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June 08, 2005
Can a Lactivism Post Beat the Gay Post?
Let's see!
I will set myself apart from other "conservative" commentors (although I mightily resist that monikker myself - but please, let's not get off there) by saying I'm with the Lactivists all the way.
And please don't try to compare breastfeeding an infant with defecating. I mean - just don't.
Yeah, decorum and modesty and consideration of the feelings of others (which is why I drape) but never, in 20+ years of off and on nursing, have I ever retired to a restroom to nurse. I've even nursed, standing up, walking through an art museum. Don't remember which one, but I do remember doing so. Blanket drape, yes indeed, but I am not going to shunted off to a closet just because my baby's hungry.
I'm no romantic about nursing. I've known women who were and get terrifically sentimental about it. I'm not. It's all about the food and practicality to me. I also don't get nursing three-year olds, but oh well. There's a fight for the Lactivists to pick with me.
But poor Barbara Walters. You have the right to your Vaseline lens, the babies have a right to eat, okay? If Chavez can deal, so can you.
Yup, I'm so nurturing!
A scholarly paper on the image of nursing as a way to represent the virtue of Charity
Maria Lactans: A comprehensive collection of art
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Seconded.
Posted by: Nance at Jun 8, 2005 3:17:52 PM
I'm curious to know whether women breastfed in public say, 50 years ago.
Posted by: Lauda Jerusalem Dominum at Jun 8, 2005 3:24:49 PM
Thirded.
50 years ago in the US women did not breastfeed at all, in public or elsewhere. It had been put out that there was something wrong with it or something.
Posted by: Nancy at Jun 8, 2005 3:27:04 PM
I don't really know why people get up in arms about it, especially if it is done modestly, as my wife does it. I mean, really, compared to what a lot of people are wearing ordinarily nowadays to which the same people don't raise an eyebrow this is nothing.
Posted by: Sean Gallagher at Jun 8, 2005 3:31:15 PM
My mother felt like a hero for nursing 3 months. I nursed 4 of 5 for about 2 years. Insanely, in the 50's doctors (male!) decided nursing wasn't good for babies. Query whether this was worse than hiring a wetnurse so you could save your figure in Victorian times... and even later. My mother-in-law recalls seeing black wetnurses available (like day laborers) in the segregated South of the late 50's. Amazing. Something so natural, and we have to mechanize and replace it? Anyway, at least now there's support (coercion?) in the other direction from the medical community.
Posted by: scotch meg at Jun 8, 2005 3:32:52 PM
My wife was actually complemented by an older woman while breastfeeding in a restaurant last week. While we have had the occassional dirty look or snide comment, the majority of people have been very helpful and considerate when it came to my wife and daughter's comfort.
Posted by: Anthony at Jun 8, 2005 3:34:26 PM
Very good point, Sean. I'm a lot more shocked by some of the "shirts" worn by very young women in my area than I am by someone feeding her baby.
Like you, I don't understand the problem.
Posted by: Nancy at Jun 8, 2005 3:35:05 PM
I think that most folks feel much more comfortable with mammalian way to feed young offspring than avian ways.
Indeed, although we have scenes of Mary lactating to nourish the Lord Jesus and saints, we don't have a single painting or icon that I know of that shows the Holy Spirit as a dove regurtitating to nourish us, the children of God.
Posted by: Benedetto at Jun 8, 2005 3:38:07 PM
What do these women have that I didn't have ten to twenty years ago? A catchy name..."lactivist." I love it.
Posted by: Ellyn at Jun 8, 2005 3:38:46 PM
Amy, Great post! You are 100% correct.
I've never understood why the sight of a nursing baby bothered some people. Then again, we live in such an anti-natal society maybe it should not be such a surprise.
Simple decorum suggests nursing moms should make reasonable efforts to "drape" or otherwise be discreet. But whether they do or not, the horror some people seem to feel at the sight of a nursing mother is downright weird.
Posted by: Simon at Jun 8, 2005 3:42:59 PM
Regarding whether women breastfed in public fifty years ago: that may have depended on what type of community they lived in. My father grew up in a rural Nebraska farming community in the 1950's and said it was very common during church dinners and the like to see women breastfeeding their babies.
Posted by: Becky at Jun 8, 2005 3:43:44 PM
Actually, I feel just the opposite way from Ellyn. Does everything have to be turned into a movement and a pressure group? It reminds me of David Brooks's attempt to dub people who believed having children is good "natalist," or the whiny Christians who tried to introduce the term "Christophobic." (Both of these seem to have failed to catch on, thank goodness.) And their tactics seem either silly (the ABC demonstration) or downright sinister (wanting to amend the Civil Rights Act).
Posted by: James Kabala at Jun 8, 2005 3:44:57 PM
50 years ago in the US women did not breastfeed at all, in public or elsewhere. It had been put out that there was something wrong with it or something.
OK, then, 100 years ago. Let's look back on a time when there was a much greater sense of modesty in our culture, and see if public breastfeeding was common during that time.
Posted by: Lauda Jerusalem Dominum at Jun 8, 2005 3:49:37 PM
Putting aside all activism and "take that! you prudes" mentality, as the nuns who taught me used to say about our clothes, would Mary wear that in public? Or perhaps another way to put it, would you be comfortable with the amount of exposure you were experiencing while nursing if you were in a private audience with Pope Benedict? I think most Catholics wouldn't be comfortable exposing to the Pope as much as the young woman exposed to Chavez, but a light blanket drape would be acceptable.
Posted by: Radactrice at Jun 8, 2005 3:50:03 PM
It's too bad God didn't make it so that milk came out of our fingers. But then I suppose some folks would require us all to wear gloves.
Posted by: ajb at Jun 8, 2005 3:54:17 PM
Hmmm, I breastfed five of five, but still have a tough time with the activism.
http://feminine-genius.typepad.com/femininegenius/2005/06/in_your_face_mo.html
Posted by: gsk at Jun 8, 2005 3:58:17 PM
Despite my mother's horror, I breast fed my four children. My pastor told me once he did not like going in the churches in Italy because the women there breast fed their bambinos in the pews. Crazy stuff. Modesty is important, I suppose, but come on what are the breasts' function in the first place?
Posted by: Jane at Jun 8, 2005 3:59:57 PM
Lauda,
There's no doubt that 100 years ago public breast feeding would have taken place when women were out in public which was, more than likely, to far less an extent than today.
Do you think that a woman travelling by train would not have breast fed her child? The trains of the day were definitely not equipped with rest rooms that facilitated private feeding. Nor were carriages or any other modes of transportation.
Finally, the society of 100 years ago was far less (over)sexualized than the one we live in today. What's the big deal? If someone has a problem with the fact that my wife needs to feed our child, then it is their problem, not ours.
Posted by: Anthony at Jun 8, 2005 4:01:58 PM
Re: nursing in public in ages past, in the US:
cultural distinctions: Many women didn't nurse, period, and secondly, people didn't take babies out the way they do now, into social settings. I'm sure, though, if Barbara Walters, ace reporter, were traveling on a train through Illinois in 1889, chances are, she might have seen a nursing mother or two.
The cultural issue also relates to other..cultures. Cultures in which women lived lives separate from men for much of the time, this isn't an issue.
So...it's a new situation: A public society in which men and women intermix and babies are taken into situations, in urban areas at least, in which they weren't regularly, decades ago.
So, if we're taking babies out, and we're encouraged to nurse...why should the baby have to eat in a bathroom?
Posted by: amy at Jun 8, 2005 4:03:53 PM
+J.M.J+
I will just make a few comments, treading on eggshells all the way to avoid riling up the anti-breastfeeding crowd of St Blogs (as I've done before).
I'm very much in favor of breastfeeding, having nursed all my children (the oldest didn't fully wean until age 2 1/2). I once belonged to La Leche League as well.
But the notion of a "nurse-in" has never quite sat right with me. I don't believe breastfeeding should be turned into a form of protest. I agree that nursing mothers need their rights protected and all that, I just don't like that particular type of protest.
Also, I don't breastfeed in public because I'm just hyper-modest. I've just never been able to bring myself to do it outside a restroom (and I'm not just talking in the stall; some ladies' rooms have a sitting area, which I would perhaps take advantage of - but still try to cover myself as much as possible.)
In Jesu et Maria,
Posted by: Rosemarie at Jun 8, 2005 4:06:26 PM
Hey, I have used the American fear of Breast Feeding to my advantage. I never got through airport security so fast as when I told the TSA that I had a breast pump in my carry-on.
Posted by: Ambrose at Jun 8, 2005 4:12:31 PM
I was surprised that the article actually pointed out (in my mind) the true issue: "'To many mothers, breast-feeding runs up against sexual attitudes toward the breast,' said Dr. Lawrence Gartner." And the article mentions it again later on.
Isn't this the clearest form of women being a sexual object? Think breast, think sex or indecent exposure. Being a father of now three, I see how wonderful it is that my wife, through her own gift can sustain this new born life for the first six months or more.
As far as the social action, I don't have any issue with it expect the sad fact that it actually has to occur to bring attention to it. Fortunately, my wife hasn't been in this situation and she doesn't use a blanket. If anything, that brings attention to it.
Come to think of it, I'll have to poll my NFP classes and see how who can figure out how many times my wife nurses in class. I'll better barely 10% will have noticed.
Posted by: Adrian at Jun 8, 2005 4:13:04 PM
I wonder if the Starbucks' incident involved an offer of a "special latte"...
Posted by: Anon at Jun 8, 2005 4:14:19 PM
I've never found "in your face" activism to build bridges of understanding be it breast-feeding or anything else. A hundred years ago, a woman would probably have breast-fed on a train or a stage-coach or wherever she was, but it's very unlikely she would have exposed her entire breast in doing so. If you are breast-feeding discretely, people probably don't even notice you are breast-feeding. If you are doing it to show off, you probably are exposing too much.
Posted by: Radactrice at Jun 8, 2005 4:14:56 PM
I was glad to see Rosemary's post. The tone of the comments here is conflating anti-breastfeeding-in-public with anti-breastfeeding in general, when that is far from necessarily the case.
I never liked Barbara Walters, but the attempt to portray her mild remarks as a monstrous injustice (for which some are demanding a public apology!) is so ridiculous that is likely to backfire on the lactivists. Aren't there some real problems (e.g., abortion, world hunger, Darfur, AIDS) that these women could devote their time and energy to?
Posted by: James Kabala at Jun 8, 2005 4:20:17 PM
