The Double Standard of Breasts

Yes, the pun in the post title was intended 😉

Last week, via Twitter, I watched a breastfeeding controversy unfold.  My colleague, Amy, wrote a great blog post about it, so I’ll just direct you to her site for the background info on that.  As you can see from my comment there, I wholeheartedly agree with her sentiments.

When women go prancing around showing huge amounts of cleavage at the beach or in the bars, the DJ, and the many other misogynists that think the way he does, do not complain.  But, when they use the breast for what they were actually made for, (and when doing so, actually shows less skin than the bikini-or-club-going-clad women do) he gets offended.

So, basically, as long as the women are using their assets for purposes in which the man is going to benefit, it’s okay.  But, if anyone else gets any benefit out of it, it’s offensive!  That is such a double standard.

Today, I read about another breastfeeding controversy that reinforces this double standard in a blog that was posted on our local newspaper.  Here is that post: TMI for little girls?

I am floored that someone would actually comment that breastfeeding is “too sexual”.  I completely disagree. It has nothing to do with sex in any way! It has everything to do with providing nourishment for your child.  You might as well say that cooking is sexual, or grocery shopping is sexual, or working so you have money to put food on the table is sexual…but I digress.

The reason that the person didn’t like the breastfeeding babies was that it reminded them of sex, so that must mean that sex is bad.

It reminds me of a funny quote by Butch Hancock:

Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.

But, if sex is bad and seeing boobs makes you think of sex, then why do we see boobs everywhere, all the time in the U.S.? Watch almost any movie, play almost any video game, peruse the ‘net and look at the ads (and I’m not even talking about legitimate porn), and you’re bound to see some serious cleavage if not all out boobage. Not as many people get up in arms when Brittany Spears is shown on the cover of a magazine wearing a very revealing top.  Yet, a women feeds her child and she’s ostracized.

I did a little perusing on the web before writing this post.  I found several stories about this breast feeding doll and read the comments.  The comments on the blog that I linked above are mostly pro. But, that is to be expected because I live in a pretty liberal, natural-childbirth-loving community.  I found many other stories in which the majority of the comments were against this doll.  The majority of them posted things like “It’s inappropriate” because the girls are too young to know about it.

Excuse me? There are dolls include plastic bottles, which the little girls use to feed the doll with.  Why is it inappropriate to feed a doll one way, the way that Nature or God intended, but not the other way?  Why is it appropriate to take children to the zoo and ooh and aaah over the little baby panda cub suckling its mother but it’s not appropriate for humans to do the same?

The answer to both of those questions is the double standard of breasts, which is a direct result of misogyny.