Covering Up is a Feminist Issue (Video)
Sunday, February 20, 2011 Background
Last year, I wrote a post called Covering Up is a Feminist Issue after seeing yet another comment from a self-proclaimed non-judgmental woman asking why women can't just cover up when they are breastfeeding. The presumption that her comfort level should dictate how other people dress or act irked me into action. The post was fairly successful in creating dialogue on the issue, so I decided to take the concept and turn it into a video. I've been working on it for a while and the recent comments from a Toronto police officer that women can avoid rape by not dressing like a "slut" prompted me to finish and launch the video.
Credits and Thank Yous
This video is a compilation of wonderful content created by other people. I would like to thank:
- Canadian singer-songwriter Amanda Rheaume for giving permission to use her amazing song Out of Time from the 2007 album If You Never Live.
- The wonderful photographers who either made their work available through a creative commons licence or who gave me permission to use their photos in the video, including:
- Amy from Muddy Boots Photography (also muddybootsphoto on flickr)
- Desiree Fawn from So Fawned (also desireefawn on flickr)
HeidiL and Landslide Photography for the photo on the right, which is incorrectly attributed in the video (many thanks to HeidiL for permission to use the photo). See other beautiful nursing pictures by Landslide Photography.- Paige from Baby Dust Diaries and Nursing Freedom who has created a collection of breastfeeding photos on flickr, two of which I used in the video.
- The Indiana Black Breastfeeding Coalition, which has just created an amazing set of photos of black women breastfeeding and put them into the public domain.
- Sarah R. Bloom, a photographer whose work you can find at Sad and Beautiful, and who gave me permission to use her beautiful shot Merger.
- Other flickr users whose photos were made available with a creative commons license:
- niomix2008
- fabiogis50
- brookesb
- Helga Weber
- NATALIA PHOTOS
- jessica.garro
- LollyKnit
- mkorchia
- Stich
- Sagrado Corazón
- rachel sian
- ruumo
- adria.richards
- emilio labrador
- Master/Cyber
- deepwarren
- Emery Co Photo
- -Andrew-
- Magdalena O!
- Anita Robicheau
- Foxtongue
- jinglejammer
- Joe Shlabotnik
- jencu
- 150hp
- alpa kai omorfa
- littleREDelf
- jocelyndale
- jakekrohn
- Urijamjari
- mharvey.nyc
- Presidencia de la República del Ecuador
- Inferis
- Mike.Hanlon
- Alison Kramer from Nummies Nursing Bras for the inspiration to make a video and for her encouragement and advice.
- Stephanie Montreuil from The Lotus Pad for her encouragement and support.
Sharing
If you wish to share this video on your blog, please go ahead (you can get the embed code on YouTube). I would love link back here when you do and ideally a comment or an e-mail so that I can come and check out your post too.
Thank you for watching!
Reader Comments (163)
[...] compartir este video que ha hecho Annie de PHD in Parenting acerca de cubrise o no mientras estás amamantando en público. Lo resumió muy bien “es la opción de la mujer” Es curioso pero la [...]
Love it!
I wish there was a "like" button for your comment
Great video Annie! I'm so glad you included women from different ethnicities, including one from my homeland Ecuador. I translated the words into Spanish and wrote them on my post. I linked back to your site as well. http://bit.ly/gH7fJy
Love it! Have written a post about it on my blog. http://www.fertilefeminism.com/our-bodies/the-bare-truth-on-covering-up/
I'm very lucky that I've never encountered a problem with NIP and even in the future there's this very little chance because of my location. It angers me that there are people who have the audacity to tell nursing moms to cover up. Love! Love! Love this video! Well done! Posted it on my FB wall: http://www.facebook.com/TheLazyMama
thank you for this annie! sharing on FB
Awesome video! I'll be posting it on facebook and on my (sorely neglected) blog.
Annie,
I loved this video. It is so well done. Thank you!
Love it!
Love it and love to be part of such a great cause. I was nursing my 3yo on a very popular trail in a national park. I'll definitely be reposting on facebook.
Did so! And you inspired me:
http://ready-aye-ready.blogspot.com/2011/02/wherever-we-go-however-we-dress.html
http://ready-aye-ready.blogspot.com/2011/02/wherever-we-go-however-we-dress-part-2.html
I nursed my daughter for 13 months and never did so in public. I even felt too shy to breastfeed in front of family. I deeply regret all the times I made her wait. And all the crying we listened to. I wish I had been confident enough to just feed her! Your video brought a lot of those old feelings to the surface for me.
Thank you for your good work.
Thank you Jocelyn! I'm so glad you found my video. Thank you for your beautiful picture. :)
Bravo! What a gorgeous video and a beautiful message.
S.P.
I love this. Nursing in public is such a strange, crazy hot-button issue. I appreciate the way you shared your perspective in a new way. The video was compelling and, frankly, after a long day of talking about breastfeeding... seeing those nursing in public pics of moms breastfeeding their babes made me emotional. Thank you for doing this.
"Discreetly avert your eyes." Yes, this! Great video, Annie. :)
Oh. boy, you did it this time! Gorgeous vid! I am inspired!
My new blog is up next week and then I will capture it and share it!
WOW!
Great job! :)
I really like this, thank you! It makes me angry when people formulate an opinion on the appropriateness of how, when, where, etc... I nurse my son. He's my child and we're doing nothing wrong! I do feel the oppression, it's all around us everywhere we go. It's even worse in the summer, when I'm wearing a tank top (non-nursing style) and I nurse my son in public. I can just feel everyone glaring at me like I'm so hooker doing a show on the sidewalk!
Thank you for drawing out the similarities between women being criticised for choosing to cover their faces and women being criticised for NIP, it's all the same problem, the belief that a woman's body is public property. Let's all of us vow to challenge *any* judgement of how a woman dresses. We simply don't hear the same said of men.
Just to add, in the UK, although NIP is rare to see it has never been a problem for me and I hear the same from other bf mothers. Most Brits just don't notice or don't care.
YES!! Victory at my house. I watched the video with my sons ages 5 and 7. Their responses "awww, those babies are so cute".
I feel like the normal at my house is exactly where I want it to be.
Beautiful Annie - and thank you for the shout-out :) xo
Awesome! Loved it. I'm actually choked up now.
reposted this on FB via kelly mom. thanks for putting this together. i was sort of shy about public nursing in the early weeks after by baby was born. when he was 6 weeks old i received my first rude comment for nursing without a cover and realized that this was a feminist issue and just how important it was for me to take up space and nurse anywhere and anytime i (or my child) wanted to. we are still nursing in public at 20 months.
Just wonderful! Thank you so much for putting this together. I know so many people who will appreciate being able to share this with both the bold and the timid breastfeeders in their lives. It seems as if there is a flurry of activity within my circle right now about NIP and the accusations of being "discreet" and "decent" and "having enough respect for yourself and others by covering up" and worse yet..."staying home for the sake of others' comfort". One of my friends recently said "Nursing in public isn't the problem, it is really the solution" ... this generation of babies will grow up seeing nursing and then when we are all great-grannies this can all be ancient history!
great video, great message. thank you, annie. :)
Love it!! Shared it on facebook: http://facebook.com/AMothersBoutique
wow!!! This is fantastic. Very well done.
I love the video, excellent message and very well executed. I will share everywhere.
I wanted to add I remember something I had forgotten (my son is 16) I was traveling in Florida. I was at a shopping mall. I was nursing very discreetly on a bench, all covered up. A older woman actually had the nerve to stop in front of me and stare at me disapprovingly. Now why is that ok?
Brilliantly done, Annie! Absolutely love it. Thank you for this!
SWEET!!!!! Posting to my FB page now....
quadruple love! posted to my personal blog
http://vosefamily.blogspot.com/
and soon to be published on mothers of change dot com, a website I'm a co author for....just waiting for another post to have a chance for some readers to digest before publishing this amazing video~love it! Also shared on my FB!!
I'm a huge fan of your blog in general...official DELURK!
Well done, definitely gets the point across. Thanks for bringing this forward.
I love this! Thanks for putting it together!
Annie! I love this video... and the message is perfect. Thank you for sharing!
This is wonderful! Love love love this.
Fantastic video! Mind if I include this in the occasional "Friday Favorites" feature on my blog?
Kate:
Thank you! Please do go ahead and share it. I gave info at the bottom of the post on how to share. Thanks!
Love this Annie - beautifully done. And I've shared it on facebook too! :)
At Christmas time, I was breastfeeding my baby and my cousin was horrified about what my uncles would think to see me that way. When she showed her husband, he didn't even realize I was breastfeeding until after she pointed it out; he even had to move within two foot of me to even see what she meant.
Thanks for this. Absolutely awesome.
Very clear message, although I haven't quite made up my mind whether I agree with said message or not.
I mean, I'm definitely pro-breastfeeding. I've breastfed in public (and actually participated in a so-called breastfeeding challenge). I don't use a cover and never have after discovering that was the absolute best way for me to end up displaying a whole lotta anatomy I'd rather keep more private.
So I sort of expected that I'd be completely in agreement with your video. But it sort of boils down to "women should be able to show as much or as little skin as they want, whenever and wherever they want". And I actually don't agree. I think there are times and places where breastfeeding is inappropriate. Usually these are places where an infant that might get hungry is not really appropriate either! (I know, I know... I clearly don't belong to the group of people that thinks that having a child shouldn't mean that they have to make any adjustments to their lifestyle whatsoever!)
I also think that there's a time and place for requiring a certain dress code.
So I didn't exactly agree with the video's message. But I don't exactly disagree with it either, especially when considering that way too many people seem to think that breastfeeding is a "private" act that ought to be hidden away in toilets. Complicated!
[...] from Phd in Parenting made a video on the subject of covering up whilst breastfeeding (in public/in front of other people). Her website is my go-to source for combining the ideas of [...]
I wrote a post on the video and shared it on my blog and linked back to you here.
hey Annie, great video & important issue! I blogged about it here:
http://ambersparkles.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/showing-my-support-covering-up-is-a-feminist-issue/
Love the video! And thanks for the info on animoto, I will use it with my students. They've all been sharing my personal macbook to make school project videos.
I agree with almost everything in the video. I do struggle with the Burka though, because I'm not sure it's truly a choice for many women.
I'm going to write a post about this, will link back and comment again afterward.
Beautiful. Thank you.
This is a beautiful video. I love it!
I do get the sense from most of the comments, though, that deciding to cover up while nursing is somehow a less-feminist choice. I chose to cover up most of the time when I was nursing in public not because I was ashamed of what I was doing or didn't think it was "natural" or best for my babies. One big reason I covered up was because my introverted personality does not enjoy being the center of attention. I would never not breastfeed in public because I didn't have a cover, but I don't like the idea that I am somehow less of a breastfeeder for choosing to cover up.
linked to at "rude truth!" thanks!