Whenever I lose my way, wondering if I am expecting too much of workplaces or the community or legislation or public places, I think about this photo. This breastfeeding mother should be our benchmark. Until mothers everywhere can incorporate breastfeeding seamlessly into their lives, until mothers can breastfeed and be whole members of our society, until mothers can breastfeed and talk to the leaders of their country at the same time.. we will not have gone far enough.
Harassing women for their choices about feeding their babies? Inexcusable. Mothers who bottle-feed should never be the targets of judgementalism and crusading. Individualism lets institutional reform and collective responsibility off the hook while hanging some poor exhausted mother out to dry. But when we think the breastfeeding campaign has gone too far bear this in mind..
Show me the women who are losing their jobs for formula feeding.
Show me the women who are being kicked out of restaurants, swimming pools, gyms, childcare centres, and airplanes for formula feeding.
Show me the immigrant women whose babies are removed because, among other things, they planned to formula feed.
Show me the women who have been ordered to cease or interrupt formula feeding by family courts.
Show me the people who, on seeing a bottle pulled out in a public place, will wrinkle their nose and say in disgust, “Are you going to do that here?”
Show me the people who won’t allow infant formula in an office fridge because it could be carrying disease.
Show me the people who insist that bottles of infant formula should be covered with a brown paper bag so as not to gross bystanders out.
Show me the people who insist that all bottle feeding should be covered with a blanket, you filthy sluts.
The feminist campaign to allow women the full freedom to breastfeed is about all of us. It is not really about the choices of individual mothers and their babies. It is about women being considered as important.. as fucking normal as men. We are all made stronger when a woman can breastfeed, in public, as a member of her community, while getting shit done. Because when that happens it says that women belong, it says that women’s bodies belong, it says that women are here.
Breastfeeding being seen as disgusting and inappropriate is part of a much wider sickness in our culture. You do not have to be a breastfeeder – you do not have to have the desire to ever breastfeed nor even the breasts to do it with – to benefit from a collective voice against the ‘othering’, shaming, objectifying and dehumanising of our bodies. Because exclusion is exclusion.
——————————————————————-
(Also, the term ‘nazi’ is really pretty offensive – regardless of who you’re getting riled up with I don’t think you should attach it to anybody except actual Nazis, and I’d extend that caution to a few other words that are used in describing breastfeeding activists, too. If in doubt, stick with the adjectives ‘fucking annoying’ instead).
blue milk 
Love it. Thanks so much for this post.
How wonderful it would be if we could sit around a food court and feed our babies as we tuck into a takeaway… without the filthy looks from bystanders.
I just don’t understand why breastfeeding is considered so off-putting. Boobs exist for the very purpose of feeding a child. And a breastfeeding child exposes less of it’s mother’s breast than some of those skimpy tops I see women wearing.
Great photo and some serious truth, eloquently put.
Absolutely concur.
A sad truth that breastfeeding is far from normalised and will probably not be as long as formula (as a product and commercial alternative) will be tirelessly championed.
Feeding choice is and always will be a battleground in which Mothers and babies are caught up in.
Great post.
Thanks for this post.
Excellent blog post. I breastfed for a little over a year and was surprised at the uncomfortable/judgmental glances. Women, more than men, in my experience were the ones ‘offended’ by my discreet & natural action; and I never figured out exactly what to say to them.
“..It says that women belong, it says that women’s bodies belong, it says that women are here.”
This is perfect. THIS is what the whole issue of normalizing breastfeeding is about … just when I was beginning to lose my sense of purpose in all of it, too. Thank you. Seriously, thank you.
Love this post! Love the picture, too.
Wonderful post. Thank you.
I too am REALLY annoyed by the use of the term nazis with breastfeeding.
I live in a part of Australia – northern NSW with the highest rates of breasfeeding in Australia. Why? because no one thinks anything of it, in fact all I ever got when feeding my baby where knowing smiles from other mums and rubs on the backs as other mums went past in an encouraging way. It was only when we went to Sydney where I was ever asked to cover up- my reply being ” NO I will not and shall i call the antidiscrimination board??” or was given weird looks. When my daughter was nearly 2 i had someone say to me while on holiday” Are you STILL breastfeeding that child??” Why do other people take it so personally! great post!!
I find the regional variation in response to breastfeeding fascinating. I wonder how much of the variation is the laws leading to opinion changes and how much is opinion changes leading to law changes. I live in urban southern California. No one EVER said anything negative to me here while breastfeeding, even when breastfeeding a two year old. I am also protected by law- I have the legal right to breastfeed in any place that my child and I are allowed to go. But in other parts of the US, women are still told to leave restaurants, cover up, etc.- and they don’t have the legal rights to challenge that. I wonder if we had a national law, would it eventually even things out? Or if the nasty looks, etc., would continue in some reasons.
In my area, I actually felt more self-conscious on the rare occasion when I’d give my baby a bottle of expressed milk than when I breastfed- as if I needed to broadcast that it was my milk in that bottle, not formula. Which is all screwed up, too.
“I don’t think you should attach it to anybody except actual Nazis.” YES, that. Amen, sister!
My mother did several wonderful things to support me when I was a brand-new parent, but the thing that I remember most was the way she would come to sit next to me and talk to me and coo at Libra while I was breastfeeding. She wanted me to feel included, she said, and that there was no reason I had to forgo grown-up company to feed my little one.
Would that everyone could treat breastfeeding like that – utterly normal, and no particular reason to be excluded from socializing.
Your mom is awesome. My favorite friends are the ones who do the same. I’m not at all offended when people I know approach me to tell me how beautiful my baby is when she’s latched and eating. Their comfort level with my breastfeeding is more than welcome. And a refreshing change from the usual.
That photo speaks a thousand words.
I totally agree with the sentiment. Though as a mom who did breastfeed & then switched to formula I fed in public & on a plane & in a restaurant and did not experience any sideways glances or told to cover up (I was for my own purposes most of the time). I’m sure it exists as people are still getting used to it.
I hope it can become the “norm” and much more widely accepted.
I love that the baby in the photo has his fist raised. It’s the most perfect photo ever!
I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve been breastfeeding in public with no nursing cover or blanket (cafes, malls, parks, restaurants, on the bus, in the legislature, *everywhere*) for about 14 months now & no-one has ever said anything to me. (I live in Vancouver, BC) I felt self-conscious at first, but I soon realized that most people don’t seem to care. I also started thinking that even if they do, it’s not going to be easier for other mothers to breastfeed if I never do it. I am part of the solution: just breastfeeding in public more will make it more ‘normal’. (Which is not to say that will fix the problem & it’s somehow the fault of the women & babies who are discriminated against)
I have a 13 day old baby girl and intend to feed her when and where she needs it regardless of looks and the opinions of others. And I can tell you – let anyone say anything to me about it and I will let fly at them – it is the most natural thing in the world and something I intend doing as long as I can. I went back to work when my older son was eight weeks old ane even copped flack from OTHER WOMEN in the workplace because I pumped on my breaks so he did not miss out.
When will women learn we are not in competition and to embrace their sisterhood? Its still a long way off in my experience.
And like others have said- GREAT photo!!
I have 3 kids, all BF’d, my third is 6 months and I breastfeed her anywhere anytime she wants to, I don’t make a big production about it, I just do it, I think the photo gets comments because she isn’t covering up or hiding what she is doing, and it is obvious that her child is over 6 months old. It would be nice if it wasn’t seen as a powerful statement, just a mom feeding her baby however she wants to.
What a beautiful photo!
ya its a great photograph
Thank you for being so articulate and talking such good sense.
Yes!
to all of it!
but…I want that second to last (third to last?) paragraph on a pillow in needlepoint. 😛
[…] the need to continue fighting for the right to breastfeed without harrassment or judgement, in A word about breastfeeding nazis. She writes: “Until mothers everywhere can incorporate breastfeeding seamlessly into their […]
[…] to comments removed because there was some lovely stuff said in defence of mothers who breastfeed. These are my views on breastfeeding in public – The feminist campaign to allow women the full freedom to breastfeed is […]
[…] seriously need a Tumblr already for ace breastfeeding photos, because here and here and here and here. Share this:StumbleUponEmailTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this […]
Show me women who have been told to stop breastfeeding in public or at work.
I have never seen or experienced any sort of discouragement for the practice. I have never heard or read anything where a person describes it as “disgusting.” Who are these enemies of public breastfeeding? Do you have links to news stories? Cuz this seem purely imaginary. No one bats an eye when a woman feeds her baby at the breast in public.
I can say I have had someone comment about how disgusting it was for me to feed my baby (at this time under 6mths) while grocery shopping, but guess what she didn’t say it next to me but as she walked down isle, next to my Husband.
and my sister in a parenting room was also told I don’t want to see that it’s wrong go do it soomewhere else, with a 1month old.
luckily i have only had these few comments, and more encouraging ones as well. but, Corinne, breastfeeding women being told not to feed or it’s gross, disgusting etc, does still happen 😦
Right here, Corinne. Twice I was left, a little breastfeeding island, nobody looked at me or spoke to me, at two different family parties. I had several metres of space around me on all sides. it was VERY weird.
My in-laws asked me to go to another room of their house, rather than continue the conversation I was having in the loungeroom.
Local radio station had a ring in about women breastfeeding in public. Over half the respondents didn’t like it. In Canberra this is pretty amazing. One of them was a cafe owner. I felt like calling her and daring her to put up a sign saying breastfeeding wasn’t welcome because a) her sales would have dropped off immediately and b) it is legal to breastfeed in public in the ACT and she would have copped a huge fine. Women in Australian Parliament have been kicked out for breastfeeding. Google it.
[…] zdroj […]
Corrine, do you hide under a frickin ROCK?! http://www.growingyourbaby.com/2011/07/02/mother-of-2-week-old-infant-asked-to-leave-the-bus/
http://www.ksdk.com/news/national/story.aspx?catid=28&storyid=207946
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2014222/Breast-feeding-mother-told-leave-council-headquarters-multicultural-building.html
http://www.simplygreen.co.za/international-news/family-a-health/breastfeeding-mother-asked-to-leave-olive-garden.html
Is that enough links, or do I need to try to post the thousands of incidences?
Wonderful post, thanks. I have loved breastfeeding my daughter in private and in public. I would love all women to have that experience available to them, and not to be the recipients of dirty looks or obnoxious comments.
[…] A word about breastfeeding nazis (bluemilk.wordpress.com) […]
Thank you ….. I am a stay at home mother with 3 little ones 6 and under. I am still breastfeeding my son who will be 3 soon. I have had much support from my husband who is very open, thankfully. I have noticed however that the only ones who have turned up their noses at me have been women! Particularly women in the “zoomer” age. One actually said that I am not allowing my son to “come into his own”, and that breastfeeding to this age suggests it is for “sexual gratification”!!! I realized then, that all of these women were the ones who never breastfed and that if they had they would never say those things. My husband says the bond I share with my son is helping him be more of a secure child and come into his own. He is definitely the farthest thing from babyish. I am saddened by this reaction and expect far more from women. Maybe they are inwardly jealous due to never having experienced the breastfeeding bond themselves. I am sad for them but still expect more from them and will never allow these reactions to force me out of what I believe to be a sacred time in a womans life.
Gosh, this makes me so sad. I breastfed my son until two weeks ago, he is 2 1/4 years old. I was never made to feel uncomfortable in public, and often, older women came and told me what a great thing I was doing. For the record, I actually have massive boobs, and before having a child I never thought I would breast feed – but my hormones, my love for my son completely overshadowed my own feelings about big-boobs. Yes it was hard, it was painful, but it made my son well, it sustained him in life, and when he was in hospital with double pneumonia, I could feed him!
It is only now that I realise that the gentle peer pressure from other mothers after he turned one, finally wore me down. So many mothers thought it was wrong for me to keep breast feeding him – I was doing it for me, I was denying him independence, that was why he’s still a bad sleeper (for the record, he is still a crap sleeper).
My children were regularly waking during the night up until 3.5-4 and then intermittently until 5 and the youngest still occassionally now at nearly 6. She was weaned at 18 months, her brother went bottle only at 6 months. Both sleep patterns pretty much the same. With the eldest we looked forward to the nights where he slept through because ‘forumla takes longer to digest’ ‘formula fills them up more’ etc etc but it seems that whoever said that forgot to tell him.
Every once in a while, I would be uncomfortable nursing out in the world, and I would just remind myself that I wash pushing out the boundaries to make more room in the middle. I nursed my baby in a sling while chasing a toddler around the playgroud. I nursed in the library. I nursed while grocery shopping. I nursed both kids all over the place until they were 5. I nursed my six month old around the board room table with the General Manager and his coterie at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in meetings resulting from a discrimination action I was part of. I also tandem nursed, with two kids three years apart, I was nursing a 3 year old and a five year old, often at the same time, as I remember. I live in Oakland, which was very nursing friendly. In fact, all the moms on my block with kids around my kids ages’ were extended nursers.
My sister told me that whenever anybody comments negatively about your nursing, they’re just jealous. I decided that was absolutely true.
Fantastic post. Keep up the good work!
[…] as a member of her community, while getting **** done. I dont know if i'm allowed to, but HERE is the full article if anyone would like to read it all Gem(21) + Jay(24) Married 25/4/09 DD: […]
Hey it’s great if you choose to breastfeed all the power to ya. But really do you have to make the ones( yes I’m one of them ) that didn’t feel like a no good mother just cause she didn’t. It’s your choice same as it is mine to not. For my first son just didn’t seem like the thing for me, for my labour I threw up for 18 hours straight and as soon as he was born the nurse pulled down my shirt and said here now feed your baby. Sorry but can I have 30 seconds to look at him and enjoy him then get a much needed drink of something. Yes I know that isn’t a excuse but wow come on now. As for my second son my first was found out to have a wilm’s tumor on his kidney 29 days before I was due. When you have a wilm’s tumor you have a 95 – 99% chance to have cancer. Of course we always knew your first was special but really didn’t think he could beat those odds lol. Unforutally he did and had a 8 hour surgery to remove tumor and kidney and place a port a cath ( so he wouldn’t have to get a IV each time). So the long and short first son diagnosed on Aug.9 had surgery on Aug.18 then had 6 rounds of radiation then start Chemo on Sept.1 then second son born Sept.17 in between chemo treatments. So sorry but I forumla feed him too cause I knew there would be times I just couldn’t be there for him there were times I had to be at the hospital for 5 hours at a time while first son got chemo. I had a few people say to me oh well just bring son # 2 with you. But really is that a good idea I didn’t think so, so I didn’t I left him with my mom were she feed him the forumla. Yes I know what ur saying well then pump but I was wound way to tight and half the time I would forget to eat or be up for days on end between the 2 boys. So really what’s better my second son to be safe home being forumla feed or eating from me. Ok that’s my rant and yes I know not everyone will like what I wrote but this is the I feel so had to put it out there. Thanks for thanking the time to read.
Thanks for this; I agree that we should support and encourage breastfeeding and I would like to see it more normalized — I know that among my group of mom friends, breastfeeding is pretty standard, boring stuff, as it should be; people don’t really care in my city (as they shouldn’t). I’m glad I live in a place where breastfeeding is absolutely fine, anywhere.
I do have to say that I disagree with you on one point…
“Show me the people who, on seeing a bottle pulled out in a public place, will wrinkle their nose and say in disgust, ‘Are you going to do that here?'”
I did a mix of breastfeeding and formula feeding for my now-eight-month-old because I was medically unable to produce enough breastmilk for her, despite taking medications and herbs and spending five hours a day attached to a breast pump. And there were several times that I pulled out a bottle in a public place and was met by people wrinkling their nose and saying “Aren’t you breastfeeding your baby?” I had (and have) so much guilt over not being able to breastfeed exclusively that those comments left me absolutely gutted.
I don’t refer to “breastfeeding nazis.” But I do despise judgers from any camp. It’s no one’s business how, when and where a parent feeds his or her child as long as the child is being cared for. People need to stop judging people for breastfeeding, for formula feeding — for everything to do with parenting that doesn’t put the child at risk. We all need to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing so damn much.
[…] mother decides this is how she wants to live her life. But in theory it should be possible – women should be able to be full participants in life without being marginalised by their gender. And that’s feminism. Secondly, attachment parenting is also supposed to be about attending to, […]
[…] found some here and some more here. Until he’s two, I can say ‘If I stop feeding, he’d need […]
When the hospital’s professional lactation specialist, even after you’ve informed her that breast feeding did not work with your first child even with with much effort and that you did intend to go through that experience again, relentlessly harasses your wife and brings her to tears, stronger words than “f-ing annoying” are needed.
[…] is why breastfeeding is a feminist issue. Share this:StumbleUponEmailTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this […]
Yep – hassling women who breastfeed, hassling women who don’t breastfeed, people feel they have an endless right to judge. I’ve caught myself doing it. And having done it, I know it’s just lousy behaviour. But you know what – every time we accept someone else for what they’re doing, like breastfeeding in public, or bottle feeding their bub, then we’re doing something good for other women. Some women can’t breast feed, some women don’t want to. Choice is choice. Supporting each other in our choices is what is important.
How can breastfeeding a child be seen as disgusting though? Some people are really bent in the head – it sounds like hyper-internalised puritanism. Breasts are only sexual objects according to that attitude. Like I said: bent.
If you asked me years ago, I would have totally agreed with this post. Hell, I wrote stuff like this myself.
Until you’ve been a bottlefeeding mom, you have no idea what it’s really like. I sure didn’t before I unintentionally became one.
I’m sure that the level of animosity in relation to method of infant feeding varies by region, but sadly no one is immune to the mommy-wars and woman-hating that comes along with having a baby.
Oh, and I *did* lose a job over it, in case you were wondering.
[…] is a great article by Sayantani DasGupta about the problem with all this individualism in the breastfeeding vs. bottle-feeding debate.. her piece also pays particular attention to the rise in anti-breastfeeding articles over at […]
[…] has a word about breastfeeding nazis and over at Feministe Meet Your Local Extreme […]
that’s the president of venezuela she’s talking to in the picture.
Great photo and post!
[…] at Blue Milk, “Breastfeeding or Bottle-Feeding, This Sucks” and “A Word about Breastfeeding Nazis” […]
[…] was just tooling around online and saw this article. Full disclosure, I haven’t read it yet. I don’t know whether or not I agree with the […]
[…] you know I do love to talk about the insidious rise of individualism and how it comes at the expense of collectivist action. This is my latest […]
[…] love this photo. But you know, I love images of breastfeeding that subvert the standard mother-baby image. Also, I love Ariel […]
You guys are ridiculous. It’s gross, and no one wants to see it. You have such a double standard. Once a baby is born it’s OK to whip out your tits in public. Your all self righteous hypocrites.
Perhaps if you stay home then you won’t have to see women breastfeed? I’d get your neck checked out too, if you can’t look at something else if you see a woman breastfeeding you might have a serious problem needing treatment. Plus check your grammar while you are at it.
[…] More for my collection of photos here of women doing life while also breastfeeding. Love this one. (Thanks Laura for the link). […]
[…] mother decides this is how she wants to live her life. But in theory it should be possible – women should be able to be full participants in life without being marginalised by their gender. And that’s […]
Noone is kicking people out of public places because they are breastfeeding. They are asked to leave if they refuse to not have their exposed breasts covered. Personally I could care less if a woman’s breast is out in public. I mean how’s it different than some of the shirts and tops women wear in public that practically expose their breast just the same. But however a public space is not your home and the majority rules. If people decide they don’t want exposed breasts out for all to see in their establishment. That’s their right. Not yours. The idea the world should bend to a single person’s comfort and wants is an amazingly selfish ideal.