the individuals behind the statistics are doing just that. Sexual abuse causes lasting trauma that cannot be isolated by a number; it follows the victim throughout life, and if this person is a woman on a path to motherhood it has many specific, new chances for recall of its memory. Pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding bring enhanced susceptibility to a woman’s life, leaving her in jeopardy of rewounding.
Karen Wood, PhD, who notes that 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 Canadian girls are sexually abused in childhood, observed in her paper “Infant feeding experiences of women who were sexually abused in childhood”:
“A history of [childhood sexual abuse] can affect a woman’s experience of breastfeeding, including acting as a trigger for remembering or re[-]experiencing the abuse. Women who were sexually abused as children need to experience a sense of safety, acceptance, sensitivity, and understanding.”
You might assume that women who were sexually abused would be more hesitant to attempt breastfeeding than other mothers, but in fact the opposite has been found to be true. In a nationally representative sample study, women who self-reported past sexual abuse were more than twice as likely to initiate breastfeeding. They also were found to breastfeed at the same rate as those without a history of past abuse.
However, women who were or are currently sexually abused are at greater risk for postpartum depression, disturbed sleep, and perinatal complications. Interestingly, exclusive breastfeeding has been shown in a study to reduce rates of depression and poor sleep among survivors, as compared with formula feedings and mixed feedings (read about the study’s background and a podcast interview with the author here).
Still, night feedings are often especially frightening for survivors of abuse. They may have an especially difficult time managing views of breasts as both sources of nourishment and sexual objects. They may also have significant anxiety around the exposure and vulnerability brought on by public nursing. Read More
“Just a mother”
I was so done with the world of new motherhood.
I was distancing myself.
I grew tired of writing about motherhood. You know why? Because I grew tired of being a mother. I was tired of everything mother. Being judged because I’m a mother. Always working but never ‘at work’ as a mother. Late nights that never end and early mornings as a mother. All the restrictions I feel as a mother.
I was tired of being a ‘stay at home’ mother. Tired of caring so immeasurably much about my children that my heart is always on the brink of hurting. Tired of having to choose between things that make me happy that don’t involve my children, and things I must do (or want to do) as a mother. Tired of being told it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s hard to make changes when you’re so tired. Read More
Beautiful Quotes in Celebration of Mothers
“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take.” ― Cardinal Mermillod Read More
Breastfeeding Moms, It’s Time To Ditch Dairy
In the process of birthing her child, opening up to allow life to pass through her and howling or whimpering along with thousands of other human mothers and multitudes more female creatures, a woman feels a primal connection to her animal nature. Herein is sparked an unspoken understanding of The Mother Code: all mothers worldwide, of all ages and races and species, learn this unspoken language in their gut and communicate it with their hearts.
This Code is founded upon an equal, shared love for our babies, a desire for the best for our babies — and what’s best for our babies is, by protective feature of Mother Nature, likewise best for us. The Code recognizes another mother’s profundity of pain when her child is hurt or lost, and it celebrates her joy when motherhood is thriving. It sees the essential closeness of mother and baby as gold; the syncing of their bodies and spirits as fact.
As a breastfeeding mother, you know the depth of emotions that make breastfeeding possible. You know the struggle when it doesn’t work, and when it gets painful and exhausting and when we face external obstacles. You know the anxiety when questioning whether your body ‘works,’ whether biology has failed you or if you’re ‘woman enough’ to handle the pressure of this responsibility. You know the Breastfeeding Mother Code.
Lactation works the same in all mammals. Emotions and hormones are the fuel for the mechanics of lactogenesis, a natural triumph of a nurturing, healing system that has secured mammalian survival since, well, the evolution (or divine creation) of mammaries.
So keep this Code in mind, because now it’s time to talk about dairy cows.
For the Breastfeeding ‘Butters’
If you’ve ever said “I support breastfeeding, but [insert almost any phrase],” I must break it to you:
You don’t truly support breastfeeding if you need to put a condition upon it. (This goes for the reluctant “supporters” and passionate advocates alike).
Examples: Read More
The Secrets of Postpartum Bodies
The power of transformation is an inherent gift of woman. The spider, snake, and butterfly are just a few of many creatures regarded as manifestations of feminine energy and universal symbols of shape-shifting. A master of creation, woman’s body is the original 3D printer. When she nurses a child, as Mark Twain once said, “she has no equal among men.”
Somehow still, many of us know discontent with or hatred for our bodies, whether transient or persistent. What’s worse is we believe it’s normal. Accepted to the point of expectation. This is especially true at the moment we inherit our mothering bodies. Through literally all forms of media and outlets for opinion, we are told before anything else that mothering bodies are not sexy, therefore not valuable, therefore invisible.
It’s a dangerous trajectory for the postpartum woman who is vulnerable, open, and recovering — she is brainwashed to confuse these things with weakness, brokenness, incapability, and decreased desirability. Read More
It’s OK to Love Your Pregnant Body
You are interesting. You carry a mystery, an unexplained power, a blessing that gets bigger every day. Do you not see the way you evoke turned heads with that package of life centered right on your body, one that might feel fragile to you, or burdensome with its new demand for constant responsibility and attention?
Have you forgotten (or have you ever really considered what it means) that “a woman’s body is the first environment”?
I tell myself this now…
But almost four years ago as a first-time mother, I couldn’t appreciate the changes in my body during three trimesters’ worth of pregnancy and the fourth trimester postpartum.
Let’s Stop Defending Ourselves With “Nothing Was Even Showing!”
I hear it all the time — women defending themselves for breastfeeding in public. Adamant that they deserve to feed their babies whenever and wherever needed, they say: “It’s not like you could see anything! Nothing was even showing!”
Great, but if you could see ‘something’… or if it had been ‘showing’… so what? Is it truly a valid defense for nursing a child in non-private situations?
From Cuplets to Outlets: Breastfeeding & Body Image
My breasts enjoyed a low-profile life before their eventual employment in the food industry (specializing in the Kids Menu, of course). I like to think of this 23-year long period of inconspicuousness as a special favor to me from genetics that seem to favor physical minimalism.
I hadn’t expected this, though: What served that long as basic decoration had, in the birth of a moment, become the absolute rulers of my body and my days — and the body and days of another tiny human being too, for countless flips of the calendar’s months.
Even more so… I hadn’t expected how reforming my attitude about a single body part could void most of my earliest ideas about self-image, self-appreciation, power, and purpose.
31 Symbols: The Uterus Invades Art
“racine femme enceinte” via esprit-de-la-nature.fr
“There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we.” – Ina May Gaskin
Want to Get Real-Life Defriended by a Mother? Say These 12 Things
Anyone who follows this site will understand this post is *OBVIOUSLY SATIRICAL.*
Newcomers, take a moment to think about what the above picture symbolizes to you. The mother, naked and vulnerable, preserves a bubble of peace with her baby, in seemingly necessary quarantine from the bold, harsh words that hope to infiltrate their haven with little concern for the affect it might have upon them.
Here are not-so-uncommon perspectives (inspired by actual commentary I’ve seen or heard) that demonstrate how to upset and further isolate yourself from the not-so-uncommon kind of woman described above.
1). Let him cry… it’s good for his lungs.
Then try to convince her that dropping him on his head is good for his brain.
2). You’ll spoil her.
A baby spoils by being carried just like an apple spoils simply by being carried. That’s how it works.
3). She’ll never learn to walk.
Then you can explain how it’s better for both of them if the child is forced to walk everywhere. It’s not like it’d inhibit the mother from moving about in a timely manner or result in the child feeling abandoned. Read More
Mama's Milk, No Chaser 