When did you decide to make the book an environmental history of a body part?Īs I was learning about how the environment changes the lactating process, I also started learning more about early puberty. I’m curious when and how you made the decision to put breasts-instead of the forces affecting them, such as endocrine disruptors and cancer-at the center of your book. Our bodies are permeable in ways that we just don’t think about, or haven’t been taught to think about in the age of modern medicine. The experience brought home to me, in this very dramatic way, how our bodies respond to environmental change. But American levels in general, I learned, are 10 to 100 times higher than anywhere else in the world. I FedExed a sample of my breast milk to a lab in Germany, and it came back with some slightly higher than above-average U.S. I was breastfeeding at the time, and I did a story for The New York Times Magazine in which I tested my own breast milk. But I also began to see the scientific reports about industrial pollutants showing up in breast milk, and I wanted to tell that story. I suddenly felt like such a mammal-it was a profound and transformative experience for me. Then I really became awed by how they work, and how brilliantly they work.

But I never really thought much about my breasts one way or the other until I became a mother. ( Laughs) Yes, I am the owner of a couple. What drew you to the subject of breasts-other than the obvious, of course? (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.) Here, Williams tells Michelle Nijhuis the story behind her story. Williams, a science journalist and contributing editor of Outside, delved into the history, culture, and science of the human mammary gland, and in Breasts, she tells the fascinating-and often very funny-story of our breasts and ourselves. “For such an enormously popular feature of the human race,” writes Florence Williams in Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, “it’s remarkable how little we know about their basic biology.” Breasts make us mammals, says Williams, but they also seem to make us confused: Our theories about their enduring appeal are muddled, and our understanding of both their strengths and vulnerabilities are incomplete.

Science Writing Resources (Elsewhere) That We Likeįlorence Williams Courtesy of Florence Williams.

Guide to Using Alt-text to Make Images More Accessible.

Sample Script & Survey for Tracking Source Diversity.

Finding Diverse Sources for Science Stories.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Resources.

Tip Sheet for Newcomers to Science Writing.

Where to Get Started at The Open Notebook.The Covering Science Slack: A Peer-Mentoring Community.Sharon Dunwoody Science Journalism Mentoring Program.Virtual Workshop Series: The Craft of Science Editing.Navigating the Science Journalism World.

Breasts by Florence Williams