A Boob’s Take on Etiquette | The Vancouver Sun

Go ahead, read this Vancouver Sun article about public breastfeeding by Shelley Fralic. If you agree with Fralic, go Youtube some cute kittens because you won’t like what I have to say.

The issue of public breastfeeding is undeniably controversial. I was willing to push past the insensitive and self-important title of this article, ‘Etiquette lesson for breastfeeding moms: Cover up,’ in the hope that there may be some kernel of intelligent insight on the matter — or heck, at least some original thought.

Instead, Fralic consistently frames her argument around tired and irrelevant claims:

“In a perfect world, public breastfeeding wouldn’t be an issue…  Some people think bare-boobed public breastfeeding is vulgar or sexual or culturally inappropriate. Others, especially citizens of the older vintage who were born to a different era of decorum, are embarrassed by it.”

Oh, okay. So Fralic’s perfect world involves a lack of issue surrounding breastfeeding. However, instead of promoting different, more tolerant attitudes, she spends her time (and wastes her editorial voice) lecturing on the merits of continuing to shame women for breastfeeding. In fact, she unquestioningly accepts that some people may deem breastfeeding to be a vulgar, sexual and culturally inappropriate act.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the very act of breastfeeding was not the norm. Despite its benefits, ranging from pretty important things like higher average infant body weight to prevention of death, people were not comfortable with breastfeeding. By Fralic’s standards, we should never have moved toward normalizing it.

I am particularly troubled by Fralic’s insistence that society cater to the taste of older generations who may have different gut reactions to certain issues. I do not believe in perpetuating anyone’s inappropriate beliefs just because they find them more comfortable. There was also a time when blatant racism and sexism were perfectly comfortable elements of everyday life for some people.

That said, this article also assumes that all people of an older generation are going to be against breastfeeding in public. Fralic insinuates that the very generation of women who fought to change the daily landscape of life for women would most definitely be in agreement with her own anti-femenist conclusions.

This is to say nothing of the fact that Fralic’s insistence that her piece not be interpreted politically is delusional:

“This is not an issue about a breastfeeding mom’s rights, or society’s skewed view of boobs, or even whether or not a business owner has the legal right to ask a breastfeeding mom to cover up or move out of public view.”

I am left wondering how a legal issue — one that has been settled, no less — can be turned into an issue of propriety. But if I am to believe that this is a matter of an impolite Mother, then I am still puzzled as to why Fralic is the authority.

Oh right. She is a woman. She is a Mother. And quite frankly, she is a customer at the store in question. Wait? That is her proof that she is an impartial critic?

She should not be an impartial critic.

I find it appalling, and really, very sad, when women do not realize the implication that their own words have in perpetuating inequality in their own lives. By virtue of nature, breastfeeding is an act that men simply do not have to face. Sure, we live in a world of paternity leave and far more open and liberal attitudes toward parenting, but there isn’t anything that can be done about the fact that women’s bodies are designed to provide nutrients for infants and men’s aren’t.

And I’m not saying that all women are unhappy about taking on a primary care role for their children. But, when parents decide as a unit that the benefits of breastfeeding are important to them, it is the woman who has to fill that role. With that in mind, it is important to foster societal understanding; to promote the shared understanding that breastfeeding is not “vulgar,” “sexual,”or “culturally inappropriate.”

I cannot believe that a woman would promote the shaming of another woman when it comes to breastfeeding — no matter how offended the sensibilities of a couple of anonymous people were. And no matter how much she might like the store.