Rebecca Cullers frowns:
Activists and health advocates are rightly upset over this poorly executed campaign to get Mexico City mothers to breastfeed. It shows topless celebrities with a carefully placed banner running right over their breasts that says, “No les des la espalda, dale pecho,” which translates to, “Don’t turn your back on them, give them your breast.”
The first problem is how overtly sexualized the women are. The act of breastfeeding is not a sexual act. It vacillates between being painful, annoying, exhausting, inconvenient and heartrendingly sublime. The sexualization of breastfeeding is a large part of the reason so many people shame mothers for breastfeeding in public, and a factor in low breastfeeding rates. (This campaign by two students nicely illustrates this part of the problem.)
Update from a reader:
I think something may be getting lost in translation.
The problem the Mexican advocates have with this campaign is that it seems to blame mothers, suggesting that not breastfeeding is “turning your back” on your child. Mexico has very low rates for exclusive breastfeeding, but that is because most women breastfeed and supplement with formula (about 94% of babies in Mexico are breastfed, compared to 77% in the US). Part of that is because many Mexican women see formula as offering something extra to the baby (it is scientifically formulated!), so in that sense having celebrities advocating nursing might make sense. (One of the most effective pro-breastfeeding campaigns in the ’80s featured then telenovela queen Veronica Castro.)
However, the thing that started the controversy with this campaign was that the creator stated that this campaign is targeting women who do not breastfeed because they want to maintain their figure. That is such an ignorant and ridiculous take on the true barriers for breastfeeding mother in Mexico I don’t even know where to start taking it apart. But the complaints are not about the pictures sexualizing breastfeeding. As a foreigner, it seems to me that seeing these ads as sexualizing breastfeeding says more about American hang-ups with bare breasts than about anything else. I’ve never heard of a woman being asked to breastfeed in a restaurant’s restroom in Mexico, for example.
The Dish 