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Article Excerpt
Abstract: This manuscript discusses historical and contemporary cultural views of the female breast. It also considers implications of these views for female health and for use of this information by health educators.
The breast is a secondary sexual organ, meaning that it is not involved in reproduction, but the distinct curve of the female breast, its sensitivity to touch, and its role in suckling infants lend it an aesthetic and a functionality that are distinctly female. The female breast is a visible, tangible and beautiful feature of the female body. Tabooed, worshipped and sometimes exploited, Spadola (1998) refers to a woman's breasts as "a woman's most public and private parts."
Female breasts physiologically are mammary glands, designed to convey nourishment to newborn babies. Internally, the breast comprises approximately 15-25 milk-producing sacs called milk glands. These are connected to milk ducts that converge inside the nipple. The nipple varies in appearance from woman to woman, from flat to inverted to outward-projecting. Each nipple is supplied with numerous nerve endings, which makes them particularly sensitive to touch.
Being glandular organs, the breasts are highly sensitive to hormonal changes in the female body, and are thereby connected with the female genital system. An automatic system causes the nipple to become erect when stimulated by tactile or sexual stimuli. Nipple stimulation increases prolactin, a hormone that can cause the uterus to contract and results in sexual stimulation.
A great deal of erotic and sexual appeal centers on the female breast. Women in particular tend to view their breast through the reflection of its desirability to men. Women, more than men, are socialized to perceive that their personal value is reflected in their outward appearance (Spitzack, 1990). Hence, women are socialized that their breasts are not entirely their own, but exist for the evaluation and pleasure of others.
This paper proposes that culture dictates our fascination with the female breast, and also influences the value placed on it by both men and women. The female breast is part of a woman's identity and femininity, particularly through the role that the breast plays in experiences of puberty, motherhood, sex, health and aging. Through this discussion, the author intends to increase the understanding of cultural perceptions of the female breast.
Future research on female breast cancer treatment necessitates that researchers undertake preliminary work in understanding cultural views of the breasts. That is, how cultural views of the breast are understood in modern urban contemporary society, and what breasts have symbolized in modern American culture and in other cultures in modern and historical times. By focusing on one body part--the female breast--and its treatment in literature, art and photography from a historical perspective, the researcher will describe perceptions of the female breast from a variety of cultural contexts. In addition, the researcher will describe how the media, the medical profession and men view the female breast, and what benefits derive to those groups from their views.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
With the exception of a few published books written specifically about the breasts, information presented here was extracted from more general studies of the female body and body image. The majority of the literature about the breasts has focused on women's nakedness in general, breast size, body image in relation to thinness and weight, breast-feeding, breast augmentation and breast cancer.
There are cultures, such as African cultures, that do not openly talk about the breasts. Likewise, many cultures maintain unique perspectives on the breast that have not been documented. By necessity, however, this study is limited to the literature that is available on the topic at the time of writing.
Two time periods are relevant to this research. The periods are: (1) the pre-modern period, or the Stone Ages through the 1950s, and (2) the modern/contemporary period, or the 1960s through the present time. Other relevant definitions are defined within the context of the discussion.
Definitions of Culture
Culture is not easily defined. There is no single definition of culture, nor is there a consensus among scholars as to what exactly the concept should include. Cultural constructivism is a useful framework, through which we see that all human understanding of reality and meaning is a cultural product. Culture shapes the meaning that people make of their lives and defines how people experience their movement through the life course (Merriam & Mohamad, 2000). Most anthropologists strive to guide their research based on a cultural theoretical framework.
Drawing from anthropological readings, there are several definitions which help to expand an understanding of how culture shapes human social behavior. Spradley defined culture as "the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and generate behavior" (Spradley, 1980, p. 6). According to Spradley, culture "embraces what people do, what people know and things that people make and use" (Spradley, p. 5). That is, people's behavior can be accounted for by describing what it is that people know that enables them to behave appropriately within their own cultural setting.
Another definition of culture is promoted by Geertz--that of culture as semiotic. Geertz states, "believing, with Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretative one in search of meaning"(Geertz, 1973, p. 5). The emphasis in this definition is that reality is experienced neither simply nor neutrally, but rather through systems of meaning which are culturally created. Geertz sees an interaction between culture and the meanings people attribute to events. To comprehend and interpret why women place importance on their breasts in terms of appearance, function or bodily experience, one must rely on meanings that are based on cultural understandings and assumptions.
The final conceptual definition is an inclusive one that helps to clarify the previously mentioned views of culture. This definition is most...
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