While at Sundance promoting her new film, “Shirley,” director Josephine Decker did something that’s both radical and a part of millions of women’s everyday routines: she pumped breastmilk. But she didn’t slink off to a closet or bathroom, as women often feel pressured to do. Instead Decker pumped while doing press — and getting her photograph taken in Variety’s studio. She had a packed schedule and not enough time to pump by herself, so she decided to work and pump simultaneously.
“It’s funny because it felt very organic at the time,” Decker told Variety. “We were running from one press thing to the next and I was thinking, ‘When am I going to pump today? When am I ever going to pump?’ After I started pumping, they needed me back [for press], but I was two minutes into pumping and I needed 20 more.” Then it hit her: “‘Wait a second, I’m making a movie about women emancipating themselves in the early 20th century!’” Why couldn’t she pump while doing her job?
Now that the image of Decker pumping has gone public, she hopes it empowers other mothers to post pictures of themselves pumping, “so this feels very normal and very ordinary.” For lots of women, pumping and breastfeeding are just standard, necessary parts of motherhood — comparable to the bedtime routine or making the kids’ school lunches. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and yet we as a culture expect breastfeeding mothers to hide away when they need to pump or nourish their babies.
“You’re supposed to pump eight times a day — if you’re away from your baby,” Decker explained. “That’s eight hours of your day. It’s really impossible to do it and have a normal life. This [picture] feels so important to me partly because it’s such a large part of my life … Pumping is how I feed my child.” She continued, “While I am afraid of it seeming sensational, it’s such an ordinary, life-supporting act. I really hope that the image is seen as that. That’s the biggest reason I want the image to go out in the world. I want this to feel not like a sensational, but like a very, very ordinary image. That it’s just a woman at work.”
Decker also wants the image to inspire more workplaces to be welcoming and supportive of breastfeeding mothers. “Being able to pump more and being able to pump while sitting in a meeting and pump if you’re in a board meeting and sit there and have it be fairly normal [is the goal],” she said. “I’m hopeful that the more that we can see images of this as a normal act, because everyone does it who is raising a child, the easier it is for women to feel integrated into their lives in a way that’s satisfying.”
De-stigmatizing breastfeeding and pumping isn’t the only way Decker is pushing for Hollywood to be more accepting of working mothers. She was one of the signatories of the recent open letter to the DGA, which urged the union to expand its health insurance coverage to 18 months for new mothers. The current coverage period is 12 months.
“We shot [‘Shirley’] a year and a half ago, you get paid for that all in advance. And that was about a little less than what you need to survive for a year. So last spring I really needed to start working again,” she recalled. “I did one TV episode right after we finished ‘Shirley’ and I found out during that shoot that I had massive pregnancy complications. I had to quit all my other TV director jobs for the summer and just stay in.” Decker explained, “It’s not like working in cinema is really easy and you can do it from your computer, 9 to 5. If you’re doing your job as a director, you’re on your feet 12 to 14 hours a day, for maybe a month straight, maybe three months straight. Over the course of the TV director job I did while I was pregnant, the baby fell really far behind in weight and I had to stop working completely. This summer I was worried I was going to lose my DGA benefits, or not going to have insurance because I couldn’t work,” she said.
Decker won Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Auteur Filmmaking for “Shirley,” the story of “The Haunting of Hill House” author Shirley Jackson, her husband, and the couple they take in as tenants. Decker’s other credits include “Madeline’s Madeline,” “Flames,” “Thou Wast Mild and Lovely,” and “Butter on the Latch.” She’s signed on to helm the film adaptation of Jandy Nelson’s YA novel “The Sky Is Everywhere” for Apple and A24.
Read Decker’s full remarks, and check out the portrait of her pumping, over at Variety.
