The big difference for me looking at how mothers are treated in Australia or in the US is that  In Australia, access to health care is not dependant upon employment and women have a year's maternity leave (only a portion of which is paid).  Women in the Defence forces have the protection afforded by anti-discrimination legislation which include breastfeeding as a protected activity

But high levels of sexism is rife in the Australian Defence Force (a not insignificant proportion of women are victims of sexual assault) and I have no doubt that it is very difficult for many women who have returned to work to continue to express or breastfeed- but at least they have the option of not doing having to deal with that for many months up to a year. I think that there is a long way to go before we have policies on breastfeeding in place in the ADF but then again, maybe the current inquiries we are having into sexism in the Australian military will yield some change.

When I used the word barbaric  in relation to the US military it was the absence of decent maternity leave and the fact that women must decide when they are pregnant whether they will stay or leave and if they leave they lose health care (just what you need when you are pregnant). It just seems incomprehensible.

Karleen Gribble
Australia





> 
> Karleen made the comment, that Virginia may have made her comment, because it is hard for people in other Western democracies to understand the 'barbaric' practices of the US military in regards to breastfeeding/maternity leave.  In all fairness I have to make clear that the Australian Defence Force does NOT have any sort of policy or regulation regarding breastfeeding and/or pumping.  At least here in the United States 3 of the 4 branches of the armed forces have DO clear policies.  While they may seem barbaric in that the requirement still stands to return to work full-time at 6 weeks, at least the mothers here are afforded a deferment from deploying AND have guidance on when and for how long they can pump each day.
> 

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