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)
Amy, I'm a proud supporter of women breastfeeding however they feel most comfortable. Covered, uncovered, in private, on a public bench~I don't think you're less of a breastfeeder because you cover up at all!
I felt that the video itself was pretty good at supporting womens' choice in that matter, and I hope most nursing moms would be the same. I know I am!
=)
I agree--I thought that the video showed your support of all breastfeeding mothers and choices. Thank you! :)
Here's a link to my post with this video.
http://www.urbanmoms.ca/multiple_musings/2011/02/sunday-surf---covering-up.html
Beautiful video. I posted it on my blog too. http://schmoopybaby.blogspot.com/2011/02/covering-up-is-feminist-issue.html
This. video. rocks. =D
Beautiful! I plan to share it on my blog and hope it continues spreading this positive message everywhere
[...] beautiful video is shared courtesy of PhD in Parenting. Please visit her site for instructions on embedding this video on your own blog and lets spread [...]
[...] PhD in Parenting, Annie posted a beautiful video on nursing in public as a feminist issue. And at Nursing Freedom, Lauren offers a mix of gentle and [...]
[...] just as it’s a womans’ right to choose between a miniskirt or a burka. And it’s videos like this, doing the rounds, sparking debate, making you think, that will hopefully change societies views on [...]
[...] week I released a video that I produced called Covering Up is a Feminist Issue and gave other bloggers permission to share the video on their blogs. One of the bloggers who [...]
Well done! You made the point so wonderfully! I'll share it on my new blog next week. I'm sure it'll be the first of many things I'll share from yours!
Áine
Great video but there is a photo that Baby Dust Diaries DOES NOT have permission to use. Not even sure where she got it from. I'm so upset.
Heidi:
I'll contact you via e-mail.
Great video! I posted it on my blog.
Here it is on my blog: http://ichigomeansstrawberry.blogspot.com/2011/03/this-is-fantastic-video-from-annie-at.html
i don't know how baby dust got ahold of one of my photos and made it available on her own flicker, i don't even have this photo available online in a color version, which is even more disconcerting, but the woman in the photo wrote today and requested it be removed, not only has it not been removed from the slideshow, it is now posted individually on this blog post with MY business name now portrayed. . . i don't want credit, i want to know why these images were illegally obtained by baby dust and being used without photographer permission or individual permission!!!!!! please remove the photo by landslide photography immediately!
[...] A powerful and gorgeous video from PhD in Parenting. [...]
and a third note. . . apparently permission was granted by the mother in the photo. . . therefore, I give my permission for the photo to be displayed, but do hope that there is resolution on how the third party this photo was obtained from, came by the photo for her own personal use and is not giving credit to the photographers. And that you will check on all images before use in the future, gaining permissions ahead of time.(I think photographers would also like to know when their photos are being used, even if submitted by the subject/model themselves). many people think this is a beautiful video, but situations like this bring down the credibility of the creator of such works of art.
timbra:
I appreciate you and Heidi being willing to work with me on this. I had no intention of using people's work without permission. I was very careful to only use photos that are available under a Creative Commons license or to obtain permission directly from the photographer. Unfortunately, I did not consider the fact that other people may be making the work of others available for re-use without obtaining their permission first.
This video was a lot of work to put together and many of the pictures selected are from people who live in other countries and don't even speak English. I love that it allowed me to add a global flavour to the video and appreciate the fact that creative commons allows something like that to be possible. I wouldn't have been able to make this video if I had needed to have direct contact with every single photo owner. It just wouldn't have been feasible. But that is why creative commons, when used properly, is great.
In any case, I've learned a lot from this experience and will think hard before making another video based on creative commons content.
The video is beautiful, and I think your intention is obvious. You gave credit, you only used photos that were supposed to be creative commons.
I agree that photographers should receive credit for their work, but it was obviously not your intention to take credit yourself or profit unjustly from anybody else's work.
We are all human, no project as big, time consuming and obviously well-intended as this one could have gone on without a single hitch.
I think a little slack and grace are in order here.
The video is beautiful, and I hope this doesn't turn you off of making more in the future.
Just wanted to add a note here for anyone reading this that the issue has been clarified via e-mail and I do now have permission to use the image in the video.
Just wanted to add a note here for anyone reading that the issue has been clarified via e-mail and I do now have permission to use the image in the video.
Amy:
I really doubt that I will make any more videos based on Creative Commons content. While Creative Commons is a wonderful idea, I have learned that it is too easy for people to take other people's work and pass it off as their own. Or, even in cases where full permission has been granted, the people giving that permission don't always understand what they gave permission for.
I will continue to use Creative Commons images in my blog posts, using due diligence to try to ascertain the legitimacy of the photo ownership. It is really easy to replace/remove an image from a blog post if anyone does get upset (either because an image was illegally made available or because the person didn't understand what they were giving permission for).
However, I don't think I will use them in videos again because it isn't possible to go back and just remove one pic from a video once it has been rendered. With all the work that goes into producing a video like this, that is just too much of a risk for me. I would be extremely upset if I had to remove a video that I had worked really hard on (resulting also in broken links from other people's blogs where it had been shared) because an image was inappropriately uploaded to flickr. Although it is quite clear in the flickr terms of use that the responsibility lies with the person uploading it there, the consequence of them not doing their due diligence could still be that I would have to remove (and lose) my work. That is not something I'm willing to risk. This has been very difficult for me.
[...] I think about breastfeeding all the time, it’s my life as a breastfeeding mother, and it is a passion I have turned into a job. But I am not just thinking “milk” all the time, I am thinking about breastfeeding and women and how we need greater education, access to better resources, and the ability to breastfeed freely where and how we want. [...]
[...] in English, then in Spanish, and now in French! (en français). Many thanks to reader Catherine Leclerc for [...]
I love the concept of this! So eloquently expressed - a summary of how I felt when I was struggling to nurse my son and was awkward and unsure. I will be much more assertive in my right to feed as I deem appropriate here in 6 weeks when I have a new one to nourish!
Truly well done. My wife wrote a blog on this subject 2 years ago. There is nothing more natural and beautiful than a mother feeding her child. As a society we send very mixed messages about breastfeeding. On one hand, you have experts saying that every mother who is able should breastfeed – it’s best for the baby and for the mom and for society at large to have healthier, happier babies. But then when a woman goes to feed her baby via the breast, people can’t handle it saying it’s provocative. It’s not sexual! Sex and breastfeeding are mutually exclusive concepts! So many women say that they are made to feel like they are doing something wrong – even perverse – by feeding their babies in public. Breastfeeding is the most natural way to feed a child. If you want to get to the finances of it – it helps lift some burden from the health-care system because breastfed babies go to the doctor far less than those who are not. These babies are better adjusted developmentally and wind up using less resources in general. People should be walking by thanking you for breastfeeding. Not that I feel strongly about this or anything.
~Michael
[...] video on covering up as a feminist issue is also in English and French. Take a look. GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); [...]
So beautiful. I cried. I am posting this to my livejournal. Thank you.
I wanna say thank you! I love the different women, all shapes-sizes-colors-and even all the different ways to cover up or not cover. I only cover when not in my house, but that is simply because my lil girl will not nurse like that, she gets super distracted when we are nursing out of the house very easily. I am going to share this with everyone I know. I would love to show this to my WIC counselors and see if they could show this as part of their breastfeeding classes. Wish it had been out when I had my first baby girl and I was new to nursing and scared!!
Thanks again!
Amazing so well said got goose bumps awesome
[...] not the only one to write about the topic. Many have. Most recently, Annie at PhD in Parenting has produced a fantastic video on the [...]
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, appropriateness is in the eye of the baby holder! :D
Love your video. Thanks so much for what you do!
Just wanted to let you know that the video is amazing and that I shared it on my blog. http://sashabreeze.blogspot.com/2011/03/covering-up-is-feminist-issue.html
Thank you for making this video available for everyone, it says so perfectly what I have seen so many of us trying to say for so long.
[...] http://www.phdinparenting.com/2011/02/20/coveringup/ [...]
Congratulations on a very interesting and thought provoking video. I very much support breastfeeding and feel strongly that women should be respected and strong in society. However I feel that this video muddles up various issues. I think that women are overly objectified and sexualised in society and that dressing in an appropriate manner would be one way that women can stand up against this. I say 'appropriate' as this will vary in different contexts. It's undeniable that men find women, and certain parts of a women's body attractive. If a women chooses to wear scanty clothes then surely a she is attracted male attention whether she likes it or not. Billboards, advertisements, films, tabloid newspapers all feature women who are wearing clothes which are created for men and by men. I think women are doing a great disservice to themselves and to other women by dressing provocatively in public.
Breastfeeding and the issues surrounding this are completely different from women wearing extremely short skirts and bikini-tops in the shopping centres. They are doing it for different reasons and my problem isn't with women who nurse in public but with the general sexualisation and objectification of women.
Faz:
I appreciate your perspective, but I disagree.
Women are objectified and sexualised in society. That is absolutely correct. And yes, some of their clothing choices may result from them being a victim of that objectification.
However, the assumption that nudity = sexual is a societal construct. I don't think that the way to get rid of that problem is to force women to cover up.
It's all related. It's not muddled. Making a woman feel uncomfortable for feeding her child is quite related to the demands we put on women on how to dress.
If its a hot, humid Saturday at the local pool, I see a lot of boobs bigger than mine. On overweight boys. I don't WANT to go topless at a public pool, but the fact that it is ILLEGAL for ME to go topless, and not for them, is WRONG. It's sexual discrimination.
Telling a woman to cover up while feeding is very similar pressuring a woman to dress provocatively. Women are expected to be sexy. In general, when the public sees a woman's tits, those tits are expected to be sexually attractive. So when we expose them in a way that is NOT sexy, THAT'S when we are accused of making people feel uncomfortable. Western society (in general) looks down on cultures that cover women, even though there are many women who WANT to cover their heads. They take pride in the practice. If a woman expresses her devotion to God by covering her head, we should respect that. And in the same way, we should not feel it necessary to critique whether or not someone's neckline is an inch too low. The western feminist is supposed to wear form-fitting power suits that expose waxed knees under control-top nylons. That outfit is "appropriate" for the most professional of occasions. But even dressing that way doesn't help. It STILL perpetuates the pressure to conform to an unfair and oppressive expectation. Can't win for losing.
So the point, in all these issues, is to let the woman decide.. and let her be. Because THAT'S what's "appropriate."
Thank you for all of the work that you've put in to make this slide show, I understand how difficult sourcing images can be. I have shared this via my business facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/karritreelane
Best wishes
Beth @ Karri Tree Lane (Australia)
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Great statement, beautifully made. I've put http://eurolac.blogspot.com/p/films-en-presentaties.htmlit on to my blog at