Matt Hiles

Professor McCampbell
Engl 101
18 November, 2015
Breastfeeding and prejudice
Alone in the bathroom, a mother sits breastfeeding her child, defeated. The
totally hygienic biological function that allows her to nourish her child has been deemed
unfit in the eyes of the public. As formula milk becomes increasingly more prevalent in
society, breastfeeding is seen with consistently less frequency; its reached taboo status
in modern society. This is in large part due to the structure of nations. America is a
capitalistic society - the idea of breastfeeding is made economically undesirable by the
rise of formula milk, as reported by the third largest gender non-binary nonprofit: The
Asexuality Organization. When paired with the fact that nursing is formed by cultural
understandings of how we use our bodies (Men Are Not), it creates a dangerous
situation where womens nipples are hidden from society, allowing fetishes to occur with
a much greater frequency. The societal taboo of breastfeeding in American culture
exemplifies how even natural functions of the female body have become sexualized to
the point of inappropriateness.

Breastfeeding ad shows women nursing in deplorable conditions

Callari, Kendra.Private Dining. Digital image.What To Expect. What To Expect, 7 May 2014. Web.
18 Nov. 2015.

The text on the above ads and their font selection if you bring up the font you
need to discuss it is perhaps the most obvious example of capitalism and its effect on
women. Common phrases such as table for two and bon appetite fill the mind with
images of dining in a fine restaurant: an environment where people often worry about
getting what they paid for. But in a bathroom, these images work to show us that context
is everything - the price of a meal does not matter if customers are banished from public
sight to feed their child.The National Center for Biotechnology, Americas leading center
for biotechnological research, states that Capitalistic societies are based off of the
maximization of surplus value (Campbell). In a system where competition is the key
component to advancement, future workers and time are the most essential
commodities (Campbell). Formula milk was created as a response to maximize both of
these resources. As women became more prominent in the workforce during the 1970s,
maternity leave became an immediate issue, states C. Hirschman, researcher and
sociology professor at Washington University. The longer a woman spent breastfeeding

her baby, the more money the company would have to pay to compensate for her
absence. Formula bottles would allow women to have their bodies free from work while
care takers watched for their children in the workplace (Hirschman). By creating this
product, America could ensure that their employees were still at work while making sure
their next generation of workers were well fed enough to survive to adulthood
(Campbell). The trend is still increasing in popularity to this day: 78% of breastfeeding
women are now part time or stay at home mothers (Campbell).
The cultural move away from nursing pushed American society away from the
public acceptance of women breastfeeding their children in public. Women are often
unjustly asked to nurse in dirty places such and bathrooms when they have to feed their
children in public. In the photo above, the viewer sees mothers in dirty rundown
bathrooms. Toilet paper is strewn across the floor, and the tiles are covered in dirt; a
testament to how poor the current standards are for what is acceptable for public
breastfeeding. Such low treatment is not universal, other countries view nursing as a
noble and altruistic act (A Closer Look). Mongolians are known to kiss the heads of
strangers babies while the mother is breastfeeding in public, and the Japanese openly
discuss the closeness the breastfeeding creates between a mother and child (A Closer
Look). The socio-centric natures of these cultures lets them put families first, and value
the bonds that families share over any type of work or materialistic motive (Campbell).
This is in direct contrast with the individual nature of American capitalism: a society
where people feel as though nursing is pushing them back from the goals theyre trying
to reach. A mothers once natural instinct to altruistically serve her child is replaced with

a choice of either separation anxiety or the guilt of falling behind in her career
(Campbell).
The lack of exposure to breastfeeding in American society replaces the natural,
mundane the negative connotation of this word weakens the meaning of your sentence
response to breastfeeding with one of fetishization. The facial expressions in the photo
above conveys this through the facial expressions of the mothers. Instead of a look of
disgust or disdain for their situation, the expressions on their face is one of guilt: the
dark blue tile on the walls evoking a feeling of sadness in the viewer. In a society where
natural functions of the body are hidden from sight, fetishes can occur (Ward). Our
culture reflects this. Lactation Matters, an international organization dedicated to
womens breastfeeding rights, released survey results stating that 25% of people
wanted time magazine to revoke their issue with a breastfeeding woman on the cover
from 2013 and 43% of people think breastfeeding should be illegal in public (Men Are
Not). Mark Ward, a sexual psychologist for Shape Magazine, states that when
objects are not shown to us regularly, the context of our brief interactions with them
determine how we perceive the nature of the object. Corporate media classically
conditions us to find breasts sexual by exposing us to them using sexualized models
while selling their products, causing us to further associate breasts with sex (Men Are
Not). However, men are not hardwired to think this way. In tribal societies where
people spend most of their time nude, males dont find breasts innately sexual. They
often see breastfeeding in public and are indifferent to it (Ward).

Americas emphasis on productivity has caused a nation that prides themselves

on freedom to scrutinize the very people who raise them: mothers are shamed for
making sure their child is fed, and women are demotivated from wanting to reproduce.
The economic undesirability of breastfeeding gives corporations the ability to sexualize
the female body, creating a perpetuating cycle of oppression. These circumstances
allow a part of the reproductive cycle thats considered altruistic in other parts of the
world to be banished from visible sight in the United States. American society must
resume public breastfeeding in order to eliminate an unprecedented shaming of
womens bodies and and cease the corporate sexualization of the breast.
Work cited
"A Closer Look at Cultural Issues Surrounding Breastfeeding." Lactation Matters.
Lactation Matters, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 09 Nov. 2015.
Campbell, CE. Breast Feeding vs. Bottlefeeding: Mainstream vs. Marxist Perspectives."
NCBI. NCBI, 11 Jan. 2013. Web
Hirschman, C. (1981) Trends and Differentials in Breast Feeding: An Update.
Demography 18:39-54.
"Men Are Not Initially Attracted to Breasts." Asexuality Organization. Asexuality
Organization, 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Ward, Markheim. "Your Brain On: A Fetish." Shape Magazine. Shape Magazine, 18
June 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2015.