Hide Your Hooters, The Haters Are Comin'
by Here's what breaks my heart about ongoing debates about the ethics of breastfeeding in public: that there IS any debate. Shouldn't this subject be considered settled? Wasn't that the whole point of World Breastfeeding Week last week? To celebrate breastfeeding, and our will and ability to do it whenever, wherever? Was nothing learned from the Facebook/Bill Mayer debacles of last fall?
A mother's right to breastfeed - and, more than this, her child's right to be nourished - trumps anybody else's right to not have their particular body-issue buttons pushed. That's totally obvious, right?
Apparently not. If you're a reader of the Table Manners column over at Chow.com, you will have seen that, despite that column's author's support, in a recent article, of breastfeeding in restaurants, a whooooole lot of restaurant-going commenters HATE the very idea of women breastfeeding in restaurants.
An example:
Stay home and feed your child in the privacy of your own home. Nobody wants to witness the intimacy of you bonding with your child in order to feed it. And nobody wants to have dinner in adult settings like restaurants when there are babies there. You decided to have a child, not everyone who went to dinner at the restaurant. And nobody thinks it is cute to see your hooter in your kids mouth. Stay home and cook for yourself and your family until the child can order for itself and have a glass of wine.
Whoa. Misogyny much?
Yummy Mummy writes in a response at her blog, "New York state law says you have to deal with my breast in my kids mouth, dude.
Thems the breaks. Please stop calling them "hooters". This isn't a bar." Quite right. As does the law in many states and most of the Canadian provinces. But apparently the rights of mothers and children to do best by their health are meaningless in the face of some people's horror of the breast - at least, that is, the breast that is not spilling out of a Hooters tank top. Apparently, extreme cleavage is okay for dining establishments, but a boob concealed by a baby's head is not. According to some commenters at Chow.com, this is because breastmilk smells, and babies make noises while eating, and it's just all gross. You know, like urinating in public.
Here's the thing: boobaphobes can debate and debate and debate about whether it's okay for women to nurse in restaurants or clothing stores or airplanes or libraries or ANYWHERE in public until they're blue in the face, and it still won't change the fact that breastfeeding is a wonderful, life-sustaining thing that can and should and must be done wherever and whenever necessary. (Note: this is not to suggest that mothers who bottle-feed are not wonderful. They are. And they also face criticism when feeding their children in public, which is another subject entirely, one that has to do with society's problem with public mothering.) What remains is this: in characterizing breastfeeding as some disgusting, stomach-turning, shameful thing, they are shaming mothers, and in shaming mothers, they are hurting mothers - and hurting mothers when they are at their most vulnerable, when they are most susceptible to damage. New mothers - regardless of whether it's the first or fifth time new - struggle mentally and physically to do this hard, hard job, and adding to their emotional burden with a big stinking pile of shame-turds is hateful in the extreme.
Every time that another person cringes at a breastfeeding mother, or makes a comment comparing it to urinating in public, it makes it that much harder for a mother to fully embrace breastfeeding, to really feel comfortable with it, to escape the shame that she feels about her ravaged body and her ravaged psyche and her struggle to just cope.
That anyone in the world thinks that that's okay is the real shame.
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Comments
Hear Hear!!!
Preach on, sister! It makes me so angry that ANYONE would dare to criticize something so natural and loving. So peaceful, so full of love and grace. I yearn to see women breastfeeding everywhere I go. I think it is the most natural and beautiful of actions. I take my baby to volleyball and basketball games, restaurants and bowling alleys, libraries and grocery stores and have nursed her in every one of those locals and more!
My Blog: Impacting the Earth little, my children much.
http://www.yourimpactmatters.com
Mutha' Sucka
My favorite for some restaurants is where they sit you at a booth that had very little to no room from the table to the seat so that if you wanted to feed then you would whack your baby's head if you even tried. I have had this happen several times at restaurants I frequented prior to the new baby (I have three kids) and when I have asked to move to a different booth with wider seating or a table I have been told no those are already taken. In those circumstances I have either walked out or just stolena chair and sat at the end of the table. Now I personally don't need anyone sizing up my breast while my daughter feeds so I try to descreatly cover both of us from view or with my shirt or an arm. What gets me is when people in apssing have asked if I had seen the nursing covers? Nuring covers? Does it look better if I just shelter half my body from view and fear if I am suffocating my daughter ir not? They look like a tent! I feel saddness for some omothers who use them not because they feel ok doing it but because they are ashamed to be breastfeeding?! No one should be ashamed to feed their babies! In any way! When some people ask me why I don't use a bottle, I like to just say "I'm lazy, this is easier. I don't know what I would do with more dishes and sterilization practices!" He he you hsould see the looks then. It probably doesn't help that I'm 25 with three kids either. =)
Most definitely
I still don't understand why there is a debate, either. It seems like they think we want to expose ourselves or something. Nope, just want to do what is right and make sure everyone eats. And breastmilk smells? Whatever.
And the nut who said kids should stay home until they can order a glass of wine obviously needs another glass. They are far too tense.
You can't have it both ways
In my breast-feeding experience nursing both my kids to the age of 1, it seemed that the same people who disapprove of public nursing are the same ones that get all indignant about a crying baby sitting beside them at a restaurant. I know they think we should just stay at home if that's the only option, but that's ridicules.
I think it is interesting that our society is raunchier than it's ever been. When I was a kid, none of the major networks had sitcoms that spoke openly about sex. It was always veiled. Yet, during this time, this nursing stigma remains. Now, don't get me wrong, I love cussing and T & A jokes myself, so I'm not judging those who also do. I'm just saying that it's absurd that Two and A Half Men comes on at 8 central and people get freaked out by a woman's breast that is covered by a baby and a blanket.
I'm sure I offened many people during my nursing stint, but I always figured keeping my baby happy was more respectful than letting him scream.
Come share a laugh!
http://mommalittle.com
I'm all for women
I'm all for women breastfeeding wherever they need to but, Catherine, your tone here is absolutely offensive to me. You're setting up an either/or dichotomy--with us or agin us-- and that's a situation in which someone has to lose. I would suggest that as passionately as you feel about this, your point would be more effectively made if you were less insulting to those who don't agree with you.
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
I won't say "don't be offended"...
But if there is a wrong and right answer to the question "Should breast-feeding be permitted in public?" then Catherine isn't the one setting up a dichotomy: it's lying there waiting to be picked up. And if there is a right answer to the question, then yes, absolutely, someone is going to be a loser in the debate over the question: the person who is wrong. Catherine chances herself here by taking a position and saying "Here, this is the right answer; the other one is the wrong answer. What's more, there are some pretty bad reasons to be in favor of the wrong answer: breast milk smells? That sounds intuitively ridiculous."
Is there a position in the middle somewhere that Catherine isn't addressing? One that makes the question something other than a clear dichotomy? Those questions aren't rhetorical or mean-spirited: I'm curious to know if there is such a position.
http://backpackingdad.blogspot.com
I really don't see how I'm being insulting...
... so if you could fill me in?
It's only either/or insofar as I'm saying that if you support the right of women to breastfeed, you must absolutely support their right to not be shamed for doing so. You either do support those things, or you don't, and if you don't, I think you're wrong. Is that really so offensive?
You're insulting all those
You're insulting all those people who don't see the world in black and white. You're saying, at least for this issue, that there is your way and the wrong way. I hate that kind of thinking; it smacks of totalitarianism and I associate it more with the Laura Ingrams of the world than the Catherine Connors.
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
Am completely baffled...
... as to how being passionate about nursing mothers' right to not be shamed for nursing amounts to a refusal to admit shades of gray (and what are these, anyway? that maybe it's okay for women to be shamed, just a little?)
I don't see the world in black and white, but neither do i have much patience for moral relativism. And to suggest that anything other than relativism is akin to totalitarianism? Absurd. Are we not allowed to say that we think *anything* is wrong, full stop? Must I always preface a statement like 'racism is wrong' or 'acting on homophobia is wrong' with 'this is only my opinion, but...' or 'in certain cases, for some people, some of the time...'?
I believe that some things - shaming nursing mothers is among these - are just wrong. You're free to disagree. But isn't claiming that my claim that such a thing is wrong-full-stop is itself wrong an exampleof the very thing you are criticizing? Shouldn't I be allowed to state my opinion as emphatically as I have? Is it not tilting toward 'totalitarian' to say that I shouldn't do this, and that I *must* be a relativist about it?
If you disagree with my arguments here, fine, say so - but to attack my depth of feeling and conviction concerning those arguments is, well, confusing and a bit discomfiting.
Oh posh! I am neither
Oh posh! I am neither attacking the depth of your feeling nor am I trying to stop you from stating your opinion emphatically. And now I will state mine: when you stoop to name calling even in the aid of something you passionately believe in, it cheapens your argument and weakens the support of others for your cause. I do not disagree with your arguments as I have said several times in this exchange; will you please stop misreading mine in your efforts to silence me.
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
time for dinner
i have no problem whatsoever with women 'feeding' out in public. i
would much rather have that than a baby screaming at its highest pitch.
the same goes for airplanes when you are trapped at 35,000 feet with satan's
child on a cross country flight. let mom do whatever she has to do to keep the little one happy.
we are way too uptight in this country about sex, body parts, etc. and
this is coming from a diehard republican!
dave
gocalifornia.blogspot.com
Breastfeeding is hardly noticable!
What is so gross? There is no noise to breastfeeding and mostly no fuss. I've been around countless breastfeeding women. Those jerks on Chow.com need to keep their eyes to themselves! Sounds like they're staring a little too much!
I think the "gross out" factor is the patriarchal need for women's bodies to be sex objects or nothing. And the concept of abjection is applied to us and our body parts, making part of the body seem disgusting or like not-quite-part of the body.
-----------------
Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Contributing Editor, World and Latin America
Now THATS exactly what this is about, Liz!
Many man do not want to think of a woman's body as good for anything but sex. It's hard for them to reconcile their porn addictions and our breastfeeding!
My Blog: Impacting the Earth little, my children much.
http://www.yourimpactmatters.com
I think I made clear in my
I think I made clear in my first sentence that I am in favor of breastfeeding--whenever and wherever. What I'm objecting to is the strawman (breast?) Catherine sets up in naming everyone who is less than comfortable with it a "boobophobe." In her zeal for the topic, she denigrates everyone who doesn't feel as she does, and that is, to me, as wrong as outlawing breastfeeding in public. Your defense of Catherine is admirable, BackPackingDad, but you missed my point...part of which is that intelligent debate is suffocated when one or both parties resort to namecalling. But then, perhaps that's exactly Catherine's point: that intelligent debate on this topic is not possible because if you're "intelligent," you agree with her. I guess that's where she offends me. I do agree with her, but I always will defend to the death other's right to express their feelings and beliefs. That's my political philosophy.
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
I didn't miss your point
I just addressed the part of your reply that I disagreed with: that Catherine is setting up a dichotomy. I actually agree with you that namecalling doesn't add anything to a debate.
But nor does accusing someone of argumentative fallacies that they aren't making. Catherine isn't setting up any straw-men: she isn't making up a weak opponent to fight against, she is finding that people are really saying things that sound stupid to her and she is addressing them.
http://backpackingdad.blogspot.com
Boobaphobe
=funny
Or that's how I took it.
I suppose there are people with opposing views who don't deserve to be denegrated - maybe older people whose deeply held believes about modesty (so to speak) preclude them from understanding the need to breastfeed in public. But mostly it seems to me that Catherine was referring to misogynists like Bill Maher or those in the Chow comments thread who are mostly just rude. In fact I don't think I saw too many thoughtful anti-breasfeeding comments at all there. Just stupid ones.
I love your political philosophy Jane, and people like you make the world a better place. I suppose I just feel that in the end, some people really are asshats.
Mom-101
Cool Mom Picks.com
As Liz and BP Dad said...
... my complaint isn't with anyone who might have some unspoken discomfort with public nursing - it's with those who make a point of shaming women for public nursing, either by engaging in hateful talk about it or by acting or speaking in some way in the presence of nursing women that denigrates what they're doing. I thought that was clear from the examples that I use - the boobaphobes are those who react to nursing hatefully, by characterizing it as shameful.
I also thought that I made it clear through my reference to breastfeeding women - including myself - who are or have been self-conscious about exposing themselves. I totally get that some people, not least nursing mtohers themselves, are discomfited by breasts. But I also think that we should we should working against that - *especially* since we live in a society where so many other kinds of boob exposure are deemed okay. Discomfort around nursing absolutely does need to be interrogated, in my opinion.
And for the record - and I would hope that my own written record demonstrates this - I am a firm believer in the right of people to disagree. Nothing I said above precludes disagreement. That I state above that I am pretty much settled in my opinion that the right to nurse publicly brooks no reasonable dissent (v.v. the heated opposition articulated in the chow.com comments), it doesn't mean that I think dissent is not to be allowed - just that I can't imagine any dissent that would strike me as reasonable (I would say the same thing about racism and homophobia and the like - these are just settled subjects for me. Homophobia = BAD. That doesn't mean that I think that, say, fervent Catholics shouldn't be able to talk about their problems with homosexuality, it means that I think they're wrong. And, yes, homophobic.)
I'm sorry that you found the forcefulness of my feeling about this offensive, but I wouldn't change a single word that I've written.
Nor would I... By
Nor would I...
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
Hey, "By Jane", what is it with you?
This isn't the first time you've attempted to smack down someone on BlogHer in the guise of correcting their tone. You did it to me here -
http://www.blogher.com/quo-vadis-israel#comment-42146
- when I politely and respectfully challenged a commenter.
I didn't want to validate your own impolite, disrespectful retort to me (which was, once again, based on tone rather than the content of my comment) with a response, but in seeing your remarks to Catherine, I have to ask - what is it with you? Is being the Manners Narc on BlogHer really of value here? Is dismissing anyone as impassioned as Catherine can be here on BlogHer and on her wildly popular blog, Her Bad Mother, a contribution to the discourse? Or, do you just want to scold her, as you tried to do with me?
By Jane, what you're doing is EXACTLY how a neocon like Laura Ingraham will respond to a point of view she may actually embrace, but if it comes from a liberal, Ingraham will pounce on how that viewpoint was delivered. It's a cheap and mean trick that is meant to inflame, rather than inform.
Grace Davis
State of Grace http://gracedavis.typepad.com
Manners Narc--that's rich,
Manners Narc--that's rich, Grace. Considering that the post you link to (which was way back in April; my, my, I must have hit a nerve) was one in which you chastisted someone else for their response to a totally different blog post.
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
Breastfeeding, modesty, and polarization
While we have the idea of civility in our civil discourse I also think that when people are impassioned or angry or have a somewhat edgy tone, it does not invalidate their underlying point. I think it is valuable for everyone to see on a meta level that here is a topic that pushes hot buttons for a lot of us.
So, my view is that we do have something of a culture clash or culture war here as well as a struggle for what some of us see as a human right or a civil rights issue or both. At one end we have the extreme misogyny of some of the Chow.com folks. At some other place, since we are totally not buying into patriarchal binary systems or dichotomies, we have a hypothetical person who disagrees with public breastfeeding but who does not express it in a misogynist way full of disgust and shaming. and in various other places we have others who breastfeed but with a blanket over their baby's head for extra modesty, others who are fairly discreet but don't worry about it, and people who are like "my breasts, let me show you them. In ur face doodz." I think the boob-barers (like me) have got to keep in mind that for many others of us, wearing a short sleeved shirt or a tank top is immodest, and seeing someone else breast feed outside of a private context is shocking. For example I think that many people in the U.S. think that children need to be protected from a possibly traumatizing view of an adult female breast because it seems obscene. Now, I'd like to argue with those people and change their minds a bit about the way breast feeding is framed.
It **is** hard to have a discussion of these issues without creating some artificial polarization where it's boob baring sluts vs. baby hating prudes. I'm so glad we do have these discussions in public now... it's fascinating and I don't think they have happened in in public awareness like they have in the last few years.
-----------------
Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Contributing Editor, World and Latin America
Liz, THANK YOU
My 'boobaphobe' comment was directed at the misogynists, the chow commenters, who were the subject of this post (viz. the whole 'shaming' issue). I stand by my anger at them. But I totally agree that we need to recognize that there're people somewhere in the middle, who are quietly discomfited. I guess that end of the day, I think that the need to protect vulnerable nursing mothers from being shamed - regardless of whether shaming was the intent - trumps the sensitivities of those who are more modest, whatever. But those sensitivities should be acknowledged, and allowed their say (if that say is civil, and respectful of the problem of shame, that is. Anyone compares - as someone did last fall during the Facebook debacle - nursing to pervs waggling their peens again, I'm going after them.)
Thanks for your diplomacy, Liz :)
Drink wine. Better than waging war.
Look, By Jane, you miss the point. In my comment on that April post, I singled out THE WORDS that were used in the comment I challenged. It was the content, not the commenter's tone, feeling, mood whatever. There's a difference.
I won't play along with what appears to be your attempts to start a flame war. Rather, I'm going outside to do a little tomato gardening then hang out with my kid at the beach. If you were local I'd invite you over for a peace pipe smoke in the form of a glass of an excellent 2005 Napa Valley Chardonnay. You may say no, you might even say "hell no!" but, woman? the invitation is now officially out there.
Cheers!
Grace Davis
State of Grace
A flame war is exactly what
A flame war is exactly what I don't want...which is why I hate when we get "personal" in our discussions.
And where's local? I travel and I'm certainly up for Chardonnay...or any other alcohol. This discussion would be much better in person.
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
Having met you both in person
I think you'd actually enjoy each other's company. And ByJane, I believe you are moving closer to her neck of the woods. So maybe it's do-able. :-)
~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings
Come on over to the Cruz, By Jane!
We always have a fine vintage on hand and flowin'. And, we can watch the tomatoes grow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/graced/2733809155/
We live in Northern California, Santa Cruz. Come on down, woman! I have good references (see Ms. Tanton's above!) who will attest to the fact that I share my toys and generally play well with others.
Cheers again!
Grace
Denise's word is good enough
Denise's word is good enough for me. I'm actually closer up here than if/when I move. I'm in Elk Grove. and Santa Cruz is 2-1/2 hours from me. Name your date and time!
By Jane
http://byjane.blogspot.com
http://midlifebloggers.com
Let's all do what we can
I agree - I hate that there is a debate about breastfeeding in public. There shouldn't be a debate. If a mom chooses to breastfeed her child, then she should feel comfortable breastfeeding wherever she needs to do so to satisfy her child's need for nourishment. (And if you choose to bottle feed, that's fine too). So, moms should feel comfortable breastfeeding in a park, at a restaurant, in an airplane. Just like a mom would feel comfortable giving her baby a bottle in a park, at a restaurant, in an airplane.
I breastfed both my children. And I did it everywhere, proudly. But, I had to return to work, and so I expressed breastmilk during the day. Because of my work, I've had to pump in a courthouse, while driving, in restaurants, virtually all over. And believe me - I got more shamers pumping than while breastfeeding.
But, in any event, my point. Because I hate that there is still a debate, I've made the point of trying to support any mother I see breastfeeding. I will ask if there is anything she needs. I've gotten water, crackers, rounded up stray siblings, etc. I have complimented restaurants that made breastfeeding women comfortable. I think that if we all did that, and showed businesses that supported breastfeeding that we supported them, we could change the world, rather than waiting for it to change.
I think the nicest thing
I think the nicest thing anyone ever did for me when I was a public breastfeeder was actually make eye contact with me. Or maybe even smile.
This is as opposed to the way everyone else treated me - their eyes slid around me as though I wasn't even there. Better than some of the possible reactions, I suppose. But someone smiling? Saying "Hey, I see you?" in that absent way that strangers do?
I actually appreciated that.
Now, when I see a breastfeeding woman, I smile at her, to give her the courtesy of recognizing her place in society.
This is an interesting post and discussion
Thanks for the food for thought
It's funny because I am an ardent feminist, and in theory, I completely support the right for women to breast feed wherever.
But the truth is, that when you mentioned a woman breastfeeding in a restaurant, my gut reaction was one of discomfort.
Maybe it's because I'm not a mother yet, and almost none of my friends are mothers yet, but I *do* have a hard time seeing a mother nurse her child in public. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I guess I can see where the "chowderheads" (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) are coming from.
Likely, the biggest reason for my discomfort vis a vis public breast-feeding is also the reason why women should be encouraged to do it. The more you see something, the more you become accustomed to it.
But I think it's important to engage people in why public breastfeeding can be necessary. Because, my mind immediately shoots to: Can't they do that in the bathroom/car/have a blanket on top.
And it wasn't until a friend of mine (a mother) explained to me that
a) Breastfeeding in a bathroom is gross, because HELLO breast milk is FOOD
b) Cars can get hot
c) babies often hate having a blanket covering them
that I realized why public breastfeeding is necessary.
Obviously there are some people who will never see reason, but there are a lot of reasonable people like me, who simply have some discomfort about public breastfeeding.
As for the "You see boobs and cleavage all the time, so what's the diff" argument ... well, it IS different. Breastfeeding is inherently an extremely intimate act. Think of any other act that involves the exchange of fluid from one person to another. You ... wouldn't want to see that either really. It's not really about the boob for me. It's about the fact that it's so intimate it makes you a little uncomfortable to see if you're a stranger. It's like when someone is crying in public. You aren't offended but you feel a little uncomfortable that you are witness to such raw emotion by a stranger. Does that make sense?
That's why I guess, while I fully and completely support public breastfeeding and believe that, my discomfort aside, women should feel totally fine to do it, I also understand why other people aren't huge fans of public breastfeeding.
Ruchi
http://arduousblog.blogspot.com/