First Facebook banned photos of breastfeeding mothers. Now YouTube has jumped on the bandwagon.
YouTube claims these photos of mothers who are rather discretely feeding their children violate the Terms of Use of their sites because such photos are inappropriate and sexually explicit.
But stripping videos are OK with them. And of course a Victoria’s Secret “pajama” commercial is fine. One called “Sexy Heidi Klum Almost Nude” apparently is not a problem, either for those Terms of Use.
If these videos of supermodels prancing around in next to nothing and home movies of girlfriends shaking their boo-TAYS are permissible and not sexually explicit in the eyes of these social networks, then why are breastfeeding photos? In both cases, the same amount of breast flesh is exposed. And breastfeeding a baby is not meant to arouse the men-folk while, I dare say, the other examples are.
And that’s really the issue here, isn’t it? It’s not really about inappropriateness, but about how women are viewed by men. Otherwise, as I might have argued before a judge in my previous life, don’t we have a distinction without a difference here?
This is just one of the more obvious ways that illustrates our society’s inherent lack of respect for women.
One type of video is meant for men’s amusement and pleasure and the other isn’t. When I was researching a story for Breast Cancer Awareness month, I asked one person I interviewed why so many companies are interested in jumping on the breast cancer awareness bandwagon and not other diseases that impact women as much, if not more?
Her answer? Sadly, that breast cancer has more sex appeal than heart disease.
This battle with Facebook and YouTube is really just a symptom of the larger lack of respect problem — the absence of real workplace policies that support women after they’ve had babies, the willingness of our schools to expect working mothers to take their time to work on projects for the kids but not working fathers, the presence of only one woman justice on the Supreme Court, and the rulings written by male justices that show that we really have not come very far in ridding ourselves of paternalistic views toward women.
While it’s impossible to tackle all the issues women and working mothers face at any given moment, there is something we can do now to promote the cause today as it relates to policies that protect breastfeeding mothers.
The League of Maternal Justice has provided a series of tips about what we can do right now to start to make change. Take a trip over there to check them out. Our voices are loud and strong when we’re getting the kids to do their chores, so why not use them to take this first step toward gaining the respect we deserve?
I won’t put up with disrespect from a second-grader. I’m certainly not to going stand for it from a bunch of men who’d have contests and awards for themselves if they were the ones in charge of the breastfeeding.
You can also find Joanne at PunditMom and MOMocrats.
