Annual “Boob against Boobs” rant

You know, I really feel sorry for women who have to deal with this idiocy day in and day out.  I mean for me, it seems like once a year, I have a post about some knuckle-head that finds breastfeeding offensive, or makes some half-assed comparison of breastfeeding to some bodily function or another.

It was back in 2005 when I went on my first (public) rant about this, after a Op-Ed piece at the Philadelphia Inquirer by Christine Flowers compared Breastfeeding in public to urinating in public, smoking, and blaring hip-hop music and suggests that women who breastfeed should use the bathroom.  This initial rant really caught me off guard, when Ms. Flowers actually responded to my post, calling me an “Alan Alda Femenist” (whatever that means) because she has every right to sip her Latte at Starbucks in peace, and women should just use the restrooms to breastfeed. (Yeah, that sounds sanitary… why don’t you go sip your Latte in there?)  But it did illustrate to me, exactly how pathetically dense these people are, and thus made me far less likely to ignore them… because they are not going to “just go away” or “have an epiphany” since light will likely not dawn on their marble heads.  (My apolgies, but philly.com apparently decided to pull this from their archives, so I can not link to it any longer).

Last year brought us another two incidents of stupidity.  The first being Victoria Secrets, where an employee insisted a woman use the employee restroom to breastfeed her child. Now, we can not blame the entire chain since according to Limited Brands (the parent company), policy certainly allows women to breastfeed, so it was apparently only a particular employee, but still was certainly a telling example of how even at a store which you would think knows a thing about women’s breasts, you can still run into this sort of silliness.

Of course last year also brought us the melee that started when LiveJournal decided that Avatars depicting breastfeeding were offensive.  Not being a LiveJournal user, and not exactly being a big fan of Six Apart in general, I did not find this all that bizarre (LiveJournal seems to have a history of finding ways to upset their users), but upsetting none-the-less.  Since it was “only LiveJournal” this really didn’t get all that much attention (outside of a few blogs), but of course that lack of attention comes back to bite when now Facebook has decided to go this same route and ban breastfeeding pics.  Proving once again, that just by ignoring a problem it will not go away, and will even manifest itself elsewhere, as it has done in this case.

But this pales in comparison, to the hairy chested machismo offered by Bill Maher in response to a story about a Mother that was humilated to tears, while attempting to breastfeed at an Applebee’s in Kentucky and is now trying to get Applebee’s to change their policies.  To be honest, I guess I don’t find it all that strange.  Much like LiveJournal, Maher despite being a seemingly progressive person, is prone to proving himself to be a jackass frequently.

I’m not going to break down his stupidity point by point, partly because it is so indefensible, it baffles me how he can try and  justify this.   Breastfeeding is no different that masturbating in public?  Really?  I’d say Mr. Maher needs some serious therapy, I mean either he has a seriously twisted view of breastfeeding… or of masturbaring.  I don’t know which, and in all sincerity, I really do not wish to know the answer.

But the reason, I will defer to others is really because you can already find it done better than I could hope to (and without the caveat of it coming from “some guy that shouldn’t be getting into women’s issues”…. hmmmm… I wonder if that is what an “Alan Alda Femenist is supposed to mean).  So, for the complete lowdown you can start with Sarah over at Suburban Oblivion.  Then go get the view from the Velveteen Mind who credits Sarah this time rather than stealing her idea  (I’m just kidding of course).  And the Huffington Post has chimed in as well.  And admittedly I fully expect to find something over at Domestic Psychology soon. (But no pressure Cathy :wink: )

You can see the YouTube video here.