I agree with Carol B. in regard to discreet nursing.  People react to
the idea of breastfeeding not the vision of real breasts and/or
nipples.  If I have told this story before on Lactnet, forgive me...I
have told it many times but I think its worth repeating.  I was helping
a breastfeeding mom who was of the muslim faith.  She told me of an
incident that had happened to her with a previous baby. She was in a
waiting room of a doctor's office with her infant and he got hungry so
she proceeded to nurse him.  She realized that the receptionist seemed
agitated but continued to nurse.  The receptionist called her to the
desk and told her that she couldn't do "that" in the waiting room.  The
breastfeeding mom asked the receptionist why she was being asked to
leave when no one could see anything.(The mom told me that in her
religion the only skin allowed to be seen in public is her hands and
face.)  The receptionist told her that it had nothing to do with seeing
anything, it was just the thought of it.

When my last baby was an infant(1993), my friends and I went to a
secluded river/ocean beach.  She needed to nurse and I nursed her using
a baby blanket over my shoulder to cover up.  A woman walked by and then
turned around and angrily stared at me.  I turned to my friends and
said,"Is this my imagination or is that women giving me the evil eye?"
My friends said it wasn't my imagination(I was the only one nursing a
baby).  The woman finally turned away from me and walked off.  It was
our turn to stare at her.  She was wearing a thong bathing suit.  We
found ourselves laughing partly because this woman did not look too good
in a thong bathing suit and the irony of this woman being so obviously
upset about my breastfeeding.  I was totally covered nursing in public
but it didn't matter one bit.  Again it was the thought of breastfeeding
not the sight of breasts or nipples.

When you have laws in place and discrimination continues, I believe that
it is time to take it one step further...ie. nurse-ins.  I have been
told by childbirth educators that what finally got fathers in the
delivery room was a radical act of a father handcuffing himself to his
wife in labor.  It propelled hospitals to rethink the issue.   At that
time, I am sure that people viewed that father as a radical, a "nut."
But now, we don't think twice about fathers being in the delivery room.

How many young women because of this discrimination are influenced by
it? When a woman is publicly reprimanded for breastfeeding, it not only
effects her and her family but all the people around who witness it.
How many women pump and use bottles in public because of this fear?  I'd
venture to guess that the surge in needing pumps has alot to do with
this discrimination.  So far breastfeeding laws have not changed
discrimination against breastfeeding women.  Many women are too
humiliated by the experience to seek legal redress. Discrimination in
any form survives because it is kept quiet and the victim is humiliated
enough by the experience to keep it quiet.  The light needs to shine on
this issue. Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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