The Case of the Missing Areolae: Race and Breast Reduction Surgery — Page 7:
31 Jones counterpoises contrasting views the dominant white male culture has held of white female breasts vis-à-vis black female breasts. Her comments on the “mammy” figure in U.S. history serve to validate the perspective of female breasts as objects of production, primarily in those of the lower classes, which here included virtually all people of African descent in the U.S. during the 18th and 19th centuries, regardless of their economic status, even if they were not enslaved. Being objects of production in a capitalist culture, the larger the better. In addition, the larger the breast the closer its owner is to the primitive.
32 She pauses, stops at this word “primitive,” although it’s painful to do so. So many, many layers of generations of trying to wash every trace, eliminate the slightest hint of being associated in any infinitesimal way to the “primitive.”
33 “Child, why can’t you keep your hair tidy? It looks so wild,” says a proud wavy-haired aunt married so comfortably to a Jewish Lebanese Jamaican with dead straight hair, straight nose, and blue eyes. Their skin color is the same. Everyone’s skin color in the room is the same, but still there’s a difference.
34 With her two hands, she palms the little girl’s hair hard down onto her skull. She felt that she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see. She was suffocating, dying. Don’t be wild. Don’t be female. To be female is to be uncivilized.
35 A battle rages on our chests. Salvos of insults, leers, obsessions land on the two mounds on that terrain. The female breast being contested territory, a page upon which is written conflicting text, plays an important role in any interpretation of breast reduction techniques, choices, and developments. One way to decrease the warfare is to shrink down the mountains, less territory to fight over, less soil on which to plant the flag of possession.