India Knight: Well, pardon my breasts

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?

Hey, women can and DO express milk, bottle it, and others feed her child, when / if she is a member of the English House of Commons, or some other such " emminent " group and must needs to be present.

Well, since I didn't breast feed my daughter, I am assuming, by your post, that her self induced schedule was due to her being bottle fed. Oh, but wait a minute, prior to Dr. Spock, La Leche League screeds, and other such things, breast fed babies put themselves on feeding , as well as sleeping schedules. Gee, historical ( rather than animal behaviorists, now claiming that human women and wild animals are the same ) factoids are hard to refute with " modern " propaganda / annecdotal refutations. LOL

Yes, you're reacting, on a VERY personal level ( emotional, rather than intellectual ! ) to precieved complaints about nursing mothers, which do NOT appear in this article. BTW, this member of the HoCs, is a lefty Labourite. That's all, really, that you need to know. This isn't about " mothers' rights " ( ridiculous PC garbage ), your " feelings " , nor things you imagine are somehow connected to this thread. This woman was, FYI, offered a place , outside of the view of all, to nurse her baby. She's making a cause celebre out of thin air and so, unfortunately, are you. :-(

Breats feeding, went out of " fashion " many ( about 6 or seven, actually ) decades prior to the 1950's. Before that, for centuries, women , who could, hired wet nurses, or farmed their kids off to wet nurses. Doubt me ? Go look it up. :-)

What's the " long haul " ? How many years ?

Okay, okay, OKAY ... I get the point; you're one of those fanatics , with an agenda and don't really care about anything, other than pushing breast feeding down everyone's throat. Enjoy it, glory in it, heck, I don't care what you do. OTOH, I DO care about facts, the article on threads ( you refuse to stick to the topic ), and the bloody lefty, who thinks that she should brest feed in public, in the House of Commons, and everyone else be damned. It's females like her, who make men and women, who have the ability to think rationally,that women don't belong in postions of prominence; let alone the outside world !

Oh, now it's GOD's plan ? Well, it was GOD's plan, that we urinate, defficate, vomit, sweat, have body hair, die from measles, cancer, and the plague too, etc, ect., ect. Man has managed to circumvent / change some of those things.

Gee, sexual congress is natural and beautiful, as well, yet people don't ( shouldn't ) do that in the company of others, nor on the floor of the House of Commons, when it is in session, either.

You're a mind reader, as well as the judge and jury of me now ? Appropreating GOD's position, are you ? Get off your high horse, dear. You're the one with the agenda, who's obviously insecure / has been looked at funny whilst nursing, or had someone " insult " / hurt your feeling about it. Elsewise, you wouldn't be dragging this silly debate on and on. LOL

I merely stated factual history. You made it into a personal insult. My POINT was and is, that nursing an infant has only been " gloried ", out of all proportion, lately. As to my finances, yes, dear, I could have paid for a wet nurse, when my child was little, if such a thing were still available. It isn't and there was no need for one. Why would I have " been one ", dear ? I'm not the one raving about breast feeding here and neither was I / am I in such dire need of money; unlike you. ; ^ )

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.

Have you ever been the sole provider of food to an infant? They need to drink milk, one way or another, about one hour on and one hour off for quite a while (for breast feeding babies, formula babies eat less often since formula is harder to digest).

Sexual intercourse and feeding a baby have very little similarity. Your comments reveal a lot of ignorance about child raising.

They are very similar in the way that is pertinent here: they are both shunned because they are embarrassing and uncomfortable for the observer. That is why it is an apt analogy.

However, since you are not happy with that analogy, and apparently the parent can't wait an extra 2 minutes to find some privacy, let's draw the analogy with someone who REALLY has GOT to go NOW, and can't get to a restroom. Is it okay for him to poop in your front yard with your kids watching? It's a necessity, it's natural, it's embarrassing for the observer, and making the actor wait 20 seconds until privacy can be found (in the bushes next to your house?) is apparently too much to ask. Better?

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