Well said, Morgan Gallagher!

It seems to me (and I invite feedback) that, to Morgan's splendid insights, we 
could add the disadvantage a woman has in an as-described culture when it 
comes to developing feminine self confidence. If the only time a young woman 
gets positive feedback about her femininity is when she is pretty to 
provocative and the word 'mother' goes hand in hand with 'dowdy' 
and 'asexual' then she is hardly going to get the 'warm fuzzies' when she sees 
women nurse.
In fact, it may terrify her because if women are looked at as 'mothers' then 
the entire foundation of her feminine identity will be undermined. This might 
explain why there are women who are adamant about their breasts being for 
their husbands and not for, horrors, babies.

Another thought: There is something inside every woman that rebells at 
exploitation throught exposure (i.e. using scantily dressed woman to sell 
things, etc) The media seems too entrenched to fight back through boycott 
and protest (What will you do, not see movies, not buy books, newspapaers 
and magazines, sew all your own clothes to avoid going shopping and so on? 
Maybe if you lived alone in the Himalayas) Combined with the Puritan that lives 
in the subconcious of many Americans this could bring women, especially, to 
protest breast feeding in public.

There are many, many men out there, however, who see the totality of 
feminity as beautiful, who love the mother/companion/lover combination. If 
only we could convince all of our women that any other type of man is not 
worth the patch of dirt he stands on and she can happily and proudly be who 
she is.

On a personal note, I nursed all of my children, 'discretly', in public. No one 
ever said anything, not in a store or restaurant (or in a car, or in a boat or in 
a tree...) Until I joined LACTNET, I never realized how lucky I was!

Yael Edelstein

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