I was slut-shamed, was termed a blue-film actor… Grihalakshmi Cover Girl

Grihalakshmi magazine had triggered a controversy over its March 2018 cover featuring a woman breastfeeding a baby.

The high court dismissed the petition which earlier charged by the petitioner Felix MA and said, “Going by the contemporary community standards and without troubling ourselves with patent offensiveness—we may observe that, given the picture’s particular posture and its background setting (mother feeding the baby), as depicted in the magazine, it is not prurient or obscene; nor even suggestive of it. We, therefore, dismiss the writ petition.”

This surely is a relief for the Grihalakshmi magazine. The court ruling comes as a huge relief to 28-year-old Gilu Joseph, the model who had championed breastfeeding on the cover of a magazine popular in Kerala, Grihalakshmi.

It was part of a campaign, “Breastfeed Freely” that intends to raise awareness to stop shaming women breastfeeding in public. The text on the cover reads: “Mothers tell Kerala: please stop staring, we need to breastfeed.”

Gilu Joseph, the model and the face at the centre of a row that broke out soon after the photograph was published

“I was slut-shamed, was termed a blue-film actor. My mother was called names. But I knew I would have to hear all this. I took it in my stride. This issue is about breastfeeding and it’s an important cause. There is no question of regretting anything. This is my work. I have cared in films as a mother, what’s so different about this,” Gilu Joseph, the model told

Felix MA, a tailor who approached the high court to seek action, told NDTV that he still thinks the model’s photograph was “morally degrading”.

“I have lost my 5-month-old daughter. I know the pain of breastfeeding. All the months that she was in the intensive care unit, my wife could not visit her due to her own infection. I used to carry pumped milk for my daughter. And now, in this picture, an unmarried model is seen holding an infant and posing as if she is breastfeeding. Is this acceptable?” Felix MA said.

It is a point that his lawyer, Biju, had also made in his petition. The judges didn’t agree with the petitioner but found him to be “seemingly sensitive and scrupulous”.

Also Read:HC dismissed the petition on Grihalakshmi Breastfeeding Cover