Did the earth move for you?

If you haven’t heard, yesterday Facebook/Twitter and probably other corners of the interwebs – were awash with boobs.

Um, yeah. And how is that different from any other day, you ask?

All the fuss was about a protest against misogyny and superstition: more specifically, against statements recently made by an Iranian cleric suggesting that women who flaunt their bodies and are promiscuous cause earthquakes. Because, you know, we women and our flesh are RUINING THE WORLD. Clearly, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi’s comments were offensive and also stupid. And the response – a day dedicated to showing off cleavage to prove that a whole lotta boobs won’t cause a natural disaster – was at best a fun way to show a little solidarity and at worst, a little bit misguided. (A good summary of various opinions can be found here at Feministe and in the comments.)

A couple of my Facebook friends and tweeps got in on the action and I say, good for them. Breasts are great, Boobquake participants clearly like their breasts and feel it is their right to wear low-cut tops, and I applaud them for celebrating that.

But I can’t help but wonder whether what we really need is another kind of protest altogether. Boobquake isn’t really revolutionary here. Barely-covered breasts are everywhere in advertising and the completely naked kind are similarly prevalent in the media. Excepting certain circumstances, I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing in itself – I would certainly not want to be aligned with the slut-shamers and extremists.

What is important to note about all of these ready representations of breasts, though, is that they are overwhelmingly sexualised. In our culture, displaying your cleavage is generally acceptable and it is almost always seen as sexy, flirtatious, ‘flaunting it’. (Unless you don’t meet the age, size or other criteria for acceptability, but that is another discussion altogether.) What is not so generously embraced in our culture is revealing a breast for the purpose of feeding a child.

Get your boobs out to nourish your offspring, and suddenly, they’re not so palatable. Even those who explicitly support breastfeeding will commonly say things like ‘but you should be discreet’, or ‘it’s easy to cover up’. The plethora of breastfeeding shawls and modesty wraps now on the market is testament to the fact that breastfeeding in public is still a fraught activity for many. The irony of the promotion of Boobquake on Facebook is that were women to participate by showing a breast with an infant or child attached, they may find themselves accused of contravening Facebook’s obscenity rules.

Solidarity with those who experience appalling oppression in places like Iran is a noble aim. Showing that an unabashed celebration of the female form can be fun and empowering (and not world-destroying) is great, as superstitions about female bodies and sexuality are the source of much misogyny. But mocking the easy targets – religious extremists – does little to effect change. And celebrating the sexualisation of breasts can only take us so far – in fact, in this culture it can’t take us any further because we’re already there.

The kind of quake I want to experience is that which would be caused by the visibility and acceptability of all women’s bodies in all their guises: fat or not; disabled or currently not disabled; cis or trans; of any age and any colour; with large or small breasts or mastectomy scars or implants; running or belly-dancing or working or voting, and yes, also breastfeeding. Because for women’s bodies to always be our own to use and inhabit and enjoy, to make our own decisions about and to take pride in for what they can do and not only how they look — well, that’d be a real seismic shift.

Boobquake, milky style.

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