GEORGIE BINKS:
Booby-trapped: breastfeeding in public is still a battle
CBC News Viewpoint | Nov. 5, 2004 | More from Georgie Binks
Georgie Binks is a freelance writer living in Toronto. She is a graduate of Queen's University and writes for the Toronto Star, National Post, and Chatelaine. She has written for the Globe and Mail, Homemakers, Elle, Glow and Style at Home, as well as salon.com. Georgie is a former CBC radio and television reporter and editor.
A couple of weekends ago, I was flipping through one of the Saturday newspapers and noticed, in the body of restaurant critic Joanne Kates's column, an item about a breastfeeding woman being turfed out of a Toronto restaurant. I checked the date of the paper, wondering if perhaps some 30-year-old story had become wedged in with the sushi wars. But no, Oct. 9, 2004, was the date. To this day women are still being shown the door, sometimes the bathroom door (where they can supposedly feed more discretely) at establishments when they breastfeed.
Now, for a culture supposedly supportive of breastfeeding because it's so good for babies and mothers, this comes as a shock. After all, the Canadian Pediatric Society recommends feeding a baby exclusively breast milk for between four and six months. Many women breastfeed for a lot longer.
If babies nurse every couple of hours, and a woman needs to leave home for more than that, there's a good chance that during those first six months a baby may need to be fed in public.
I breast fed both my children in restaurants, around friends, at the park, and heard nary a complaint. It wasn't that I was an exhibitionist – I haven't flashed anyone since. And I always covered up when I did it, because I was feeding my child, not attempting to entice a waiter.
In fact, a friend of mine, whose post-natal class used to head over for a coffee at a local bagel joint on Toronto's Yonge St. more than 20 years ago, remembers the waiter, when he saw the eight of them breastfeeding their hungry children, quipped, "So I guess that will be milk all the way round, right?" To his credit he didn't run off and call the local constabulary to eject them.
But had he done so, he would have been in the company of more than a few
restaurants, malls or employers, even to this day.
Michelle Poirier, a mother in British Columbia, knows that too well. In 1991, she attended a lunchtime presentation at her workplace, breastfed her baby at it, and became the subject of a complaint because both men and women were in the audience. Immediately children were banned from the building.
Poirier was asked to attend another lunchtime presentation as an employee
and, since she couldn't breastfeed her child at it, she asked if she could have 20 minutes after to do so. Her request was refused, and she decided to take the issue to the Human Rights Commission.
Poirier says, "I felt confused. A part of me said, 'I think I'm doing something normal,' and yet I was getting these clear, strong messages that there was something wrong with me." She fought for six years before she won the right to have her employer
provide reasonable accommodation of her request.
Elisabeth Sterken, a nutritionist and the director of INFACT Canada (Infant Feeding Action Coalition), says their organization gets about one call a week from a woman who has been told not to breastfeed in an establishment. She says, "It's humiliating, it's unexpected and it's illegal. It violates the Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It's a surprise because it's a public policy to support breastfeeding."
While there are many cases that do come to light, often women quietly cover themselves up – screaming, hungry baby in tow – and depart, humiliated into feeling that what they're doing is disgusting to some people. But it's important for women to fight it and the laws are there to support them.
Sterken says, "Because there can be no discrimination on the basis of sex, and breastfeeding is something women do, to discriminate against breastfeeding women would violate that." She says in Ontario, the Human Rights Code stipulates that women have the right to breastfeed in public and that, "No one should prevent you from nursing your child simply because you are in a public area. It goes on to say no one should ask you to 'cover up,' disturb you or ask you to move to an area that is more discreet."
Sterken says the issue has nothing to do with discretion because, "The last thing breastfeeding women want is someone leering at their breasts, they just want to feed their babies. But to some people it is viewed as unacceptable and even pornographic. Some people can't distinguish between the normal nurturing at the breast and all of the other imagery we have of breasts that is very exploitive."
Fortunately in Canada, women are now allowed a year off work, allowing them to breastfeed for a year. And recently, Irish legislators passed a law allowing mothers time off to breastfeed their babies at work or to express milk to feed their babies. But let's face it – new mothers do leave home occasionally and have their babies with them. And yes, their babies do get hungry. I would rather have a woman breastfeeding at another restaurant table than hear her child screaming through the meal. Wouldn't you?
Sterken says right now, INFACT is acting on behalf of a Toronto woman who
has been told not to breastfeed at her fitness club. Sterken says the Ontario Human Rights Commission has ordered the club to make restitution. How ironic that while men and women parade around the change rooms nude (and a lot of it is not pretty, believe me), and people exercise in some pretty scant outfits, a woman would not be allowed to breastfeed in a fitness club.
Several years ago, I gained some insight into people's true feelings about breastfeeding when I was working on a story about a group calling themselves the Society of Nursing Couples, who breastfed. Yes, these were adults, men and women usually, who took part in this. It takes all different kinds, who are we to judge etc.
What was interesting was that when I discussed the story with friends, with the exception of one woman, they all expressed disgust. Ick, breast milk, in another person's mouth. The one woman who didn't find it objectionable, but also didn't think she wanted to try it, said, "Worse things go into people's mouths than breast milk."
The real problem is that female breasts are so sexualized, and that people are so used to seeing them selling cars, porn, whatever, that their real use is forgotten. Maybe we should stock up on copies of National Geographic so that our children can get a look at cultures that don't freak out when a female breast is exposed.
We're long overdue on this battle. People who complain about breastfeeding women in public need a reality check on what the containers are for. They're not just there to excite men – they actually have a use.
The real boobs are the ones complaining about them.
LETTERS:
I have been completely sickened by the recent rash of articles revealing society's distorted attitudes towards breasts, breastfeeding and women. I live in a part of North America that is apparently somewhat more informed as to the reason for the existence of breasts, but I am horrified to continually hear the illogical arguments against it being touted as a normal point of view. People just don't seem to get that it's not nursing in public that's abnormal, it's thier blind acceptance of the role of breasts as what amounts to genitals, appropriate for use only in private. That's not a normal way to think of breasts, but so many believe it is. I do think that while some people are not going to change their minds no matter what we do, our best bet is to encourage and empower moms to disregard the confused and misinformed and their rude comments. I think that the more moms nurse in public, the less noteworthy it will become, and the upcoming generation of new parents will have an opportunity to learn something other than the typical cultural view of breasts.
Sher Maloney | CA, USA
Georgie, you have done a good job in providing a very biased argument on the rights of breast-feeding. The women in your articles claim that they have had their rights infringed upon and been discriminated against. However, none of these women have taken into consideration the people around them who also have rights. While it is understood that breast-feeding has many healthy benefits for young children there is absolutely no need to do it publicly. Washrooms are provided for privacy and if there is no place in there for this then maybe that's what women should be fighting for instead. Another very obvious option would be to pump the breast milk prior to going out in public so that there is easy access to bottles when children are hungry. Women need to remember that they are arguing for the health of their children, not the right to expose a breast in public for feeding. There are alternatives so that the children can still receive essential nutrients and though they may be "inconvenient" that's how a lot of things in life are. Breast-feeding is a choice not a right, and just like with all of our choices we need to stop being selfish and consider how they will affect others.
Allie Venafro
I just want to THANK YOU so much for your awesome article, "Boobie-trapped..." You must've read my mind! I like to think of myself as a lactivist, writing outraged letters, standing up for myself and other breast feeding moms and just nursing whenever and wherever the need arises, but I know that I reach a pretty small audience. I am so glad that your article will reach people across Canada (and hopefully across the US as well). How wonderful of you to spread the word! I'm pretty confident in my nursing, but I know many moms who aren't... hopefully they will see your article and gain the courage they need to do what's best for their babies wherever they happen to be. And just maybe some of the ignorant fools who think nursing is something to be hidden will get a clue!
Anna Ostendorf
How wonderful to see someone writing about nursing in public as a positive thing. There have been so many columns in Canadian papers lately bashing nursing in public as indecent; and so many stories of women being turned out of restaurants and malls, just for nourishing their babies. Thank you for exposing this as the injustice that it is.
Kimberly Charron | London, Ontario
Breastfeeding is not disgusting but a woman breastfeeding in public is a bit of a problem. Let's set aside for a second the issue of whether it's an innate human right...and I'll concede the point for the sake of the argument and we can say that it is. There is still no denying the fact that it still makes some people uncomfortable. This doesn't mean they think it's disgusting, it means they feel uncomfortable. For myself it means "Am I willing to accept my own discomfort for the sake of that woman who feels she needs to feed her baby at that particular place at that particular time?" Georgie alluded to the fact that women don't want to be leered at. I don't want to be accused of or thought of as leering. I find myself looking all around the room trying to avoid looking in the direction of the breastfeeding mother. It's a problem for me. Not a huge problem but a real problem. Now if I'm willing to accept my own discomfort for the sake of this woman breastfeeding her child in a public place but is it too much to ask that the mother take the feelings of people like me into account when she decides when and where to breastfeed?
J Ralph | Victoria
I just read the article on breastfeeding and I felt as though the clock had been turned back! I came to Canada from the UK over thirty years ago and when I had my family I breast fed them wherever I was. It seemed most of North America was on the bottle at the time and I felt like a pioneer. The reaction at skating rinks and or other public places was quite sympathetic and supportive. Mums would ask if their children could watch as they had never seen a baby nursing. I felt comfortable and certainly was never asked to 'move on'. What has happened since then?
Mary Koch
Georgie, I agree with everything you say, despite the fact that I never
breastfed. It just wasn't for me. However, I have to agree with your
friends and their disgust about "Nursing couples". Now, you've gone totally
over the edge. Feeding a baby is one thing, but THAT is sick. You've spent
an entire column defending breastfeeding and extolling that breasts have a
purpose other than male titillation (sorry, couldn't help it). Then you
speak about COUPLES who take part. If not for sexual reasons, what is the
purpose? Nutrition? Get serious.
I still can't get past seeing a child about four years old walk up to his
mother in the mall, while she was reading the newspaper and having a coffee.
The child says "Boob, Mom", at which point she whipped her T-shirt up and
fed the child, while the child stood next to her, stopping every now and
then to speak to her.
Here's my proposal, if you're old enough to have a conversation, you're too
bloody old to be nursing.
Debbie Burton
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