Yep, the mummy shaming is officially over.
Facebook has finally grown up and stopped acting like a 12-year-old boy.
The social network has just released its new “community standards”, which give a big thumbs-up to breastfeeding.
“We restrict some images of female breasts if they include the nipple, but we always allow photos of women actively engaged in breastfeeding or showing breasts with post-mastectomy scarring,” Facebook says.
I mean, seriously. It’s about time.
This comes after years of mums being insulted and embarrassed by having their breastfeeding photos removed from Facebook. Just recently in the UK, nurse Kaya Wright posted a photo of herself breastfeeding her son on a closed Facebook group about breastfeeding. She received a notification from Facebook saying they were reviewing the image. Dozens of other mums posted their own photos in support.
In another recent controversy, US photographer Jade Beall posted a beautiful picture of seven women breastfeeding their children. Someone noticed she had missed blurring one nipple, and the photo was reported and removed.
This issue matters. It really matters.
Breastfeeding needs to be everywhere. On social media feeds. At restaurant tables. On buses, planes and trains. In business meetings. Our milk-filled boobs should be shoved in people's faces until they don't notice them anymore. Until it's as unremarkable for a mum to whip out her boob and breastfeed a baby is it is for her to whip out a bottle, a dummy or a rattle and use that to soothe her baby. Because that's what boobs were created for. To make babies happy. All this sexualised stuff is just secondary.
If you can only see a breast as sexual, and if you are disturbed by the sight of someone breastfeeding a baby, then you are the one with the problem.