Rachel McAdams is a notoriously private person. In fact, she keeps such a low-profile that she didn’t speak about her first child until seven months after his birth. But, there is one aspect of motherhood, she’s not willing to stay schtum about.
Dressed in Versace and Bulgari with her hair slicked back and her lips painted Coke can red, Rachel McAdams sits legs wide in what could be best described as a woman spreading position as she takes on a taboo that still stalks motherhood. Attached to her breasts are two fully-functioning breast pumps expressing milk for her then six-month-old. In a single shot, she rugby tackles the discourse around motherhood and work, maternity leave and public breastfeeding.
‘Obviously, #rachelmcadams looks incredible and was quite literally the dream to work with but also this shoot was about 6 months post her giving birth to her son, so between shots she was expressing/pumping as still breastfeeding.’ Explains Claire Rothstein, editor of Girls Girls Girls magazine, which published the powerful image.
She added, ‘Breastfeeding is the most normal thing in the world, like breathing and I can’t for the life of me imagine why or how it is ever frowned upon or scared of. I don’t even think it needs explaining but just wanted to put this out there, as if it even changes one person’s perception of something so natural, so normal, so amazing then that’s great. Besides she’s wearing Versace and Bulgari diamonds and is just fucking major…Side note: I did not look anywhere near as fabulous as this when feeding/pumping. And that’s ok too.’
The role of motherhood has been desperately in need of rebranding. It’s not for the squeamish. It can be base and preoccupied with sentimentality while asking a woman to weigh up her own body’s wants against that of a newborn.
Some writers, Sheila Heti for instance, are questioning the drives for motherhood in the first place while one New York Times writer once jokingly wrote a job description for the role: ‘Must be exceptionally stable yet ridiculously responsive to the needs of those around you; must be willing to trail after your loved ones, cleaning up their messes and compensating for their deficiencies and selfishness; must work twice as hard as everybody else; must accept blame for a long list of the world's illnesses; must have a knack for shaping young minds while in no way neglecting the less glamorous tissues below…’
As the narrative around motherhood moves into the 21st Century with a plodding progression, images like Rachel McAdams pumping while dripping in diamonds and luxury fashion are increasingly more important. Removing the veneer and proving agenda-setting style and parenthood are not mutually exclusive, is as, Claire says, ‘just fucking major.’