At this weekend's LLL of Illinois Area Conference, I attended a session about helping employed mothers. The speaker, who was a physician who had breastfed after going back to work, made a comment during her talk that I thought was interesting. She said that while she rarely hesitated to breastfeed her baby at work while others (both men and women) were in the room, that she made it a rule not to pump in front of men, only in front of women (and even then only in more private locations). There were nods of consensus around the room when she said that, and a few people commented that they had encountered the same thing. Normally, I would have let this go by without comment, but this time, I had just heard Kathy Dettwyler's talk about "Beauty and the Breast" the previous day. (Hi, Kathy.) So it struck me as curious and I started to wonder about what kind of cultural assumptions are in action here. Another LLLL who was at the session with me suggested that maybe it's because the nipple may be exposed and you can see the milk, which comes out quickly during let downs and only dribbles at other times, thus revealing the breast as a functional object instead of a sexual object. And there is also that tendency to think of bodily fluids as . . . um . . . unhygienic. I asked a very unscientific audience of one male (my dh) about it, and he said that maybe it's because a pump seems vaguely like some kind of sex toy. :-) (Very unscientific and revealing the bias of the subject interviewed.) Or maybe it's just another cultural thing and women are only uncomfortable about pumping in front of others because it isn't something that they are used to seeing. Maybe with practice and familiarity, women would become more comfortable about pumping discreetly anywhere, just like many of them become comfortable with breastfeeding discreetly anywhere. What do you all think? Nancy Jo Bykowski, LLLL in northern Illinois Managing Editor, New Beginnings mother of Emily (19), Noelle (11), and Adam (7) (not a new member of the list--just a skimming lurker)