The website's removal of images of mothers breastfeeding has reopened the debate about our squeamishness over such a natural practice, writes Fionola Meredith
In a virtual world saturated with explicit images of naked women, the photograph of Canadian mother Karen Speed, which she posted on Facebook, the social networking site, seems a model of dignity and decorum. A lamplit bedtime scene shows the young mum tandem-feeding her two sleepy, pyjama-clad infant sons, one at each breast, as she gazes down fondly at their fuzzy blond heads. The heart-warming picture could be an advert for maternal bliss.
However, this is one of several images deleted by Facebook from Speed's personal page, on the grounds that it broke the site's obscenity guidelines. And Speed is not alone; as well as removing nude or pornographic images, Facebook's monitors have been busy erasing many other pictures of nursing mothers, even when - as in Speed's case - their breasts were not visible. Somewhat disingenuously, Facebook claims that the site does not ban pictures of breastfeeding per se, but that photos containing an exposed breast do violate its terms and will be removed.
It's not the first time that popular websites have treated self-posted images of proudly breastfeeding mums as equivalent to amateur versions of the nubile, pouting page-three pin up. Earlier this year, MySpace removed a picture posted by a nursing mother from Washington DC, citing its non-nudity policy. But outraged breastfeeders - or "lactivists" as some call themselves - are fighting back on the Facebook site itself, with a petition called "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!". The petition, set up by Kelli Roman, a 22-year-old Californian mother, reads: "We're wondering: what about a baby breastfeeding is obscene? Especially in comparison to many other pictures posted all over Facebook that really are obscene . . . Facebook, we expect more from you, and we expect you to realise that nursing moms everywhere have a right to show pictures of their babies eating, just like bottle-fed babies have a right to be seen." At the last count, the appeal group had more than 30,000 members - and a defiant array of eagerly suckling tots, some even wearing T-shirts with slogans such as "I eat at Mom's" and "Mummy milk is better than milk from just any old cow". So far, the images have remained on the site.
The Facebook furore is a reminder of the continuing cultural ambivalence about breastfeeding. As the political philosopher Iris Marion Young once pointed out, "breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality".
It's true that breasts occupy a paradoxical space in the collective cultural imagination - both sexual and asexual, both impure and pure, both seductive and nurturing. (And it's perhaps telling that only in recent years have nursing bras become available in sexy black; until then, they were exclusively pristine, virginal white.) While the perky, air-brushed breasts of the topless model are a common sight in magazines, newspapers and on television, the real deal - globular, lactating maternal breasts - are often kept firmly behind closed doors.
And nowhere more so than in Ireland, which, perhaps in part because of a vestigial sense of shame and unease around bodily matters, has for many decades languished at the bottom of the European breastfeeding league tables. In fact, a new study carried out by the Health Service Executive (HSE) found that only 50 per cent of Irish mothers breastfeed after leaving hospital following giving birth, compared with rates of up to 99 per cent for women in other European countries.
"We need to see more women breastfeeding, not less," says Maureen Fallon, national breastfeeding co-ordinator of Ireland's Health Promotion Unit, reacting to the Facebook case. "That's the only way we'll normalise the situation. Women should be able to breastfeed their babies wherever and whenever they need to; it should be a normal and unremarkable thing to do. No one should bat an eyelid."
Rebecca McLaughlin, of Cuidiú, the Irish Childbirth Trust, warns that negative reactions like the removal of images from Facebook are potentially damaging at a time when campaigners are working hard to re-establish breastfeeding as the cultural norm.
Nonetheless, mothers who breastfeed in public in Ireland enjoy protection from discrimination under the Equal Status Act (2000). This means they can't be asked to leave a coffee shop simply because the owner doesn't fancy the idea of a mum feeding her baby at the same time as enjoying a cappuccino and a bun.
Yet that lingering distaste is catching, it seems. "The invisibility of breastfeeding in Irish society has been noted by many of the new Irish who have arrived here from countries with a strong tradition of breastfeeding," says Maureen Fallon. "As a result they too are turning away from this healthy practice and choosing instead to bottle-feed infant formula to their infants, especially when out in public."
Despite the reactions of those for whom public breastfeeding is on a par with streaking, most women nurse their babies baring minimal exposed skin. Jan Cromie, of La Leche League in Ireland, which offers mother-to-mother breastfeeding support, says: "So often there's a misperception as to what's involved. Most times, there's very little to be seen." It calls to mind the classic lactivist riposte - anyone who finds breastfeeding offensive is staring too hard.
But for some, it's time to take decisive action. Gill Allmond, regional co-ordinator for the National Childbirth Trust in Northern Ireland, is incredulous at Facebook's policy. "How ridiculous to make a fuss over something so completely natural and normal. You know, I'm on Facebook myself, and it really makes me feel like going on there and getting my boobs out right now!"