Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/01/2003 3:28:37 PM PST by MadIvan
This week I will be mostly writing about breasts — so read on, smut hounds. Actually, I will be writing about breastfeeding. No, not so sexy. And that’s the problem, really, with the whole subject. We know that bosoms’ primary purpose is to feed infants, but we also live in a breast-obsessed society, where you can order yourself a pair of celebrity-lookalike knockers in your lunch hour.
Bosoms are everywhere: peering out pertly at the Baftas, bulging enticingly from advertisement hoardings, on extravagant display down your local high street, draped in wisps of fabric and omnipresent on MTV. Bosoms are sexy. Cor! Phwoar! Except, er, when they’re on display doing what they’re there for. No wonder we’re confused.
Not as confused as an Australian state parliament, though, which last week evicted Kirstie Marshall, a 33-year-old MP, for breastfeeding her 10-day-old daughter Charlotte in the chamber. Apparently this was because under some convenient antiquated law, Charlotte was a “stranger” to the house and therefore banned. A bizarre sort of reasoning, this, under which it would presumably be perfectly acceptable to breastfeed non-“strangers”, ie fellow MPs, without risking eviction. Let’s just gag quietly and move swiftly on.
In Britain, a plan to allow women MPs to breastfeed in the House of Commons chamber was blocked by Michael Martin, the Speaker, last year. He overruled plans to allow women to breastfeed in the chamber, committee rooms and public gallery and instead decided to invest in four breastfeeding rooms with nappy-changing facilities (maybe it’s just me, but the idea of a special “breastfeeding room” has an unattractively bovine ring to it). Two years ago, Betty Boothroyd similarly blocked a request by the MP Julia Drown to breastfeed in the Commons tearoom.
Something’s not right here. Breastfeeding is natural, and good for both mother and child, which is why health authorities spend huge amounts each year encouraging new mothers to say no to the evil bottle and yes to the cosy breast pads, pumps and other fun accessories that come with the job. Whatever your views on breastfeeding, it would be absurd to deny women the right to feed their children in public. Why, then, does the subject make so many people wriggly and uncomfortable? You’d think it was a male thing — and you’d be right, but only to a certain extent. I’ve seen men, often fathers themselves, die upon entering a room and sighting a woman breastfeeding her child: they go scarlet, they stammer, they make their excuses and practically gallop out of the room. Some men — often the older ones — are scandalised, as though a mother feeding her child was in fact (the hussy) putting on some kind of saucy floor show.
There’s a problem here and it’s not the mother’s: it’s to do with men having instantly sexual reactions to a bosom. There’s a time and a place for sexual reactions to a pair of bosoms, and a nursing woman — maternal, gentle, nurturing — is not an appropriate recipient of such thoughts. Which men know full well — hence their usually completely OTT reaction: panic, alarm, bluster, exit and the muttered “I think it’s disgraceful” and “Couldn’t she find a quiet room?” which tell you more about the complainant than about the hapless woman.
I find this strange and incredibly irritating. If men can’t differentiate between bosoms doing their thing and bosoms bursting alluringly out of a bra on a billboard — well, it’s about time they tried harder and time we stopped indulging them. Why should a nursing mother be penalised for other people’s uncomfortable thoughts? Why should she be driven to nursing her children furtively, in another room, or with a ridiculous giant blanket thrown over both mother and child? What annoys and flummoxes me more, though, is the way the “disgraceful” argument has trickled its way into women’s reactions.
I know two women with small babies who wouldn’t dream of breastfeeding in public: they simply won’t do it, even though this refusal can, and does, lead to incredible discomfort and stress for everybody involved.
Neither of them, pre-baby, would have batted an eyelid at going out in the skimpiest, sheerest, most revealing tops. Both go topless on holiday and have never expressed discomfort at the idea of having it all on show for anyone who cares to cop an eyeful. So what’s the problem now? “It’s not nice,” apparently. And this isn’t necessarily a bonkers minority female view: motherhood, with its attendant insecurities, has a way of turning the most unlikely people into total weeds or temporary prigs. Nobody, after all, is suggesting you take off your shirt and bra to breastfeed comfortably: we’re talking discreet. And yet there is a division: women who breastfeed in public are almost despised by women who breastfeed only in private.
It’s a sorry, namby-pamby, babyish (ho ho) state of affairs. The Victoria state parliament has ordered a review of parliamentary rules as a result of Marshall’s eviction last week, which is something. Back over here, though, women are still made to feel ambiguous about doing something as fundamental as feeding their own children wherever they happen to be at the time. How pathetic can you get? And would Kirstie Marshall have been evicted if she’d merely been wearing a very low-cut top?
According to research, one in four women takes no exercise at all. According to the Daily Mail, this means they’re going to die of cancer. This is a bit rich, no? One in four women may not go to the gym, or go jogging, but unless they are clinically obese and need to be craned out of their seat to get to the shops, they walk, run, hare after their children, bend down to pick up socks and toys with the monotony of an aerobics routine, and so on. We work all the hours God sends, we bring up children, we run houses, we try to remain vaguely physically attractive; we split ourselves into 18 to please everybody and make sure everyone’s happy — and it’s not good enough, because we should swim more. Is it any wonder one in four of us would rather put her feet up?
Regards, Ivan
So is changing dipers. I would rather they didn't do that in public either.
No, my distinguished colleagues, I rise today to protest the puffy pregnant face of Hitlery Rod 'Em--
--at every moment I fear that lumpy mask of hate will explode with a thousand reptilian aliens, screeching and flying about the chamber on leathery bat wings.
We have a winner!
All the time. Excellent clothes available from Motherwear.com, or ElizabethLee Designs, if you can sew.
I personally prefer having a private room available, not because of nursing, but because of all the diaper changes, especially with a newborn.
Now tell all those non-breastfeeding women to put some clothes on already!
I just feel more comfortable nursing in private, if possible, especially compared to nursing in the House of Commons, which is very crowded. I like to be able to talk to my babies, to check their positioning, etc., without disturbing others.
This is natural and people just need to get over it.
Yes and no. Different things are appropriate in different situations. I think courtesy to others includes making reasonable efforts to nurse discreetly.
Emphasis on "reasonable." I'm not going to stay home for a year because a few people are sex-crazed idiots. Make that "sex-crazed idiots who hate babies," which really just about describes modern Western culture, doesn't it?
Regards, Ivan
Same logic for public sexual intercourse...
and guns...
and diaper-changes at the restaurant table...
and watching sausages get made...
If we're not going to let a little discomfort-of-others stop breast-feeding, well then you're going to get a few other unintended consequences, my friend.
So you won't mind if my spouse and I 'go for it' in our front yard? How about in the booth next to you at Red Lobster? God created us to celebrate our union and be fruitful and multiply, after all.
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