I'd like to share a couple of stories:

One of my favourite movies recently was "Iron Jawed Angels" - it ran
frequently the
past year on our movie chanel on satelite TV.  Its about the suffragette
movement in the US.  Basically it took ALL women's actions to get the vote.
There was a group of conservative women, who worked "with" the system, and
they had been waiting to get the vote, since the civil war.  But the
establishment (male) always told them "the time isn't right, wait", and they
did.  But then a group of young women broke off, and started picketing in
front of the White House every day, with signs that embarrassed the
President.  They were eventually arrested, and one went on a hunger strike
and was beaten and force-fed in the jail.  This got the group of the
conservative women so mad, and since they already had the ear, trust and
respect of the President, they shamed him into letting it come to a vote.
They won.  (maybe you know all this story, and maybe it isn't all true, but
its a great story).   Anyhow, it really impressed me that you need BOTH
kinds of advocacy - it needed the existence of BOTH groups of women, to get
the job done.  (The movie starred Hilary Swank).

second story, from a mom involved with the nurse-in in NYC:

"This is so awesome!  Now there is national attention for this issue.  Next
time there will be
even more people and in more locations.  I'm in Dallas.  Does anyone know if
there is a
national breastfeeding day?  If there is, we could all head to our state
capitals or the city
halls of major cities and thank the legislators who have passed laws
supporting
breastfeeding rights and protest those who have not.  I was not always a
breastfeeder.  It
always seemed like something most people didn't do.  I got educated on the
matter and
have been nursing almost 5 months now with my second child.  It would have
been really
great if I had known that so many people did this.  These nurse-ins,  that
could be
coordinated,  show both that we are a force to be reckoned with to our
"enemies" and that
breastfeeding is perfectly normal and happens alot to those who simply
haven't been *for
lack of a better term* exposed to it.  Thanks for doing this, everyone.

[asked for more information, she replied]
I'm a young mom (20 years old) and the more I learn about breastfeeding, the
more inclined I am to activism.  I started out nursing my first son but
quickly gave up in the face of thrush and no support from  family or the
medical establishment.  Did not help that I had never seen a woman
breastfeeding really at all.  Now I've got a two and a half year old son who
has tried to give his baby doll some "nursies milk" and an almost 5 month
old who is 95th and 98th percentile in height and weight.  It really does
help to bring breastfeeding out into the open.  For crying out loud,
anthropologically speaking bottle feeding is what should have to be
defended.  I know how
much it would have helped me to see other people nursing so I nurse in
public without any
covering of any sort wearing nursing shirts or regular shirts everywhere I
go.  This isn't a
modesty issue.  This isn't a public indecency issue.  This is a civil rights
issue confronting
the blatant misogyny that dictates how and when breasts are acceptable  and
what
relationships women can publically display.  The activism, or lactivism, is
so important.
Many people my age are spoiling for a fight and every mother wants to do
what is best for
her child.  We just need the visible support.  Email me at
[log in to unmask]
if there is anything else I can do for you.  :-)
(reprinted here with her permission)

Janice here again.

I know there are some here that don't believe in nurse-ins.  I was here on
Lactnet back a few years ago, when the late Elizabeth Baldwin warned about
nurse-ins.  I corresponded with her about it, and I can see her point.

But I ask that we support each other in our different ways of advocacy.  Are
you a 20 or 30 year old new mom?  How do you know what she thinks?  I didn't
start this nurse-in, but when I saw they were going ahead with it, I used my
experience with other events and issues, to make it as professional and
informative as possible.  In 48 hours, we put together an excellent media
package that I wouldn't be embarrased to show any of you.  We worked
directly with the NYTimes reporter from the beginning, and got an excellent
article, I think, with very few errors.  The issue made the front page of a
Cdn newspaper, the National Post.  We've had hundreds and hundreds of women
motivated and energized by this, across the nation.  Many have unique
talents that they have offered to this.

For years here on Lactnet, I have tried to point out that there is a huge
web of women who participate in breastfeeding support websites and lists.
In turn, I often use information I learned from Lactnet to educate and
inform them.   Somehow we need to learn to communicate more.
This is the action that these moms - the breastfeeding moms - have chosen to
take.  These comments on The View matter to us.  They hit us in our homes.
Most of the women around me in my small town, watch it most every day - its
just background noise while we live our lives.  These comments set the tone
for how people think about breastfeeding.  It can start conversations about
breastfeeding.

In my town, most moms breastfeed, for a little while at least.  But then I
realized - *they never do it in public*  I know they are breastfeeding, but
they soon use bottles, or stay home.  We have fairly good health and
lactation services here.  We have one year maternity leaves.  These women
are stopping because of societal attitudes!  Our battle here is about
duration, and the United States, you are not that far behind with a 70%
initiation rate.  NIP, and societal attitudes ARE IMPORTANT!  We can't
change people's attitudes, but we COULD make it politically incorrect to
make stupid comments and harrass breastfeeding women.

Some said they would instead like to see droves of women visiting their
legislators.  How do we contact and motivate these women?  We've now got a
huge number of women who are now interested in bfing advocacy, and want to
know about WBW activities, lobbying, national nurse-outs, etc.

But you know what, soon they'll move on, and we'll need to contact a whole
new group - well, another high-profile nurse-in can do that.

I can't begin to understand what work and effort it has taken to bring
breastfeeding protection to legislators, or change hospital policy, or many
other things.  I might not understand everything about what you do, and you
may not understand everything that PR and marketing might do.  But I hope
that I haven't done things to negate someone else's energy, or even
undermine their work.  I find it hard to think that seeing so many
breastfeeding moms, so united and energized and proud of what they have
accomplished, could be wrong.

Janice Reynolds
Nokomis, Saskatchewan, Canada, helping the moms in NYC and other nurse-in
sites

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