Nipples Are Normal

Health Reporters Should Spread the Word: Nipples are Normal

By Mary Angela Bock

While breastfeeding is not for everyone, it remains the “gold standard” for infant nutrition.  Politicians have been calling for improved accommodation for breastfeeding moms in airports, schools and the workplace. Women have the legal right to breastfeed in public in most states (including Texas).  Even so, mothers continue to be harassed, shamed, and admonished for doing so.

What’s going on here?  Research I conducted with two PhD students in the Moody College of Communication (Paromita Pain and Jhucin “Rita” Jhang) suggests that ultimately this reflects a long-standing social tendency to control women’s bodies, largely for the benefit of men. Our findings suggest that health reporters could better serve women by normalizing the word nipple and with more matter-of-fact coverage about breastfeeding generally. Normal, ho-hum, everyday nipples might not be sexy, but they’d benefit mothers and babies.

Our project was inductive and qualitative. We collected more than 2500 articles from the top ten newspapers in the US (based on Sunday circulation) using the words breasts, breastfeeding, nipples and “nip-slips.”  We looked the way the topic was treated in terms of news angle, language, even visually.  We met frequently to discuss what our observations and gradually sifted the materials to identify three themes in the coverage: breastfeeding coverage is complicated; breasts are entertaining and nipples….are naughty.

The assessment that breastfeeding is “complicated” results from the way so many stories romanticized it with soft-focus visuals that never actually showed a breast, focused almost exclusively on the experiences of white women and headlined “Mommy War” style conflicts between women who nurse and those who cannot or choose not to breastfeed. Breasts were generally talked about in two ways. In general news, they were aesthetic, and reported on in terms of size (as when celebrities had enlargements) or exposure in fashion. In health news, breasts were usually discussed in connection with cancer treatment or research.

The pattern for nipples was similar.  The word showed up far more often in the gossip sections, usually as “nip slips” when a celebrity’s dress exposed more than planned (or exactly what was planned for publicity).  In health news, they were a source of pain for breastfeeding mothers: sore, cracked or chapped.  If they were attached to men, it was either because of a disfiguring injury or, more commonly, some sort of joke. In other words, nipples are a matter of titillation (pun intended) and not for serious health coverage.

No wonder breastfeeding is supported on paper but not in reality.  Nursing a baby cannot be normal as long as breasts and nipples are discussed as either sick or sexually entertaining body parts.  As long as a woman’s bodies are subject to the judgement, appreciation or regulation by other people, they are not truly free.  If she is to use her body to nourish a baby, her breasts and nipples must be “normal,” and not tabloid fodder.

Journalists can lead the way on this issue.  Word choice is powerful, and recently the Associated Press (AP), which guides reporters on the rules, recently issued edicts in favor of using “husband” or “wife” for spouses in gay or lesbian marriages and against using the term “illegal aliens” for undocumented immigrants.  Similarly, health reporters can start to use the word nipple in coverage about breastfeeding controversies, in normal, matter-of-fact ways. Nipple exposure is part of what critics find problematic with women who nurse in public – and this needs to be addressed directly. As long as nipples are the stuff of jokes and raised eyebrows, they cannot be normal for women and their babies.

Bock, M.A. Pain, P., Jhan, J. (online and in press).  Covering Nipples: News Discourse and the Politics of Breastfeeding. Feminist Media Studies.

Baby photo info: Creative Commons Daniela Mazzarino|Baby| Image Source: www.flickr.com |Taken 8/30/2013