Should Women Breastfeed in Public?

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In the United States we are barraged with sexualized images of women, often prominently feature the breasts. From televised advertisements for lingerie to red carpet fashion to magazine covers, to video games, images of sexualized breasts are a fact of our daily lives. In contrast, images of mothers breastfeeding their children are decidedly rare. Despite our culture’s seeming insistence to the contrary, a woman's breasts are a functional body part intended to nourish our young. One part of the definition of “breast” reads, “ ... the mammae of the female after puberty, which are enlarged and softened by hormonally influenced mammary-gland development and fat deposition and which secrete milk after the birth of a child…” [1]

While this is only an excerpt of the entire definition, the definition in its entirety does not contain a single mention of breasts being a “private part”, a genital, or a sexual object. We can’t argue that breasts aren’t considered sexy to a great many people… but so are legs, hips, midriff, buttocks, lips, hands, hair, etc. Breasts are simply one part of a whole that make a sexy, beautiful woman. Our culture’s persistence in sexualizing breasts should not take precedence over the function of our breasts to nourish and nurture our children in the most biologically appropriate way.