{"id":52931,"date":"2012-12-08T13:00:48","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T18:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=52931"},"modified":"2012-12-07T02:05:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T07:05:00","slug":"framing-breastfeeding-grumet-graces-another-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/12\/08\/framing-breastfeeding-grumet-graces-another-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"Framing Breastfeeding: Grumet Graces Another Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along with “work\/life balance” and other tired topics, an evergreen issue in the media remains the controversies surrounding breastfeeding.<\/a>\u00a0 Less than six months ago, Jamie Lynne Grumet lit up the blogosphere<\/a> by posing for the cover of TIME Magazine while breastfeeding her standing toddler.\u00a0 Outcry included pronouncements that the image was almost pornographic, psychologically damaging to her child, and exploitative of her white, twenty-something good looks.\u00a0 The drama of the image worked as the magazine flew off shelves and was named one of the top ten most controversial covers by the New York Daily News.<\/p>\n

Within the “lactivist” community there seemed to be double-edged concern<\/a> \u2014 on one hand, glee that an image of a breastfeeding woman was so publicly displayed \u2014 on the other, anger that the image so clearly did not depict the intimacy and bonding between mother and child that they insist breastfeeding promotes.<\/p>\n

Sensing an opportunity to “set the record straight” as well as launch their own uptick in cover attention, the nonprofit quarterly magazine Pathways to Family Wellness<\/a> persuaded Grumet to pose for them, this time surrounded by her husband, adopted son, and cradling her nursing naked now 4-year-old child in her lap.\u00a0 The inclusion of other family members changes the image from one of solo defiance to a message about her family system.\u00a0 On the cover, Grumet still looks directly at the camera, not at her feeding child, but her glance is far from defiant.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Grumet agreed to pose again in order to send a different message about breastfeeding, one she preferred.\u00a0 Grumet has said<\/a> that this image portrays toddler breastfeeding more realistically, “incorporating the husband and siblings.” Yet, the multicultural family portrait has its own sense of staging.\u00a0 \u00a0The idyllic family pile-on seems hardly part of everyday life, much less every feeding. \u00a0Both images \u2013 part of the wider debate over breastfeeding — are carefully crafted to tell a particular story.<\/p>\n

Some critics have mentioned that while Grumet’s intention may have been to reframe the image of breastfeeding, perhaps unwittingly again,\u00a0she has contributed to the\u00a0fanning of the flames<\/a>\u00a0around this issue. Others have accused her of “milking the moment<\/a>.” \u00a0\u00a0The breastfeeding support website KellyMom tracked down the three other mothers who were all photographed for the TIME cover. KellyMom interviewed them<\/a>\u00a0about their experiences during the shoot, then reaction to, and fallout from the cover. \u00a0Unfortunately, given the nature of the debate, individual women can often seem like pawns in these ever-intermittent media storms.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Elline Lipkin, PhD, is a Research Scholar with UCLA\u2019s Center for the Study of Women. \u00a0She is the author of\u00a0Girls\u2019 Studies<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Errant Thread<\/a>, recipient of the Kore Press First Book Award for Poetry. She tweets at @girlsstudies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Along with “work\/life balance” and other tired topics, an evergreen issue in the media remains the controversies surrounding breastfeeding.\u00a0 Less than six months ago, Jamie Lynne Grumet lit up the blogosphere by posing for the cover of TIME Magazine while breastfeeding her standing toddler.\u00a0 Outcry included pronouncements that the image was almost pornographic, psychologically damaging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2083,252,272,129],"class_list":["post-52931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortionreproduction","tag-healthmedicine","tag-marriagefamily","tag-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52937,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52931\/revisions\/52937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}