Breastfeeding Moms Fighting Facebook Ban
You can see it on Main Street, but breastfeeding moms are not allowed on Facebook. The social networking company has been deleting photos of women with their babies at their breast because it says it violates the decency standards set up for posting pictures on the site.
But moms are fighting back – with a Facebook group and plans for a “nurse in” at the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.
Already the group, “Hey, Facebook, breast-feeding is not obscene!,” has attracted almost fifty-four thousand members, and a Facebook “event” page has been built for the Mothers International Lactation Campaign (MILC), a virtual protest to coincide with the nurse in. Members are being asked to change their profile picture to that of a nursing mother for the entirety of Dec. 27, the day women will protest in person in Palo Alto at 11 a.m. The picture need not be that of a human mother, the event creators say, but simply that of a mammal and her young in the act of feeding.
The company told a Daily News reporter that it has not actually banned breastfeeding on the site – photos that do not show an entire breast are allowed. That’s technically true – the profile picture for the Hey, Facebook group is that of a breast almost entirely covered by a mother’s blue t-shirt, the nipple encased in her baby’s mouth. Approximately an inch of skin can be seen between the baby’s cheek and the mom’s shirt.
I’ve got to tell you, I’ve seen plenty of freaky photos on Facebook – from the teenager I babysat when he was 3 looking so blitzed he might well have had alcohol poisoning (not indecent, I suppose, but definitely making me feel old) to the old tea bagging trick (why do guys do this to one another?). I could see removing this kind of thing – you know, underage drinking is against the law guys.
But a mom breastfeeding? Give me a break. I’m one of those people who prefers to give a mom her privacy, and I look away – I probably would avoid commenting on a friend’s photo if it was of her breastfeeding. But, in the end, it’s a mother and her child. It’s not a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction. Women can walk down the street wearing nothing on her boobs but a pasty and be violating nothing more than the laws of taste (and fashion). Meanwhile, she’s showing more of her breast than a breastfeeding mom, and with no real reason for it.
Image: Facebook
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On january first i posted a breastfeeding image, on January 3 it was published in an article regarding the Facebook controversy, on January 4 Facebook canceled my account with no explanation.
Facebook sucks
Breastfeeding photos are beautiful and celebrate life. I love to see them; it makes me happy as I think of how empowering I’ve found breastfeeding to be. So some people *do* like to see them.
So it is now better accepted to promote alcohol and to show pics of people smashed on god knows what than to promote the most natural thing a mother can do…Shows the pathetic mentality we live in nowadays. As for nudity, only the sick-minded make it obscene.
Breastfeeding is not a crime!
The point of the original protest is that Facebook was deleting photos from people’s own albums, for the most part in albums only their friends could see. That leads to the conclusion that some people’s friends were the ones who reported the photos as obscene, another issue altogether. These photos being deleted were not splashed all over the internet where any casual observer could see them. Only in recent months has the protest heated up to the point where people are using breastfeeding photos and art images as profile pictures, an in-your-face method to hopefully make those who see public breastfeeding as distasteful or needing to be hidden, to realize how prudish and ridiculous they are behaving.
To all those people that say “why would you want to post your boobs,” just shows where your mind is. It’s not about posting “boobs” it’s about FEEDING YOUR BABY. It’s one of the most beautiful pictures in the world. For anyone to see them as obscene is just pure ignorance bordering on evil-mindedness. The world would be a million times better if all mothers nursed their babies as Nature intended instead of being ashamed and made to feel that man-made formula is what God intended for babies in place of MOTHER’S MILK.
i agree with kityo.
personally, i believe your entire life should not be shared on the internet.. but that, too, is a matter of personal opinion, and is not for any of us to decide.
i think if a mother is proud of something, she should be able to show it to her friends without being attacked for it. and it is not my right to tell her she is not allowed to do that just because her breast offends some prudes.
obviously there are limits to these things, but i really don’t understand why anyone still cares.
Kikyo
ITA!!! Well said!
I’m with LAUREN on this: not everything you do needs to be documented on face book. Yes, this is natural to do. I fully intend to breast feed my future children. But this is an INTIMATE and MEANINGFUL time for Mom and Baby. It does not make you look cool or look like a model mother to show this. It is a beautiful thing, but it is special. You wouldn’t show yourself having sex with your husband or bathing your children or cleaning up the babies vomit, because they are special times. If you do, you are simply needy for attention and seem to think that your life must be shared with the whole world. Stop exploiting this special time, it’s not supposed to be for anyone else to see or congratulate you on.
And no: IT’S NOT OK FOR A DUDE TO FLASH HIS PENIS OR TEENS TO BE SHOWING THEIR BOOZE PARTIES OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, THESE SHOULD BE FIRST ON THE ADMINISTRATOR’S “DELETE” LIST, BUT THERE STILL NEEDS TO BE SOME DECENCY AND PRIVACY IN PEOPLE’S LIVES. And standing in the streets and offices of Palo Alto is not going to improve your case. You’re just going to upset the overly-prudish and annoy the rest of us.
No, breastfeeding isn’t obscene, not by a long shot, but you do not need to be the center of digital attention: either for showing the breastfeeding or staging this idiotic protest for being denied the right to show it.
And yeah, Navi, for some reason this is still an issue. Don’t know why. We have nursing rooms in lots of stores and even corporate buildings (Colgate-Palmolive among them). Nobody gives a damn anymore except a few prudes and a few neo-feminists who look for any excuse to fight there self-supposed “oppressions”.
Are you kidding me?
If the people at Facebook are so concerned about obscene photos then how do they explain “Gerik Golfo Golfo” getting away with posting his photo?
It’s O.K. for a guy to flaunt his penis but women can’t be shown feeding their babies????!!!?!?
Give me a break!
Lots of things are offensive to lots of people. There’s definitely content on the internet that offends me and my choice is this: I CHOOSE NOT TO LOOK AT IT IF I FIND IT OFFENSIVE. If Facebook is going to start banning offensive things, there are hundreds of other things they could start with before breastfeeding.
Lauren:
Neither of my children ever drank from a bottle. I think yours is a common misconception amongst people from countries with low breastfeeding rates, such as the USA. (It’s because those people never see much breastfeeding!)
Oh, my….I have so many angles on this! Lots of people find different things inappropriate. For example, some Muslims find it extremely disrespectful to go around without a head cover. YOU, might think that is ludicrous. But THEY take that very seriously. I, for example, think that nursing is one of the most empowering and beautiful images EVER. Women, these days, are so self-conscious about their breasts. The size, the shape, stretch marks…WHATEVER! It’s our culture that sexualizes the breast and makes it “dirty” or “shameful”. Why? It’s time that women feel proud of their body for what it is naturally created to do. Many lactivists want to help make breastfeeding more acceptable and commonplace. It helps by seeing it! Sadly to say, we have to desensitize the images of breastfeeding to the American public. It shouldn’t be that way…but it is! As long as breastfeeding rights are being jeopardized, there will be lactivists, including myself, up in arms to preserve our rights and the rights of our babies. BREASTFEEDING IS A BABIES BIRTHRIGHT!!! BOTTOM LINE!
Lauren:
“If you absolutely HAVE to have an affectionate picture of your child on the internet, just wait a little while until they drink out of a bottle…”
Huh?
Why would a breastfeeding mom need to encourage her baby to drink from a bottle to enable her to take a photo?!?!?
Lauren: If not posting things “most people don’t want to see” was a criterion, most of the Internet would have to be taken down. Besides, how did you get to be the judge of what most people want to see? I’d much rather see breastfeeding pics than drunk teenagers, crotch shots, or plenty of other things that end up there. (And yet I wouldn’t call for those pics to be taken down either.)
Oh, and for the record, most breastfed kids don’t just “switch to a bottle” after a little while. Huh?
Wow – peeing and breastfeeding are 2 totally different things. That’s like saying eating and peeing are bodily functions therefore eating is disgusting and pictures of people eating should be banned from Facebook.
I still is amazing that breasts and breastfeeding is so controversial. It’s just a boob and a baby. It should be a non-issue.
Why do you have to pots a picture of yourself breastfeeding? Why is this something necessary? Who cares? I’m frankly glad (as a woman and a mother) that the pictures are deleted. If a friend of mine posted a picture of her nursing her child, I’d find it offensive. Yes, it’s natural. Absolutely. So is urinating. But you don’t see me posting a photo of myself doing it. I’m just sick of these women being so militant about it that they give other nursing mothers a bad name. Thanks to a few, the many are tainted.
Okay, so here’s my issue:
Why would you WANT a picture of you breastfeeding on facebook? No one wants to see that. If you absolutely HAVE to have an affectionate picture of your child on the internet, just wait a little while until they drink out of a bottle. Then you can have all the pictures you want of your child eating. Sure, it’s a natural part of life, it isn’t showing the nipple.. whatever argument you want to give, it doesn’t change the fact that most people don’t want to see that. Your entire life does not need to be documented on facebook. This is one part of it that should probably be kept private.
I’m with you, gpgirl. If you’re breastfeeding, you’re not showing off your nip – it’s actually doing its JOB, and your baby is getting nutrition. I don’t understand all the hoopla about people breastfeeding. Although I’ve been aware of plenty of breastfeeding mums – after I had my own daughter and breastfed, I started to pay attention – never in my life have I ever seen a woman rip off her shirt in public and bare her boobies so that their little one can have a swig of milk.
OK, I don’t understand. They will not show a mother breastfeeding, but will allow a photo that does not show an entire breast. By definition, a breastfeeding pic would not show the entire breast, as the baby’s mouth would be covering the nipple. Am I missing something here? If a pasty is OK, why not a baby’s mouth?
Just cannot believe it!
Just crazy
You’ve got to be kidding…I see more boob on the cover of Vanity Fair…and near every other magazine. Who are you people? 12 year olds? Its a breast…ladies, you have them, guys, you’ve seen them. Grow up.
wow. I didn’t realize it was still an issue.