Nipple Ring as National Security Threat

Via MSNBC: “A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.”

The woman gave a priceless quote: “The last time that I checked a nipple was not a dangerous weapon.”

[Thanks to Some Geek in TN for the Twitter tip.]

PS: Something I learned today - sometimes the Google Street View team comes by taking photos while you’re filthy and bent over in your front yard installing that new flower bed, and you don’t notice them. Ahem.

Open Letter to Victoria’s Secret

I had my own complaints about Victoria’s Secret recently, as did the Nipple Project folks - Sara at Suburban Oblivion has now joined in, noting problems with the company’s sizing, catalog, and lack of nursing bra options.

A snippet:

Long story short, quit worrying about what you think men want, and start listening to the people actually pulling out the cash. Women spend 80 cents out of every household dollar. Thats all women btw, not just the size 2 ones, or the super model types. We would be more than happy to throw some of that your way if you’d cut us a little slack and start giving us the attractive, well-fitting underwear we want.

Read the rest.

Another One? Woman Kicked Out of Business for Breastfeeding

A Denton, TX woman was kicked out of a local Regis salon at Golden Triangle Mall when she attempted to breastfeed her crying 8-month-old infant in the salon. Robyn Nair, reportedly, was the only customer in the salon and would have been completely covered by the salon smock. She says she was told, “We do not allow that, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” with her hair half-cut.

According to a report from WFAA Dallas-Fort Worth,

Not only did the hairstylist violate her company’s policy by asking Nair to leave; she also violated state statute which says that wherever a woman is authorized to be, she’s authorized to breastfeed.

 

“We welcome mothers and children,” said Regis spokeswoman Susan Evans in a statement. “We do not have a policy against breastfeeding. This employee acted incorrectly.”

The relevant bit of law is in the Health and Safety portion of Texas code, § 165.002. RIGHT TO BREAST-FEED. A mother is entitled to breast-feed her baby in any location in which the mother is authorized to be.

In another disturbing story out of Texas, “Mom pushes for policy change after daughter’s rapist returns to Grand Prairie schools,” one woman reports her surprise and outrage when her daughter’s rapist suddenly turned up back in her school after apparently making an early completion of his sex offender rehabilitation. The report notes that she was not informed, and the school itself may not have been told that the offender was returning to class because juvenille services officials say it’s their policy to notify the school only if the offender is transferring to a new school district. Huh?

Indiana Governor Signs Workplace Lactation Bill into Law

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has signed into law a bill to support lactation in the workplace and make it a little easier for breastfeeding women who return to work. The law requires that employers with 25 or more employees “to the extent reasonably possible,” provide “a private location, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express the employee’s breast milk in privacy during any period away from the employee’s assigned duties” and “a refrigerator or other cold storage space for keeping milk that has been expressed; or allow the employee to provide the employee’s own portable cold storage device for keeping milk that has been expressed until the end of the employee’s work day.” Good start, Indiana!

Thoughts Related to the Nipple Project

In a previous post on the Nipple Project, I included the project leaders’ statement about the Victoria’s Secret IPEX bra, advertised as providing “maximum nipple coverage.” I have to say, the Secret seems obsessed with hiding the nips. I recently received a gift card to the store, and went in search of new bras. Now, I have, uh, a generous bosom, and finding bras that are sturdy, don’t dig in, and don’t look like psych ward restraints is no small challenge. Even more difficult, however, is finding a bra meeting those criteria, or even just one the right size, that doesn’t have padding - it’s damn near impossible. Personally, I’m not the least bit interested in adding more volume to my boobs, and I suspect many women at or above a C or D cup agree.

So I walk into the store, get measured, and clearly state, “I want a bra with no padding.” The sales vultures immediately launch into an educational presentation about why I should, in fact, want some padding, and the pitch focused on the dreaded visible nipple. “Look, I want as little padding as possible. I don’t need more boob.” And yet, they persisted. “Winter’s coming,” they said, “you’re going to want a little coverage.” If I cared about that, I probably wouldn’t have started out specifically asking to be steered to minimal addition. The experience was irritating enough (as are their salespeople generally) that I won’t likely go back unless I’m given another gift card (hey, I’m cheap, and free stuff is free stuff).

Why is the nipple so dreaded, anyway? We all have ‘em. Sometimes they show a little. Big whoop. It’s only embarrassing if we agree that it is. I just want a bra to comfortably support what I have, and I refuse to buy into the idea that what I really need is just a little more breast but absolutely no nipple, ever. It’s my body, and it is what it is. Now make me a decent bra, just the way I want it.

The Nipple Project

I just learned of The Nipple Project, which invites craft women to submit their representations of nipples. I’ll let them explain it:

Initially, we were inspired by the release of the IPEX bra by Victoria Secret. Advertisements for this bra espoused quite blatantly that it provides “maximum nipple coverage!” This bra epitomizes the eradication and androgenization of the nipple. We find this ironic in an era where breast augmentation is done in order to gain a “more feminine look.” So we wanted to reclaim our natural femininity and counter this strange phenomenon.

 

But as our project came to life, we realized we had touched something deeper. Women responded to our call for reasons we had not intended. We began receiving submissions breast cancer survivors. Their beautiful creations are an both an artistic and cathartic. Also, women who have lost a family member or friend to breast cancer have taken this opportunity to express their grief and respect to their loved ones. We have also received submissions from women who have recently become mothers and are inspired by the joys and rigors of nursing!

 

So whether you choose to submit in order to reclaim the expression of your natural femininity or for one of the reasons mentioned above or if you just love nipples - men’s and women’s!!!…join us and send us your submission.

Submissions for possible inclusion in an installation are due by May 1st; a submission guide is available on the site. You can also view an online gallery of previously submitted nipples. Click on the image above for a better view of one example!

Quality of Breast Cancer Information on the Web?

In a new post at Our Bodies Our Blog, I address the recent study of the quality of websites providing breast cancer information. I don’t agree with all of the assumptions the authors worked from in assessing “technical quality” of sites*, but their findings are worth a look. I also think they should have called out the websites that provided inaccurate breast cancer information and explained what the common inaccuracies were, and why .edu sites fared so poorly compared to .com, .gov, and other sites.

Head on over, and leave us a comment or two, wontcha?

*I hesitate to explain further because it’s kind of a librarian/wonky thing, as are my criticisms of the authors’ stats as presented (I’d like confidence intervals for those odds ratios, blah, blah), but if you’re interested, I will.

WIC Program (Barely) Increasing Access to Fruits & Veggies

The WIC program to improve low-income women and children’s nutritional status is being revised, and it is finally going to cover produce (other than carrots - did you know that baby carrots were explicitly excluded?). What’s the big improvement? A whopping $8/month in produce coverage. Read more in my post at Our Bodies Our Blog.

News Round-Up, 11/24/07

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer talks about “first-period kits.” I looked at some of the links (especially this one, which includes 5 thong liners) and thought, “Boo. I could do a better job of this.” Who wants me to make ‘em a first period kit?

Women. Cardboard boxes. Apparently they’re the same thing, and should be considered equally.

Young girls learning to “articulate safe boundaries” with regards to sexual activity is apparently “mumbo jumbo,” according to a Fox News whatsit. In other news, people on cable news shows talk past each other.

Crafty and decorative - the tampon turkey.

I can’t find it on their website, but Feministing says that the Family Violence Prevention Fund is looking for women who have had partners sabotage their contraception or otherwise try to control their reproduction to share their stories. This follows a study which found that adolescents’ abusive partners often tried to force them to become pregnant.

More bad news for women in Afghanistan.

Also, 10,000 women in Uganda die of pregnancy-related causes every year.

The Labor Nurse would like to know how to best educate the public about nurse-midwifery, and to draw people to the profession.

RH Reality Check tells you who to contact to support legislation that would restore campus and clinic contraception pricing.

Miss Landmine Angola 2008

More drama in the Virginia abstinence-only sex ed debate.

The Lactivist has her own blog drama going, on the topic of weaning, but it’s also about choice, individual decision-making vs. group norms, and whether an advocate blogger should be held to higher standards. More discussion here.

Unilever is no beauty.

In Georgia, two boys, ages 8 and 9, and being held on charges of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl.

Jezebel picked up on my recent douching post at Our Bodies Our Blog.

Keep your appendages crossed for Missed Conceptions.

PushedBirth on Texas VBAC debate. The hospital in question decided to allow VBAC but not guarantee that an anesthesiologist would be immediately available in case surgery is ultimately needed. Isn’t that hilarious? “Ha, ha, women, we’ll let you try this thing that works more often than not, but if it goes wrong, you’re the one who’s going to suffer.” Oh, wait - aside from the threat of missing anesthesiologists, some docs just aren’t going to allow women to try it, anyway, because of the policy. But it’s not an “official ban.” I try not to swear on this blog. West Houston Medical Center is making that very, very difficult.

In completely unrelated news, the husband got a mention in Knoxville’s alt-weekly for his work as audio engineer for a recent recording.

Assorted Goodies

My most recent post at the OBOS blog covers a new breastfeeding advocacy group, donations to the U.N. Population Fund, external influences on pregnancy, and weird news of the day.

You all can let me know if you get tired of the pointers to over there, but I’ll probably keep posting them anyway, since the content is so closely related to this place.