A conversation about breastfeeding in public

Elaine Speight (curator) and Gill Thomson (Professor in Perinatal Health, University of Central Lancashire)

ES —  I’ve been thinking about ideas of comfort and discomfort in relation to motherhood. And when I was looking at your research, I was thinking about how the type of shame you talk about, which relates to feeding a baby in public, can only really happen in a social context, because it’s a reaction to other people’s disapproval and discomfort, both real and imagined [1].

GT —  Yes, shame’s a fundamentally social emotion.

ES —  What struck me was the fact that, amongst the women that you interviewed, shame was experienced by those who bottle fed their babies in public as well as those who breastfed, because they felt that they would be judged for their method of feeding.

GT —  Yes, it’s fundamentally about motherhood, how exposing it is, and how mothers are always being judged and criticised. We collected lots of data and it was never with the intention to look at shame. The data came from lots of interviews connected to different studies associated with infant feeding, such as women’s experiences of peer support and general infant feeding. I was having a conversation with one of my co-authors, Renée Flacking, about the fact that we’d heard similar stories from women, and we discussed how shame was present irrespective of how women feed their babies.  At that time, I knew very little about shame and the women didn't always name it. But there was something about the self, something very internalised about how women feel about themselves —  that they can consider themselves to be an unfit or bad mother, because of how they choose to feed their baby.

The research got picked up by the press and I did lots of media interviews. And reading the comments that people wrote in response to the newspaper article revealed really polarised public opinions, with the same things coming up again and again, particularly in relation to breastfeeding. You had people saying things like, ‘Stay at home love if you want to get your breasts out. We don’t want to see it’. Or ‘why are you making such a big deal about this? Women should breastfeed’.

Shame was there in the narrative of the research. It was never meant to be. We didn’t set out to look for shame. But it was already there in what women told us about how they experienced baby feeding outside of the home, or how women were made to feel when they decided to formula feed.

We have pockets of formula feeding cultures in the North West of England and one of the interviews that springs to mind, was with a woman who would express breastmilk and feed it to her baby in a bottle when she was in public or in front of friends, because she was afraid of feeling shame. She was embarrassed to say, ‘Actually I breastfeed’, because that would have been outside of the norm and she felt that she would have been judged by her peers within that environment, in the same way that someone bottle feeding might be judged within a breastfeeding culture.

ES —  It’s as if different methods of baby feeding are somehow deviant in public, depending on the social and cultural environment that you’re in. For example, I never really had a problem breastfeeding my children in public when they were very little. However, I did feel uncomfortable doing it when they were toddlers and preferred not to, even though I would breastfeed them at home, because I’m aware that it is an unusual thing to do and it’s often ridiculed or frowned upon. I would feel uncomfortable because I would be imagining other people’s negative reactions. I think it’s interesting how some of the women you spoke to altered their behaviour and methods of feeding so that they wouldn’t stand out within their social environments.

GT —  It relates to Erving Goffman’s work on stigma. How we try to present ourselves as somebody else to fit in and avoid feelings of shame and being stigmatised. [2]

ES —  Yes, because your research made me think about how women perform the idea of a good mother in public through the way that they feed their baby. 

GT —  Definitely. In terms of breastfeeding women, there was often a perception that they shouldn't be visible or exposed, particularly if they were still struggling or learning to breastfeed. There was a perception that, if they mastered it, that would be ok, because they would be able to do it discreetly and people wouldn’t be able to tell that they were breastfeeding. So, if you can hide it and make it something that it’s not, then that’s ok. But you know what it’s like, the baby is pulling off the breast and your nipple’s exposed and the milk’s all over the place….

ES —  It can be very messy!

GT —  And the thought of that can be horrifying for women because people would see them, would see their breasts, which are sexualised objects, and they felt they’d be judged. Sometimes the judgement is perceived, but often it’s real and women have to put up with the tutting and the comments. There was one woman we spoke to whose father-in-law asked her to leave the house if she was breastfeeding because, ‘We don’t want to see that!’ So, who are the breasts there for? Obviously not for women or babies. And they’re not for nutrition and feeding. They’re something othered. And a good mother is somebody who breastfeeds discreetly and it's hidden. Or if they can’t manage this, then they should stay at home.

ES — And this notion of the good mother connects with other things that your research touches on around the idea of mothering in general, and breastfeeding in particular, as something that should come naturally. One of the starting points for the Feed project was thinking about Richard Sennett's description of breastfeeding as the first cooperative act in a human’s life. Obviously, he’s assuming that all humans are breastfed. However, he talks about how the baby has to work with the mother, snuggling in etc., and how the mother has to respond to these non-verbal cues for breastfeeding to occur. However, breastfeeding, in my experience, has never felt particularly cooperative and as my babies got older it sometimes felt quite one-sided; as if they were taking something from me, even if I wasn’t always that keen to provide it. And, of course, sometimes it doesn’t work.

GT — Renée Flacking has done some wonderful work around breastfeeding as a reciprocal act. That's what it is, you learn to breastfeed together. But women often aren't prepared for breastfeeding because we don't discuss the realities. And if we do discuss the negatives, people worry that it's going to put women off. In public, women are encouraged to move out to very uncomfortable spaces to breastfeed. There’s been a big move to have breastfeeding friendly areas. But this sometimes feels like lip service. You get people pushing back and asking, ‘Why this area? Why not that area? Just let me breastfeed where I like’.

ES —  Yes, I’m interested in how the design of spaces affects how people feel about feeding their babies, by bottle or breast, and is there a way that we can re-think public space, both outdoors and within buildings such as libraries and museums to support them? The Feed chair was a way to think about some of these issues. As a chair, it’s a self-contained space, but where you put it will obviously affect how comfortable the sitter feels. When we were designing it, we sent out an online survey to get some practical advice about what people might require in such a chair. There was a question about how much privacy it should provide, and I was surprised by the polarity of responses. On the one hand, you had people saying, ‘I feel a bit exposed when breastfeeding in public, so I’d like it to feel intimate’, and on the other there were people who actually got angry about the fact that we were doing this project because they felt that we were ‘othering breastfeeding women’ by suggesting that they couldn’t just do it anywhere, which of course we aren’t. But I think it shows just what an emotive subject it is.

GT —  It’s also interesting what people class as public space. Years ago, we did some research in Blackpool, which generally has a strong formula feeding culture. We asked people about public breastfeeding and the issues they faced, and again they felt shameful. But we asked them where they did it and it turned out that some people were doing it in the car. Doing it in the car and calling it public breastfeeding! There was one woman I interviewed whose partner wouldn't allow her to breastfeed anywhere, not even in front of a window in their front room because it overlooked a park. She had to shut the curtains. Here we see it’s linked with the appropriation of women’s bodies.

ES —  Yes, and there’s been a lot of talk recently, in the wake of the horrific murders of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard about women feeling frightened or uncomfortable in public spaces. But it is generally around women walking by themselves and not necessarily with children, although there have also been some horrible stories in the news about men photographing breastfeeding women. So, I’m interested in how conversations about women’s right to the city [3] can also include experiences of feeding and looking after children. How can we design public spaces which accommodate acts of care?

GT —  For a start, there needs to be stronger messages that you can feed your baby however and wherever you like. But it’s also about comfort. If you’re going to sit on a park bench it’s not necessarily going to be a pleasant experience. Your arm might hurt, your back might hurt, it’s going to be hard on your bum. There’s work being done to develop booths and screens, but again that makes it a private, hidden act. You hear it all the time, ‘I don’t see other women breastfeeding, so I don’t feel comfortable doing it’. The fact that you don’t see it perpetuates the abnormality of breastfeeding. It’s societal. Of course, you can put up signs telling women ‘You can feed anywhere’, but then that can feel patronising. You can have lovely signage, you can have lovely artwork to support breast or bottle feeding, saying, ‘Wherever we are, we can care for our babies’, but really there needs to be societal change. 

ES —  I think it says a lot that there is no provision for this very basic human act within our social environments. For example, I came across an article a few years ago about the problem of men pissing in shop doorways in Paris. The city authorities tried to discourage this by installing what they call ‘Uritrottoirs’, which are basically open-air urinals, across the city. Rather than trying to make these urinals discreet, they’re very visible objects. They’re bright red, include a planter on the top and a sign overhead with an image of a man peeing. They’re also located in prominent places, such as overlooking the River Seine. Bearing in mind that this is a country with one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, I find it interesting that the practice of men urinating in public is accommodated in such a visible way. That’s not to say that everyone was happy with these things, apparently many people weren’t, but I think it shows something about how women’s needs continue to be marginalised within public space.

GT —  It’s like how some men walk around with their top off as soon as there’s a bit of sun! There’s this idea of modesty, which only applies to women. Modesty and purity, the serene Madonna and Child. But baby feeding isn’t like that. There was a social media campaign a few years ago, aimed at very young mums, which said that ‘you’re a star if you breastfeed’, but you wonder if that just makes people feel marginalised who don’t. They’d think, ‘I don’t breastfeed, so I’m not a star, I’m a bad person because I don’t do that’.

ES —  And you're rarefying it as well, making it into this special thing rather than something which, when you’re doing it, feels very everyday. It’s boring, it can be hard work but, just like bottle feeding, it’s part of life with a baby.

GT —  Yeah, like when women are told that it doesn’t hurt when you breastfeed. It bloody does sometimes! By my third you could have set my nipples on fire and I wouldn’t have noticed! But at first it was agony. We need to talk about the realities.

ES —  Yes, there’s this idea that baby’s just latch on and that’s that. But even bottle feeding’s messy. Baby’s are sick. You can walk through Manchester City Centre on a Sunday morning and it stinks of piss because people (usually men) have been urinating in doorways, but there’s a particular anxiety around breastmilk. I remember a news article about a woman who was asked not to breastfeed in a swimming pool because it was ‘unhygienic’. How do we normalise the mess of feeding babies, the mess of motherhood?

GT —  Because that’s the reality.

ES —  Yeah, and public spaces need to accommodate this mess. We need different types of spaces. I remember breastfeeding my daughter at a table seat on a train and feeling very exposed because everyone is so close together and I was a bit full, so I was also worried about the baby coming off and milk squirting everywhere!

GT —  It’s like when your baby’s sick. If seats were more wipeable, you’d feel more confident about being able to clean it up, and it wouldn’t become an issue.

ES —  Yes, although what’s been interesting with this project is, even when you’re making something as basic as a chair, once you start thinking about it, it becomes quite complicated. What angle should the back rest be at? How high should the armrests be? You want to make it inviting and comfortable, but it also needs to be cleanable.  Lots of people we surveyed mentioned the worry of getting milk on things (whether formula or breastmilk) and making a mess.

GT —  And then feeling embarrassed about having to walk off and leave it.

ES —  I think this is part of the issue with pumping in public as well. I’ve heard people say that they’ve had to do that in toilets because it isn’t acceptable to see a woman pumping milk at her desk or sitting on a train. There’s a squeamishness around it.

GT —  I use an example from an American advert in my work around shame, where there’s a woman with a double pump, and she’s gorgeous, all her hair and make-up’s done. She looks like a supermodel and she’s at a desk typing whilst expressing. There’s something so wrong with that picture! But expressing again is not normalised and women do feel deviant doing it in public.

ES —  I think people would be more shocked to see a woman expressing in public than to see someone breastfeeding. Seeing a woman, not with her breasts exposed, but sitting on a park bench eating her lunch, with a tube coming out of her top and milk going into a bottle. I’ve never seen that and there’s obviously a reason why. There’s a perception about breastmilk where it is somehow deviant out of the context of the home.

GT —  One of my colleagues came back from maternity leave whilst she was expressing and I think she found that fairly horrific, having to go to a crappy room somewhere to do it. Some people want that privacy, because you need to relax and think about the baby, you don’t always want to be in a busy place. But there’s that sense of disconnection. And sometimes you feel like you’re rushing it, because you can only spare half an hour, and it’s rushed and tense, in which case it isn’t going to work. It’s better to be in a nice space, where you can sit and relax and let it come.

ES —  So there’s something about time as well. Spending time in a space. There’s always been a stigma around women loitering in public spaces. But when you’re feeding a baby, you often need to sit there for a long time.

GT —  Yes, you might be in a café with a breastfeeding friendly sticker on the window, but they don’t want you to be there for ages. And you end up buying three brews and a cake when all you really want is a glass of water! We just need to make places more friendly for feeding a baby. We need to move on from the attitudes that make women feel judged and which exclude them from public places. We just need to let people feed their babies.