A trend that has been on the rise in social media lately among female celebrities is the push to #normalizebreastfeeding. I do not have any children, but as a woman, it made me question my stance on this issue after reading what other women and stars have said about public breastfeeding. Many who argue for the normalization of breastfeeding contend that it’s natural and if the public has already accepted seeing scantily clad women in magazines, why can’t they accept public breastfeeding?
Celebrities like actress Alyssa Milano and singer Jessie James Decker have taken to social media to show how grateful they are that they have the ability to feed their children naturally and are on a mission to eliminate the stigma surrounding public breastfeeding. Milano even got into a heated debate with Wendy Williams on the her show about breastfeeding in public after Williams explained that she doesn’t think that is something that people should have to see in a public setting.
After hearing both sides to the issue, I think that a compromise can be reached through discression. I believe that women have the right to feed their children wherever they are whether it’s in the privacy of their home, or at a restaurant. Companies marketing to mothers who are not yet sure of their stance on public breastfeeding have created a myriad of products that make the process seamless for both mother and baby, while also being discrete. The public is more concerned with seeing too much of a woman’s body and pays less attention to the the fact that the breastfeeding is taking place in a public setting. With that being said, if a woman is in a restaurant with her family, including her baby, and her child needs to be fed, using a drape or product which keeps the mother covered may be the perfect compromise solution to this issue.
In regards to females’ social media posts, celebs or not, people have the right to post any content that they choose. If others do not want to see these posts, they also have the right to choose to disregard them. Women who want to #normalizebreastfeeding embrace what the female body can do and advocate for others to be more open-minded, especially given that female bodies have never been more on display in the media than they are now.