Every few months or so, there’s an uproar over a woman who dares to breastfeed her child in public. In the latest incident to catch the eye of the denizens over at WingNutDaily, a lawsuit was slapped on a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in St. Lucie, Florida for ordering a woman to stop feeding her child at the booth she was seated in.
Dee Dee Olsen claims a manager at the eatery instructed her to nurse her infant daughter inside the ladies’ room, or else leave the premises.Now I don’t know about the claims of emotional distress or “continued mental and physical anxiety” cited in the claim by Olsen, but that Ruby Tuesday franchise is legally in the wrong.Olsen opted to pay her bill and leave the restaurant, but claims the incident caused her severe emotional distress.
According to Florida law, mothers are permitted unconditionally to breastfeed anywhere, public or private, covered or uncovered.
The relevant statute says, “The breastfeeding of a baby is an important and basic act of nurture which must be encouraged in the interests of maternal and child health and family values. A mother may breastfeed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether or not the nipple of the mother’s breast is covered during or incidental to the breastfeeding.”
The Port St. Lucie News reports Olsen’s lawsuit claims the restaurant violated that rule and illegally discriminates against mothers and infants by forcing them to feed in a restroom or outside of the restaurant.
What I don’t understand is the logic of so many people up in arms over the boobie that they’d prefer to subject a woman and baby to the filthy environs of a restroom rather than simply averting their eyes if the sight of nursing gives them the vapors (see the poll). We’re not talking changing diapers on the restaurant table, for god’s sake. What is wrong with these people? Oh we know what’s wrong. Check out this Freeper thread about a case in Kentucky, where a similar incident occurred at an Applebee’s. There was one voice of sanity in the swamps…
A woman breast feeds a baby in public, what’s the big deal? The hypocrites in this country are beyond belief as if the sight of a piece of the woman’s breast area the size of an “M&M peanut candy” when exposed is going to destory our morality in America is ridiculous. I remember ten years ago our hypocrites in the media would show Black women’s nipples in African documentaries. Today those offending “nipples” are digitally edited out. I have more of a problem with having to observe men wearing shaggy pants with their butts hanging out or other members of society who reside in large cities scratching their crotch in public.Imagine what President Pastor Huckabee thinks about the boobie.
74 Responses to “More fundie fear of the boobie”
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Frankly, you see more boob on a coors billboard than on a nursing mother! Breasts being used for their primary design purpose are not naughty enough and don’t make men think of sex. That makes them not about men and therefore eeevil.
Idiots.
Did you know that law came about after the daughter of a former governor was ARRESTED for breastfeeding on a park bench?
Asshats.
Wow. Even the voice of sanity is a thinly veiled racist asshole.
“other members of society who reside in large cities”
read: niggers. Does this cretin imagine that no white people in rural and suburban areas are wearing their pants that way, or are scratching their crotches in public? Sorry, that was a bit off-topic.
Anyway, the Merrkin SexPhobia train keeps on a-chuggin’.
I had a baby a few months back and am still nursing her. It drives me nuts that I spent several months essentially not leaving the house or hiding in the back of the car to feed my daughter because I was afraid of the reactions of complete strangers.
Over the past month or so, I’ve been much better about it - but that’s largely because I spent some time in California, which is (at least in my paranoid mind) much less judgmental about breastfeeding than people here on the East Coast. Though I’m probably wrong about that.
Which is a very roundabout way of saying I really resent the fact that I felt homebound for months because I was afraid of offending or being confronted by complete strangers due to their discomfort with my feeding my little girl.
The Fundamentalist Christians are more like their “opponents” the Fundamentalist Muslims than they’d really care to know.
Seriously, these are the same people who want to bomb the crap out of every country where Islam is the predominant religion, in order to “liberate” women from the evils of purdah and the veil.
And yet they subscribe to the same logic — if a man sees Teh Titty, he will be irresistably tempted into Teh Sin. Therefore no titty must ever be exhibited in the presence of a man who doesn’t already own it, no matter the purpose or situation. Thus, women and their evil, evil parts will destroy public morality if they are not kept from view at all times!
The La Leche Leage or whatever may be shrill and sometimes a bit crazed (breastfeeding in the men’s dept at Nordstrom’s is optimal!) but damn these folks that freak out over a boob performing its intended function are just insane. The childfree folks don’t want to see it - and nor do I to be honest - but really it’s not a big deal to LOOK AWAY. I have no idea what the problem is with these folks and honestly I am afraid to click the freeper links to find out.
I worked at an office that had a huge shift in culture during my time - from a rigid, patriarchal model to breastfeeding during staff meetings. It was…interesting. Bless them, it was a wild ride and we all loved it, even as we found it disturbing. The reasons for finding it disturbing escape me even today…the *going away* of the mother concentrating on feeding her young…the reminder that we are all mammals…I dunno.
I am so grateful that SOMEBODY is doing something about all those BreastfeedoFascists and their secret agenda for world domination.
First breast feeding (or “teat feeding” as I call it), then occasional nipple sightings, and then the evil ball of librul sexual depravity will be rolling downhill too fast to stop. It will culminate with people are having HAVING GAY SEX IN PUBLIC!!! Then they will take our guns, our Bibles, and close all Christian Churches and force them to become Hillary Clinton Feminazi lesbian recruitment centers!
Isn’t formula good enough for these Dirty Fucking Hippie Chicks? Those parts were placed on a woman by God for purely procreative purposes - a man needs to see and fondle teats to perform his sacred duty. The only women who use their dirty pillows to feed their children are too poor to buy formula like any decent person would do.
The basic family unit has always consisted of a Man, his mate, a baby (representing the future of Mankind) and a bottle of formula. Every society which has allowed this sacred, Godly arrangement to be perverted by the wanton exposure of women’s teats has ended in disaster.
This librul plot must be stopped! We must halt this societal slide into bedlam! Please write your senator and congressman and tell them to stop the Breastal Holocaust!…
“dirty pillows” = the most revolting euphemism for a piece of anatomy, ever.
I shudder just thinking about it. I can’t even listen to that PJ Harvey song…
In case anyone couldn’t figure it out on their own, the second part of my above post isn’t supposed to be in block quotes.
What’s worse is that this fear of the boobie does not just affect the fundies– I have heard liberals complain about the “breastfeeding nazis” who refuse to cover up when they nurse in public (that would be me, BTW) or complain that it makes them uncomfortable because they don’t know there to look or whine that it forces them to discuss sex with their young sons before they’re ready.
I have been nursing for the last 17 months and I got over the idea that I should go hide myself or cover up (the kidlet wouldn’t allow that anyway) to do so. I have had friends that were told to leave public places for breastfeeding, despite being against the law in my state, and the humiliation they feel is ongoing. Every time they nurse they fear being humiliated like that again and now they feel this vague sense of shame about it– like they were shitting in public. While I have never been confronted in public (and indeed, once was thanked), I have always had a low level anxiety every time I nurse my son in public, prepared with some retort in case anyone dares to ask me to stop or leave.
It’s fucking wrong that any woman should feel anxiety, shame, or embarrassment for doing what is natural and the healthiest option (usually) for their child.
“Breast feeding, from what I understand, is the best thing for the baby. You think “pro life” religious fundamentalists would be all for the well-being of the child. I guess not.”
Oh, but they only care up until the moment of birth.
And even their “commitment to life” can produce no net gain of TEH BABEEZ; Bobby Jindal and Ken Blackwell have no problem with letting both the mother and child die if abortion would save the mother’s life.
The breast is hardly even exposed during breastfeeding, let alone the nipple! The baby’s head covers more than you’re average bikini top or low-cut dress.
God, the facts are literally right in front of their eyes (you know they’re not looking away).
The childfree folks don’t want to see it
*Some* childfree folks don’t want to see it. Those people might want to rub two thoughts together: if a kid is nursing, its mouth is full and it’s NOT CRYING.
“God, the facts are literally right in front of their eyes (you know they’re not looking away).”
There is a group of people who constantly seek to be offended. As such, they are always on the lookout for an opportunity to be outraged over some otherwise unremarkable incident.
If it wasn’t breastfeeding, it would be something else…
I have to admit when my son was born I was uncomfortable with the idea him breastfeeding in public. I was worried about other men looking at my wife and sexualizing it. Which of course as a “man” I have to take as a threat. My wife however overruled me and rightfully so! I have never viewed women breastfeeding as a sexual thing nor have I ever been a jealous type, so why the concern? Unfortunatly for me, I swallowed way too much misogynistic garbage and I am slowly unlearning it.
I think the problem is that breastfeeding doesn’t just reminds deviant fundie fucks of sex, it reminds them of their /mothers/, that the breast is more than something for them to orgle in private when their virgin brides grows them in.
That pretty much sums it up, Mercurial Georgia.
Maybe I’m just setting the bar too low, but these results are better than I thought they would be:
Option 1: Standard conservolibertarian assholery. They’ll vote yes on anything that starts with “Private businesses should have the right to…” Remember that Ron Paul voter who says that he thinks that private business owners should have the right to sexually harrass their employees because the market will take care of it?
Options 2 and 4 are pro, and they account for about half the remainder. They pick up a few points further down the line.
Choice three is really troubling. It’s almost worse than wanting to ban it - they really believe women just want to show off their tits so much they’ll have a baby?
But the “ban it!” crowd is miniscule.
OK…
Now I’m mad again…
I nursed my daughter for the first few moths of her life…
I actually considered doing it in the bathroom at first…
walked in, looked around, turned around and left.
I tried all sorts of options other than ‘in public’.. I was very shy.
Finally, I realized that when my daughter needed to eat.. she needed to eat. And forget hot blankets in this Texas heat.
I didn’t ‘flash’ people… I think most BFing moms don’t… at times people thought my daughter was just sleeping.. but if they figured out what was actually going on, you should have seen the attitude changes!
I started making pro-breatfeeding designs in my shop.. (linked above…) and every time I get mad, I make another…
Too bad “Goodbye Ruby Tuesday” is so trademark protected…
And the Applebees incident that was linked too?
People freaked out that the mother had a copy of her breastfeeding statute with her…
“She was just TROLLING for trouble…”
I wish I had printed one out… That way when I was confronted while doing my best to cover up, I would have been able to show it to them instead of telling them, and hoping they believed.
Most of the people in restaurants are just unaware of the legalities involved… Why NOT carry a paper to help them fix that issue?
*Walks away grumbling, thinking about her next design…*
Yes but “private businesses have the right…” has been the rationale for a lot of bigotry in this country, for many years. In a way I’d be more optimistic if the majority went with “ban it!” because at least you can’t say “Oh, I’m in all in favor of equality for X group, but the bottom line is private businesses have a right…” The degree to which most Americans are still full of hate for anyone outside white male hetero Christian hegemony, and yet manage to pat themselves on the back for being “egalitarian”, makes me sick.
This is especially pertinent considering the fact that very few places most Americans go aren’t private property of one form or another. And the corporatization of virtually all human space is one of the key goals of the right.
darn it - I changed my displayed name for that one post, and now it won’t go away and all my posts are going into moderation!
I remember ten years ago our hypocrites in the media would show Black women’s nipples in African documentaries. Today those offending “nipples” are digitally edited out.
The scare quotes confuse me. Black women’s nipples aren’t really nipples?
Breasts being used for their primary design purpose are not naughty enough and don’t make men think of sex.
I think the problem is they do make men think of sex, which makes them feel dirty and gross in this context, and rightly so, but instead of looking away/laughing it off/thinking of something else, they decide to show their asses and make sure no one misses what immature, Oedipus-complex-having perverts they are, and bitch about how it’s all women’s fault that they’re pathetic sex-obsessed fools.
Not that I think it’s that big a deal if someone looks at a breastfeeding woman and thinks of sex, because whatthefuckever, but wingnuts clearly don’t feel that way, and instead of feeling ashamed of themselves quietly, they blame their own disgust with themselves on women, for existing. I’m simply shocked.
they really believe women just want to show off their tits so much they’ll have a baby?
Whenever you look at a woman and think of sex, it’s because she wants you to think of sex. She had the whole scenario all planned out just for you, and only you, just so she could laugh at you while refusing to fuck you. Women exist to make you miserable and horny and hate yourself.
Back when I was nursing my son, people would ask me if I wasn’t ‘worried’ that it would make him gay.
I ‘d look at his adoring, blissful face snuggled against my breasts, and realized that their math was not Earth math.
Boy +breasts + love = gay?
I mean, it’s not like he was sucking dick, was it ? In which case, the gay remark would have been, yes, still rude, but at least more mathy.
Of course, they weren’t really concerned that he would grow up gay.
They were concerned that he might grow up to actually like women. Instead of holding them in contempt, in the proper manly way.
Nobody ever worried that nursing my daughter might make her gay, BTW.
The sad thing is it isn’t just wingnuts that feel this way. Plenty of self-identified so-called progressives also pull out all kinds of bullshit arguments about why women shouldn’t feed their children in public. Last time this issue came up on Feministing (think it was the Applebee’s story), I think we were about three comments in before someone brought up the “shitting is natural too but I don’t do it in public” argument. Or the “I wouldn’t mind if they weren’t so ‘in your face.’” Or the “Why can’t they just put breastmilk in a bottle?”
Personal story, if I may. My son was about four months old and I was out to eat with my folks. I was wearing a decorative scarf. My son was wearing a bib (with a velcro catch) because he was in a very drooly stage. My son was being really fussy, but I didn’t want to nurse him at the table because we weren’t in a booth but at a four-top in the middle of the restaurant. I tried walking him around. No dice. I tried taking him to the bathroom, but all the bright lights distracted him. Finally, I just nursed him at the table. Concerned with my privacy, my mother reached over and tried to pull my scarf over the boy’s head. It caught on the velcro, making one of those attention-grabbing velcro noises. The kid let go with a startle and looked around to see what was making the noise, completely exposing me to everyone (including my father who happened to be seated right across from me.) Moral is: Valor is the better part of discretion.
We’re in the midst of a controversy about this same thing here in Lubbock…
One of our pinheaded local officials ordered a couple of paintings by Lahib Jaddo removed from a city-owned gallery because one depicted a nude woman, and the other had a woman nursing. In response, some of the locals held a Nurse-In Friday night.
And a little from one of the mothers who attended.
v., that is some crazy math indeed.
Man, this is stupid. Here you go…
Case law in NZ gives a right to breastfeed in public areas. I’ve never known of any problem with it personally.
There are some international comparisons here (PDF 355 KB).
Yes, exactly. “Private businesses have the right” only applies when it’s something these people agree with. As soon as what the private business thinks it has the right to do is, say, request its employees say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, it stops applying.
I am so grateful that SOMEBODY is doing something about all those BreastfeedoFascists and their secret agenda for world domination.
Mike, the hand that holds the baby to teh tit is probably too busy to rule the world.
Good on her for going to court (or having the resources to go to court) instead of sucking it up as one more indignity, as so many women must do.
In other new, I wonder how many fundies grew up sneaking looks at the old Nstional Geographic magazines, which would show naked people unashamedly in their coverage of indigenous cultures? I know it was a sibling joke between me and my brother, who referred to them as ’sociology porn’. Where did the idea that boobs are EVOL!EVOL!OMG!!?!?!?! come from?
For me, the worst has alway been the self-righteous women who explain that they fed all six of their kids under a blanket and never had to show a bit of boob. I mean, I expect some men to have women and babies, but it always throws me when when a woman and mom parrots the misogyny. I suppose that’s childishly naive of me.
Would the restaurant staff really have been happier with a screaming baby bothering all the patrons, instead of the nursing baby that only a couple of tables could possibly see?
Chingona, that’s a funny story.
My mother tells a story back when my father was in college, around 1948 in Virginia. Her parents were visiting, and she was nursing my sister in the living room when the couple who shared the house came in and expressed shock that she was nursing “in public”.
The first time I saw a woman breastfeeding under a giant blanket it caught my eye. I wondered what sort of exotic animal she was cuddling. I figured it eventually, and the next time I saw the same thing I was able not to react.
In contrast, one day on the beach I saw a woman simply breastfeeding, no coverup, and it was so natural looking that I nearly didn’t notice.
Bumper sticker spotted at Trader Joe’s: Silly Men - Breasts are for Babies!
My wife breastfeeds our daughter. Has never cared about who is around or where we are. It works just fine, we have never ever had any problems. As others have pointed out, most everything is covered anyway.
In fact, when our daughter was two weeks old my wife brought her to a gig my band was playing. She came in late, and I got her to come up on stage for a song she knew. Didn’t realize she was feeding daughter at the time. She got up on stage anyway, just stood in the back (about 8 people in the band, a capella song in this case). Nobody knew aside from her and me, and I only knew ‘cause she told me as she got up on stage.
And who cares about a boob, really? We’ve all seen them.
Re. breastfeeding making boys gay, my wife made a comment about breastfed girls being lesbians when our daughter was looking at her breast longingly (well, hungrily, but it amounted to the same thing). It was funny at the time. Maybe you had to be there.
The “some women are exhibitionists” thing is creepy.
It’s the Flasher’s Whine: “How come SHE gets to feed her baby in a restaurant, but I got arrested for wanking in the playground?”
When livejournal/Six Apart had their anti-breastfeeding controversy a couple of years ago, and kicked off anyone who used a default icon that showed a baby breastfeeding, the reactions - especially in the childfree “communities” very publicly nastily demonstrated how many people there are out there who hate the bodies of real women - who actually find real women’s bodies disgusting. I won’t quote any of them, but there was a real tirade of rage about how revolting it was to see a woman breastfeeding a baby, making clear that what made them sick was the sight of breasts that didn’t look like the polished and tidy breasts of a woman in a movie or a magazine. There was something really genuinely ugly going on there, and the people who felt this way - that women’s bodies are intrinsically ugly and disgusting and breastfeeding is like defecating - consistently argued that how they felt was *normal*
6A’s argument was that women’s naked bodies - specifically, women’s nipples/areolae - are always sexual, no matter what the intent or subject of the picture, and so are improper to be seen in public.
As far as I know, the new owners of livejournal, SUP, continue that policy.
To comment 4 above, you might be surprised at the attitude towards breast feeding in many Muslim countries. Example: on a recent holiday in Morocco I and my husband were sharing a train carriage with a woman and her 10 month old son, her husband and her father (or possibly uncle - older generation anyway). She was veiled, in the sense that her hair was covered (rather than her full face). And she was entirely comfortable with breast feeding her son - just popped out a boob, fed him, popped it back in again.
The irony being that, it would appear, covering up, say, a woman’s hair to de-sexualise her seems to mean that something seen as erroneously sexual in a western country is entirely not in a Muslim country.
Now, Morocco couldn’t really be described as a fundamentalist society in the Saudi Arabia sense of the word, but it is certainly strongly Muslim. So, interesting, non?
http://shkrobius.blogspot.com/2007/11/madonna-lactata-right-and-left.html
This makes me think of the people of my grandmother’s generation, who were uncomfortable with the idea of visibly pregnant woman walking down the street, because everyone would know she’d had sex. For some people, a woman with a baby is a reminder that she’s had sex, and not with them. And if she’s willing to *gasp* pull out a breast in public, she’s probably the kind of woman who enjoyed it. Heck, any woman who thinks she has that much control over her body in a public space probably thinks she has the right to use birth control or terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Yet another example of how Americans are deeply, deeply ashamed of their bodies. It truly is a cultural thing - this is not an issue in other cultures.
My wife is a LLL leader and proud “nipple nazi.” Breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world. What do you think they are their for?
God this always pisses me off so much. Let’s not let Bill “Titties are only for my sexual gratification”Mahr off the hook either.
He thinks women should plan better, so that they don’t have to breastfeed when they are in public. Doesn’t realize babies can nurse every 90 minutes, which doesn’t give mothers time to do much in between. Guess we should stay home and paint the windows black to protect any menz walking past.
Fuckers. My stepdad is the biggest prude, and I can’t tell you how many times he’s tried to take a “sleeping” baby from me, only for me to tell him the baby is EATING.
In other words, you really have to LOOK to tell the difference between a woman nursing a baby with her shirt lifted and a woman holding a sleeping baby.
And my kids won’t let you cover them with blankets. Nursing is hard work–they work up a head of sweat and don’t want anything to do with blankets over them.
Which shouldn’t really matter, b/c except when latching on, there’s really no boob showing.
Illinois has a law allowing breast feeding anywhere. Yet another reason I like our beleaguered governor.
I really haven’t seen many women breastfeeding, and since I’ve spent the last 7 years with babies/toddlers and their parents, you’d think I’d be exposed to it more often than most. I’ve probably seen more than I’m aware of for the simple fact that it’s not in your face unless your face is six inches away from her tit
Grrr. Just let anyone tell me to cover up or go to a restroom! I’d fucking rip their heads off. What’s worse? A nursing baby or a screaming baby?
And they only eat for a few minutes–it’s not like they spend an hour there.
Assholes and hypocrites of the highest order.
(guess what I’m doing while I’m typing this? )
I’ll be the first to admit that a woman breast-feeding in front of me makes me uncomfortable. Mostly because I’m not sure what to do. Look away, look only at her eyes, acknowledge she’s breast-feeding or just pretend to ignore it… And from my conversations with mothers it seems to be very personal what they prefer. One friend used to get angry that everyone would turn away and look at other things. She thought that meant people were ashamed. Another friend would always think people were staring.
But I’m also totally aware that my discomfort is MINE and not a result of teh evol boobies. If breast-feeding in public became the norm then there would be alot less issue with it.
People who have a problem with breastfeeding are absolutely ridiculous. It’s natural and good for your baby so I don’t see what the fuss is about it. It’s not as if the woman set the baby on the table and tried aiming her breast to squirt the milk at him/her (can’t remember the gender). Seriously.
All the breastfeeding I’ve seen in public only serves to reinforce the idea that it is really hard to notice. Those babies are downright sneaky about feeding, looking all sleeping-like and that. More than once I’ve stared at a cute little baby ’sleeping’ to realise that no, feeding is actually going on. And this right next to me! You’d think from that angle I’d have seen some of Teh Boob, but no, just a baby. I did feel rather ashamed that it still takes me so long to catch on as to what’s going on. Must have looked like some sort of pervert staring at a woman and child breastfeeding with such interest, lol.
I suspect that the customer who complained (referencing the incident that sparked the freeper thread) was just angry that he’d been watching the boobies for a while and then all of a sudden a baby was blocking them (!!), and damn it, getting a chance to be up close and personal while he had to satisfy himself with watching from afar.
Just another reason to avoid this cookie-cutter trendy “casual dining” eateries that serve you soup that arrived frozen in a bag. Gah. Too sensory overloaded, super-hyped up personnel, and now this. Why in hell would anyone WANT to take their kiddo into a place like that anyways?
Breastfeeding is 100% wonderful. Fuck anyone who disagrees.
Caren, that story about your step-dad just is awful. There’s something truly weird going on with THAT dude- as soon as the baby were sleeping, I’d deck that SOB for trying to touch ME! He outta keep his damned paws to himself!!
I am convinced that these are people who like to complain. Breastfeed in the bathroom? Breastfeeding takes 15-40 minutes (according to 1st reference from Google, no kids). If mothers started breastfeeding in the bathroom, these folks would line up to complain about them hogging the bathroom. “Don’t these selfish, uppity women know that there are people who NEED to use the bathroom for its INTENDED purpose?!?”
The irony being that, it would appear, covering up, say, a woman’s hair to de-sexualise her seems to mean that something seen as erroneously sexual in a western country is entirely not in a Muslim country.
Ummm, no, I get that.
If you’ll notice, I didn’t say “both Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists both want women to cover the boob!” I said both hold underlying beliefs that women are responsible for shattering morality simply by existing and having parts, and thus must be hidden away at all times (at least the sexy part in question, if not the whole woman).
In Muslim culture the sexualized lady-bit is the hair. Which in a certain way, makes more sense, because hair doesn’t really have any other function but to look nice.
The point that makes your story a lot less cute and ironic is that, in a Muslim fundamentalist utopia, the breastfeeding woman in question would be in complete purdah, anyway. There would be no whipping out the boob in public, because there would be no EXISTING in public. She would have certain rooms of the house she couldn’t enter, could never speak to or see a man outside her family, and if she ever had to leave the house (which she would generally be forbidden to do, but if it HAD to happen), she would wear a burqa.
Being forbidden to breastfeed in public, and feeling the need to either hide in a “female” or “private” space like a bathroom or your car, or being forced to symbolically drape oneself with extraneous fabric if for some reason you must breastfeed in public, or just staying home all the time when you have an infant, is uncomfortably similar to purdah. Thus we have to draw the same conclusions from those requirements that we do from purdah. THAT was my real point. Not OMG Muslims Are Totes Down With Teh Bewb.
I tend to feel the same as *somegirls* about seeing moms nurse in public…
My only problem with it is: feel free to look at cute baby, since I can’t see anything else, look completely away, look at moms’ eyes… which does mom in question want?
Once I realize BFing is going on, I try to take my cue from how mom reacted to me looking enough to figure that out…
Hmm…
Maybe I should make a lactivism shirt with those choices on it.. to show the mom in questions preference without having to ask.. not a bad idea if I can make it cute.
Caren when I was first breastfeeding, that was exactly what I tried to do.. somehow fit my whole days worth of running around into 60 minutes…
Then I changed to trying to plan a visit to a clothing store or such every 80 minutes or so.. (Feed in the clothing booth.. much better than a bathroom.. but still dark and hot) I discovered that many clothing stores only have ONE changing booth, so that wasn’t an option…
So, one day I decided to just take the plunge.
Funny story.
My first non-private feeding… I used a blanket for long enough to get baby on… then removed said blanket.. (it’s HOT in Texas)
My prude husband then got up.. STOOD IN FRONT OF ME looking nervous and uncomfortable, facing away, PROBABLY glaring at every man in sight (I couldn’t see that part)…
You should have seen the stares coming my way. Like I had a big bullseye painted on me saying ‘BOOB EXPOSED!!’
Needless to say, I had a little talk with my husband, and he never did THAT again.
15 years ago or so an email list friend reported that she responded to the same “request” to breast feed her child in the rest room with “Here, take this plate and YOU go eat in the restroom.”
We also discussed how the “old” women’s restrooms had a lounge with chairs and a “couch” where breastfeeding could, if one so wished, actually take place. Where in this day and age is a mother supposed to sit in the restroom while breastfeeding.
Considering most women avoid touching anything in the stall with something more than their shoe, no matter how clean that restroom my appear to be - it is hysteria of a boobie trumping common sense.
Star Trek: Enterprise had an subplot in an episode that prehaps too subtely dealt with this issue by having an alien raise who was so deeply offended by the crew eating in the mess hall, eating in public, that they left the Enterprise.
The whole episode was the crew trying to figure out what they did to offend.
I have a feeling that’s the “scrubbed” version the one I saw was “Silly Man - Tits are for Kids”
thus to fully play of the Trix cereal ad
Caren, Creator of Animorphic Pancakes -
I though I was the only one whose nursing kids would take off the blanket … but it didn’t just end there. If there was a shirt present near their mouths on the nipple they’d clutch said shirt and move it off exposing more of the breast.
Have to agree with some of the other guys have posted. I’m an unapologetic breast guy when it comes things I find sexually attractive…and a nursing mother does absolutely nothing for me. There’s no sexual meaning there at all, any more than seeing a woman drinking a coffee.
What’s interesting it that when I was younger, and public breastfeeding a hell of a lot less common (or at least not that I’d notice), I’d assumed that seeing Teh Boobie in any context would be hot. When I actually did see a woman breastfeeding…nope. Just a mother taking care of her baby.
No doubt some people get turned on, but given human sexuality and fetishes, you can find someone on by anything, so that doesn’t count.
Oh no, Louise! There’s nothing wrong with my stepdad. He just wants to help out and hold the grandbabies.
It’s just that he can’t tell the difference from whether they’re sleeping or eating. So he offers to take the babe, and I have to tell him, well, no, s/he’s eating.
At which point he turns red and quickly changes the subject.
My point was that teh boobieZ don’t show when you nurse, so what the hell are these weirdos whining about.
Poor stepdad’s a good guy.
“The childfree folks don’t want to see it - and nor do I to be honest - but really it’s not a big deal to LOOK AWAY.”
Being childfree no more dictates an opinion that it doesn’t belong in public than being a parent dictates an automatic acceptance of breastfeeding. I imagine that, beyond the obvious “if it’s eating, it’s not crying, which is a Good Thing” idea, a childfree person really doesn’t care any more than an average person, so long as the woman isn’t literally shoving her baby-festooned boob in their face.
Okay, Caren; sorry about that. Good on Grampa for wanting to cuddle and love the babies… my dad was scared to hold my girls when they were little! I never could breastfeed in front of my dad; he’s just so darned modest that it would have embarrassed him terribly. But I did in front of my grandfather one weekend and it didn’t faze either of us at all. He was slowly weakening from cancer and was just so happy to see his great-grandchild for the first (and only) time! Plus he and I were very close; he was one of my best friends when I was a kid.
anecdata from the childfree:
i’m creeped out by babies in general, but for me a breastfeeding kid is no more offputting than the average kid. the Eating = Not Crying equation is totally spot-on, there.
it’s always sort of puzzling to me to hear that people notice a breastfeeding kid, let alone freak out about it. it’s hard to even tell that’s going on unless you’re within like a three-foot radius; i’d wager that those who fear Teh Bewb have probably not even noticed half the breastfeeding that has ever gone on near them. mothers who are covering up while feeding are, i think, more likely to be noticed than those who aren’t. it’s just not an intrusive act.
More than any other reason, I think that the breast-feeding objectors don’t like being reminded that we are MAMMALS. They just can’t handle it. THey think “People” and “Animals” are two entirely different groups that experience NO overlap of any kind. It’s like they are in some weird kind of denial!
(On a similar note, when I was nineteen or so I had a L O N G argument with my boyfriend, after stating that the word “sex” was short for “sexual reproduction” and that the sex organs are for reproduction. He didn’t want to even be REMINDED of that…argued all day that sex and reproduction are not…sputter…have NOTHING to do with each other! I mean they CAN but they are not SUPPOSED to!!! (He DID grow out of being a teenage boy later))
Long personal story:
When I worked on my first TV show we had an actress who had had a baby and when she was on set she would always breastfeed him there. When she was shooting her friend (or sister, I think, she wasn’t a paid nanny) would watch him and she’d feed him in between takes, sitting in her director’s chair or nearby. Once, when we were shooting outside I was hanging out and talking with her and her friend/sister brought the baby and without missing a beat she lifted her shirt and dropped her bra and fed her son. For a second I was thrown off (this was the first time of me being present when she had to breastfeed) and there was a thought of, “Oh, okay, that’s what’s going on now,” and I hate to say it but I couldn’t help but look, she was lifting her shirt in front of me, but once the babe was on the teet and my brain made the connection that it was time for baby to eat I got over it and we just went back to talking and I made eye contact with her as opposed to looking away. There were a few crew guys around us, moving lights and such and all of them were pretty much flabbergasted and embarrassed and kept trying to look elsewhere and it was obvious what they were avoiding. While there was one grew head who joined our conversation and he acted just like I did, it was no big deal and he talked to her, not around her. He has two daughters so I figured that he’d probably been around this twice before and that’s how he was able to be nonchalant about it.
Later, when we had a few actors hanging out in the writers room, she came in with both her children, her son and an older daughter, and after a moment she left with her son. I ended up going to the bathroom and found her nursing her son in there, which wasn’t a bad place as our women’s bathroom has a couch but I asked if I was going to bother her and that I could walk over to another building (we did have stalls but it was a bathroom and lord knows how many germs are floating around in there). She told me I was fine. I don’t know why she didn’t feel she couldn’t breastfeed in the writers room but I suspect it was because our writing staff was mostly men, and there were a bunch of male actors in the room.
I’d heard some of those writers and the crew talk about her “behavior” on set, of just “whipping it out,” and how that made them uncomfortable. Maybe she’d heard that do and didn’t want to “offend” any of them. I really don’t know, I never asked her directly I just thought it was odd.
And it occurred to me that the continued phrasing of women breastfeeding as “whipping it out” from the anti-breastfeeding nuts probably correlates with their idea of male flashers “whipping it out”. Women can’t “whip out” their genitals and breasts are the closest (secondary) sex characteristics that “protrude” (like the penis) and have the connection of being “whipped out” a la GGW or something to that effect and can seem as if their being “whipped out” on an unsuspecting public. The fact that that’s not the case at all doesn’t seem to phase these people.
And I just want to point out, I am a childfree person and I have no problem with women breastfeeding in public and I hope I’m not in the childfree minority on that.
Albeit that wasn’t (according to women who should have known) what those couches were for — they were ostensibly for the convenience of women who were suddenly seized by exhaustion during “that time of the month”, or by a fit of the vapours. The owmen I knew who worked in offices that had such would have preferred another stall or two most of the time…
Sort of off-topic (and yet relevant), if there are any knitting moms-to-be on the thread, or if you’re a knitter and know a pregnant woman, Knitty.com has a cute tank top called Peek-A-Boob that has a hidden button panel that you open up in order to feed. Very clever design, and handy for hot climates.
I could see pointing a woman to the restroom at Nordstrom’s since they have large lounges with comfy couches that would be much more comfortable for nursing than a dressing room, but a restaurant? Everyone else is eating, why not the baby?
re: paul
I knew that old England had ‘fainting couches’, for when the women is getting /really/ short breathed from the corset that squeezes all her organs up into her rib cage.
I like bathrooms that are clean and have couches on them in a little room to the side. I forgot which mall had that, it’s really neat looking, gives me a comfortable place to rest mid-shopping, away from The Male Gaze that are totally there. One of the washrooms at the university I go to have that too, and sometimes people nap on that couch.
I would guess that the fainting couches were mainly part of the turn-of-the-century Ladies Mile shopping revolution. There were various department stores in each of the major cities competing for a mainly female customer base. This coincided with the advent of indoor plumbing and electric lighting, of course.
Flashier restroom amenities for Teh Sensitive Ladies were seen as selling points.
Which is why you pretty much only see this in department stores (and the occasional posh old restaurant), even now.
Ok, Moms, here’s a little script for you. Practice it. If you see someone else who needs it, fill her lines in on her behalf:
Clueless authority figure: “I’m sorry ma’am, you can’t breastfeed that baby here! You’ll have to [go away; use the unsanitary bathroom our other patrons poop in; cover up your filthy disgusting body you whore].”
Mom: “Oh, Ok. Is it acceptable to bottlefeed here?”
C.A.F.: “Of course madam.”
Mom: “Well, in that case, state law says I can breastfeed here too. And if you have a problem with that, I’ll have all the network news shows and a La Leche League nurse-in here so fast your head will spin. Got that, kid??”
Ok, Moms, here’s a little script for you. Practice it. If you see someone else who needs it, fill her lines in on her behalf:
Clueless authority figure: “I’m sorry ma’am, you can’t breastfeed that baby here! You’ll have to [go away; use the unsanitary bathroom our other patrons poop in; cover up your filthy disgusting body you whore].”
Mom: “Oh, Ok. Is it acceptable to bottlefeed here?”
C.A.F.: “Of course madam.”
Mom: “Well, in that case, state law says I can breastfeed here too. And if you have a problem with that, I’ll have all the network news shows and a La Leche League nurse-in here so fast your head will spin. Got that, kid??”
I don’t think it’s “bodies are disgusting” so much as “secreting fluid is disgusting”, thus the comparisions they keep giving. And they probably don’t know that babies feed more than three times a day and aren’t good at switching back and forth to bottled milk, so nursing wherever mothers happen to go is really not “showing off” or optional.
Hey, I’ll give a shout-out to Nordstrom’s. They not only have a women’s room with a giant lounge with couches and chairs, but a separate nursing room with chairs and a changing table. Both areas are smartly decorated and impeccably clean (unlike the nursing room at Babes “R” Us).
I don’t think it’s “bodies are disgusting” so much as “secreting fluid is disgusting”, thus the comparisions they keep giving.
Yeah, but as wacky as these people are, I don’t notice any of them advocating that menstruating women should eat in the restroom.
Very few Americans think that one ought to retreat the the restroom to blow one’s nose, or that you shouldn’t leave the house if you have an allergy flare-up and think your nose might run a little.
Nobody’s ever been kicked out of a restaurant for crying.
“I don’t think it’s “bodies are disgusting” so much as “secreting fluid is disgusting”, thus the comparisions they keep giving. ”
Maybe, but surely breastmilk is among the most inoffensive bodily fluids we secrete? It doesn’t smell bad, doesn’t pose a health risk to anyone else etc. I don’t see what the problem is.
Anyway, it’s milk. All milk is a bodily fluid of some kind, whether it’s from a human or a cow. If bodily fluids are disgusting in public, then so is a bottle or a glass of milk.
“I don’t think it’s “bodies are disgusting” so much as “secreting fluid is disgusting”, thus the comparisions they keep giving. ”
I’m not going to be very articulate here, because this is an incomplete thought. But I don’t think the disgust over breast-feeding has anything to do with bodies or secretions or sex per-se. I think people (especially misogynists) have a distinct fear of mothering, which translates to distinctly feminine power. What more naked act of mothering is there other than feeding a baby from the breast. Just as the penis is a symbol for raw male power…
Bahhh! I’m sounding all new-agey and old school feminist but I do believe there’s something in there.
I had a friend say something similar to me once, while I was feeding my son. We were at a party and were sitting around outside talking/drinking and I was breastfeeding. I did have him covered up, more because of the mosquitoes than for modesty, and my friend went on a little rant along the lines of why were other women as discreet as me and why did they all feel so comfortable just ‘whipping it out’ just to feed the kid. Like how dare those women not take His!Personal!Comfort! into account before feeding their babies. My husband just got that look on his face, like he felt sorry for the poor guy, because he knew what was coming next. I came down on him like a ton of bricks and he never said anything like that in my hearing again.
Other than him (and a few of the husband’s older relatives–all of mine knew better than to say anything to me), I never really had any issues when I was breastfeeding. It isn’t something I particularly enjoyed, as I’m not a cuddly person and I’m very territorial about my body, but it is best for the kid and it’s much cheaper than formula (that stuff is very expensive). But I did it and I wasn’t about to let anyone tell me that I couldn’t do it anywhere I was that the kid was hungry.
Our mall recently had major renovations done and one of the improvements was to add a ‘family lounge’ near the food court. It’s really nice. They have several couches and armchairs, a tv playing nonstop cartoons, toys and a large rug for a play area, some curtained areas with comfy chairs and magazine racks for breastfeeding, a kid sized bathroom and an adult one, and a couple of microwaves and bottle warmers available. Both moms and dads take kids in there, but it is mostly women. There should be more of that sort of thing in public spaces, as far as I’m concerned. Not that feeding in there should be mandatory (and it isn’t), but it is a really nice space to get away from the crowds and let the kids and the parents have a breather.
Paul at #39 above has it right — this breastfeeding-in-public “controversy” is fundamentally about people’s right to be female in public. It is driven by sexism far more than prudishness or politics in the usual sense.
I’m more than a bit amazed that there is only one reference in all these comments to Bill Maher’s infamous tirade against lactivism last fall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa696L6M6Sw
(fast forward to 7:13)
Proof positive (in case anyone needed reminding) that fear of the breast is a bipartisan condition.
National airport (in DC — well, technically, VA) has converted one of the disabled stalls in the women’s room — there’s now a sign on the door saying “nursing lounge”.
Uh, lounge?? Not sure what the laws protecting nursing moms are in VA — they are pretty non-existant in DC — but afaik this is a new thing.
Not sure what the laws protecting nursing moms are in VA — they are pretty non-existant in DC — but afaik this is a new thing.
Also from the department of new things, last month DC adopted a law to guarantee the right of mothers to nurse. It’s actually pretty strong: it prohibits discrimination against breast-feeding women, allows a woman to breast-feed anywhere she and the child are otherwise permitted to be, and requires employers to provide break time and a clean and private place (not a bathroom stall) to breast-feed or pump milk.
http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/images/00001/20071015114725.pdf
I just watched the Bill Maher video. What a fucking tool. Guess what asshole? My child has a RIGHT to be nourished with the best food I am able to provide him. If that is my breastmilk, then he has the RIGHT to be breastfed wherever and whenever he is hungry with whatever means are available. If YOU have a problem with it, grow the fuck up and look way douchebag. Just because you see women as fucktoys for your own amusement and don’t want to be bothered with the evidence that we are more than that does not mean that lactivists are the crazies here.
Sorry for the rant, but to compare breastfeeding to masturbation is both logically flawed and seriously twisted.