Breaking norms: Magazine features breast-feeding model on cover

Popular Malayalam fortnightly Grihalakshmi has, arguably, redefined norms of campaign-mode journalism by featuring on the cover of its latest issue a woman breast-feeding a baby.

Gilu Joseph, the 27-year-old actor-model who appeared on the cover, is unmarried and doesn't have a child but said she had "no doubt or hesitation" when she was approached for the Grihalakshmi campaign which promotes 'breast-feeding without cover'.

The cover page with the story title 'Mothers to Kerala – Don't stare, we are breast-feeding', is trending on social media and on expected lines, dividing opinion.

"I knew I should not refrain from doing what I believe in, fearing possibilities of shaming or fearing what people might say," Gilu Joseph, also a poet and air-hostess, told the magazine. A native of Kumily in Idukki district, Gilu is reported to have faced opposition from her mother and two sisters before she signed up for the cover.

The magazine's campaign is aimed at changing perceptions – a call against a mindset that tags breast-feeding in public as "inappropriate" or "uncomfortable" for the others. Gilu dedicates her image on the cover to all the mothers who want to feed their babies with "absolute freedom and pride" and also goes on to stress the need for open conversations about menstruation and importance of sex education.

"All that I have my absolute rights over, is my body. I don't hate it, I'm not ashamed of it... Why should I fear doing something which everyone is aware of?" she asks.

The campaign rides high on the boldness quotient but the cover image has invited criticism for its endorsement of the "ideal, traditional wife-mother". Many pointed out the irony in not having a "real, lactating mother" as the face of the campaign. While some of the social media commenters alleged objectification in the model being made to "pose", the cover has also set off familiar voices of orthodoxy, dismissing it all as shock-and-impress.