In January 2016 the US gym chain Equinox launched an advertising campaign called "Commit to Something." One of its images showed model Lydia Hearst, dressed for an elegant dinner, nursing twins at a restaurant table while a waiter looks on. It quickly became the most discussed picture in the series and revived an old argument: why does a woman feeding her baby in public still make some people uncomfortable?
The short answer on the law is clear. In the United States every state now explicitly allows breastfeeding in public, and Britain's Equality Act 2010 protects mothers from being asked to leave a café, shop or other service. Yet mothers keep reporting being told to cover up, move to a toilet or leave. This piece looks at the Equinox ad, the photography of Ivette Ivens, two real incidents that went viral, and what health bodies and the law actually say.
The Equinox ad that started the conversation
The campaign was photographed by fashion photographer Steven Klein and created with the agency Wieden+Kennedy. Each image staged a deliberately provocative scene meant to get people talking about what they were willing to commit to in the new year. In the breastfeeding picture, Hearst sits upright in a dark, upscale dining room, twins at her breasts, staring straight at the camera.
Klein defended the approach by arguing that advertising should address current social issues, and said the campaign set out to show people with a story rather than as "superficial objects with no narrative." Equinox's marketing chief at the time, Carlos Becil, told Fortune the company stood by the work.
The reaction was split. According to Fortune, the post drew nearly 37,000 likes and about 2,500 comments on Equinox's Facebook page, more than any other image the gym had posted. Some praised the frank portrayal of nursing; others pointed out that Hearst was not actually a nursing mother, or said a luxury gym was using a real issue to sell memberships. Marketing professor Tim Calkins noted that there was little direct link between public breastfeeding and joining a gym. The chair of the US Breastfeeding Committee, Dr Joan Younger Meek, welcomed any ad that made nursing look normal.
Is breastfeeding in public legal?
In the United States, yes, everywhere. By July 2018 all 50 states, Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands had laws explicitly allowing women to breastfeed in any public or private place they are otherwise allowed to be. At least 29 states also exempt breastfeeding from public indecency laws. Federal law has protected breastfeeding in federal buildings and on federal property since 1999.
At work, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 required employers to give break time and a private space other than a bathroom for expressing milk, and the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, signed in December 2022, extended those protections to more workers.
In Great Britain, the Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful for a business to treat a woman unfavourably because she is breastfeeding a child of any age. Scotland went further in 2005, making it an offence to stop someone feeding a child under two in a public place. Australia, Ireland, Taiwan, the Philippines and several other countries also have specific protections. In much of Africa and South America, nursing in public has long been ordinary.
Why breasts in public still cause discomfort
The discomfort rarely has anything to do with the law. It comes from the way breasts are pictured almost everywhere else, in advertising, film and online, as sexual first and functional second. When the same body part appears doing its biological job, some viewers struggle to separate the two meanings.
Social media platforms reflected that confusion for years. Facebook was criticised as early as 2007 for removing nursing photos, removed some again in 2011 and 2012, and only later spelled out that breastfeeding images were allowed. Every removal sparked a new round of "nurse-ins," where mothers gathered to feed their babies together in protest.
Health guidance is unambiguous about why this matters. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, fed on demand, day and night, and continued breastfeeding alongside other foods up to two years or beyond. A baby fed on demand gets hungry in restaurants, shops and buses, and a mother who feels unwelcome outside the house may stop earlier than she wanted to. WHO reports that fewer than half of infants under six months worldwide are exclusively breastfed. Feeding choices are personal, and anyone with questions about their own situation should talk to a doctor, midwife or lactation consultant.
Ivette Ivens and the "Breastfeeding Goddesses" photographs
Around the same time as the Equinox campaign, photographer Ivette Ivens was sharing a very different kind of breastfeeding image. Her series and book, Breastfeeding Goddesses, shows real mothers nursing in dreamlike outdoor and home settings, styled more like classical paintings than ads. Ivens has said she wanted to capture how a nursing mother can feel on the inside, even when the reality is tiring, messy or painful. The pictures below are from that series.
A mother stands waist-deep in a pool beneath a waterfall, holding her nursing toddler close. Ivens often used water and strong backlight to give her images the look of a myth or legend. The scene also makes a quieter point: many children nurse well past infancy, which WHO guidance supports.
Here a mother nurses one child on her hip while hanging laundry, as an older child peeks around a sheet. It is one of the few images in the series that shows breastfeeding as part of ordinary household work. Many parents say that feeding while doing something else becomes second nature within weeks.
Set on a city street with bicycles, pigeons and passers-by, this picture places nursing directly in public space. The mother wears a sheer patterned outfit and stands calmly in the middle of the pavement. It is the clearest visual answer in the series to the question of where a baby should be fed: wherever it is hungry.
A mother in a headscarf and long dress holds her baby in a green, misty garden. Breastfeeding is encouraged in many religious traditions, including Islam, where the Qur'an refers to nursing a child for two years. The image shows that a nursing mother does not need to look any particular way.
Seen from above, a mother lies curled on a patch of sand ringed by green shrubs, nursing her baby as if the two were sleeping in a nest. The overhead view turns the pair into a small island of calm. It is one of the most painterly frames in Ivens's series.
This indoor scene, also used at the top of this page, shows a mother sitting cross-legged on the floor by a sunlit window, nursing her baby beside a rocking chair. The setting is homely rather than staged. Many mothers find a favourite quiet corner like this in the early weeks, when feeds can take up much of the day.
A mother sits in a park nursing a baby while an older daughter strokes her hair. Ivens often included siblings, a reminder that breastfeeding happens in the middle of family life, not apart from it. The warm evening light softens what is a very everyday moment.
In autumn colours, a tattooed mother in denim dungarees holds her baby. The styling deliberately departs from the soft, pastel look usually seen in parenting magazines. Ivens chose mothers of different backgrounds and styles to show that there is no single image of motherhood.
A mother with an elaborate hairstyle and arm tattoos nurses her baby wrapped in a light blanket against a pale winter sky. The composition is close to a portrait, focused on the mother's calm expression. Images like this helped the series spread widely on social media in 2015 and 2016.
Sitting in a field of lavender-coloured wildflowers, a mother nurses her child while smelling a flower. The scene leans fully into the fairytale look that gave the series its name. It contrasts sharply with the bathroom-stall photo later in this piece.
Wearing a crown of roses, a tattooed mother stands in front of a magnolia tree in bloom, her baby nursing as it looks straight at the camera. Her soft, unretouched body is shown without apology. Ivens said she wanted mothers of every shape to see themselves in the series.
Dressed in a long green gown, a mother nurses her toddler on a snow-covered log. Ivens herself linked one of her pictures to a small miracle in the snow, and this frame fits that idea. Breastfed toddlers often nurse for comfort as well as nourishment, especially in unfamiliar or cold surroundings.
A mother sits in a sunlit garden under washing lines, nursing her baby in a soft haze of light. The background of drying laundry again ties the image to ordinary domestic routine. It is one of the gentlest pictures in the set.
This picture shows tandem nursing: a mother feeding two young children at once, sitting on the floor while a third child crawls nearby. Tandem nursing is common with twins and with siblings close in age. It is also the closest real-life counterpart to the twins in the Equinox ad.
A mother in a loose knitted cardigan sits on a wooden chest by a bright window while her baby nurses and glances at the lens. The back-lit setting and bare legs give it the feel of a classical study. The photographer's signature, Ivette Ivens, appears in the corner.
A mother nurses on the floor beside a brick fireplace while several cats lie next to her. It is an informal, lived-in scene, with no attempt at glamour. Its message is simple: feeding a baby is part of an ordinary afternoon at home.
Photographed from behind against a bright window, a mother holds her baby at her shoulder, with a small lipstick kiss mark on her back. The pose turns the focus away from the breast entirely and onto the closeness between parent and child. It is one of the most widely shared images from the book.
Two mothers stand side by side, each holding a nursing toddler, against a dark green background. Peer support between mothers is one of the most effective ways to help breastfeeding go well, and groups such as La Leche League have built on that idea for decades. The matching pose emphasises solidarity.
This black-and-white image, taken from above, shows a mother in a checked shirt nursing two children at once, one a curly-haired toddler. The tight framing makes it one of the most intimate shots in the series. It again shows tandem feeding, here with children of clearly different ages.
Wearing a crown of flowers, a mother stands in shallow water under a pink, blurred canopy of blossom, nursing her baby. The heavy styling makes it look like a painting. It sums up Ivens's aim: to present nursing mothers with the reverence usually reserved for art.
When mothers are told to leave
Beautiful images do not change everyday experiences overnight. In one widely reported case, Raven Dibble, a Wisconsin mother, reportedly was asked to cover up and leave a post office in Janesville while feeding her three-week-old daughter, and that a worker called her "indecent." Local news reported that the post office later apologised. Dibble said she spoke up not only for herself but for other mothers and for her daughter's "right to eat."
Around the same time, Karina Gomez posted the photo below on Facebook. She wrote that a Marshalls employee refused to let her feed her baby daughter in a fitting room and directed her to a bathroom stall instead, and that she felt angry and humiliated. Her post, tagged with the Cascade Station shopping centre in Portland, Oregon, was shared widely.
Cases like these follow a familiar pattern: a staff member reacts on instinct, the mother posts about it, and the company apologises once the story spreads. In most places such requests were already against the law at the time.
Common myths and practical points
- "Mothers have to cover up by law." In the US and UK, no law requires a cover. Some mothers like one, many babies refuse to feed under one, and the choice belongs to the mother.
- "A toilet is a reasonable alternative." US workplace law specifically excludes bathrooms as a place to express milk, and no one would be asked to eat their own lunch in a toilet stall.
- "It is only an issue for newborns." WHO recommends breastfeeding up to two years or beyond, so toddlers nursing in public is normal and expected.
- If you are asked to leave: stay calm, ask for the manager, and note the time, place and names. In the US you can point to your state's law; in Britain, the Equality Act 2010. Local breastfeeding support groups can advise on next steps.
- For businesses: the simplest policy is to tell staff that nursing mothers are welcome anywhere customers are allowed, and to offer a private space only if the mother asks.
The Equinox ad was a marketing stunt, and Ivens's photos are stylised art. Neither is how most breastfeeding looks. But both pushed the same idea into public view: a mother feeding her child is not doing anything that needs hiding.
Sources: Fortune, Equinox breastfeeding ads (4 February 2016); HuffPost Canada, Equinox breastfeeding ad (6 January 2016); Wikipedia, Breastfeeding in public; World Health Organization, Breastfeeding. Photographs from Breastfeeding Goddesses by Ivette Ivens; Equinox campaign image by Steven Klein; bathroom photo by Karina Gomez, first shared on Facebook; the two incidents were first reported by local US media and compiled earlier by Collective Evolution.
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