The harassment women face when nursing their babies in public has more to do with societies lack of respect for women, and knowledge of their biology, than it does with societies use of breasts and sex to sell things.
There is no denying the sexual aspect of breasts. Breasts are the secondary sex characteristics of a female human, like facial hair on a man. A sign of maturity and fertility. They develop before we have babies so as to attract a man. Plus, they're FULL of nerve endings! Even in cultures where breasts are never 'forbidden' (a blueprint for attraction) and there is no sense of shame surrounding them, men still like to lick them. It's normal. It's really ok even, some women are even lucky enough to achieve breast orgasms. I know two actually. Neither has volunteered to show me how, however.
There is no denying the sexual aspect of breasts. Breasts are the secondary sex characteristics of a female human, like facial hair on a man. A sign of maturity and fertility. They develop before we have babies so as to attract a man. Plus, they're FULL of nerve endings! Even in cultures where breasts are never 'forbidden' (a blueprint for attraction) and there is no sense of shame surrounding them, men still like to lick them. It's normal. It's really ok even, some women are even lucky enough to achieve breast orgasms. I know two actually. Neither has volunteered to show me how, however.
So in a culture obsessed with sex and where sex does indeed sell, what else should be used to market sex? The woo woo? YES! That's it! Then men would inherently lose their physical atraction to breasts and solve the problem because there would be no impulse to leer and no awkwardness at the sight of seeing a baby feed off the thing they like to lick. Right? Um no. Society can't perpetuate biology. How are we to expect men to respect -what the whole thing boils down to- the anatomy of a woman if can't admit breasts are just as equally for fondling as they are for lactating? Men will always be physically attracted to breasts. It's what they are for, just as much as they are to feed a baby.
If peacocks fed their young with their feathers there wouldn't be such drama in the peacock world because there isn't sexism in the peacock world.
Biological attraction is not a defense for being an asshole, of course. Society may not be able to control biological attraction but it can impose impulse control. That's for damn sure. Canadian and American society knows a defense for raping a woman based on what she is wearing is no defense at all. Men are expected to have impluse control and when they lack that control for any reason, they are jailed. Not a concept hard to accept or understand. So what is so hard to understand about controlling the impulse to look? or the impulse to make obvious ones own discomfort at such a sight? In Canada, breastfeeding laws designed to protect breastfeeding mothers are based on the notion that both men and women are entitled to equal rights.
Harassing a women verbally or with leers while she is breastfeeding is gender discrimination because it is based on her biology-I am woman, I will lactate. Harassing a mother for feeding her child because she's a woman is no different than harassing a women in the workplace, because she's a woman.
There is a line however in Canadian and American society that divides the sexist andthe stupid those who simply do not understand. I have spoken to intelligent, educated, cultured men and women of career age who believed breastfeeding was something better kept private until they had their own breastfed baby. At that point a little bell rang off that said, "A breastfeeding woman does not want for the attention of men and can't be compared to a hoebag running around like a peacok with her feathers flying in the wind screaming 'Look at meee! I'm fertile!'. Leers will not flatter her. She will feel violated because she is using her body for something some jackoff staring at her doesn't understand and that her baby needs.
Harassing a women verbally or with leers while she is breastfeeding is gender discrimination because it is based on her biology-I am woman, I will lactate. Harassing a mother for feeding her child because she's a woman is no different than harassing a women in the workplace, because she's a woman.
There is a line however in Canadian and American society that divides the sexist and
So if she's not asking to be looked at, perhaps you shouldn't look?, I mean really, have you no impulse control?" Both societies need to start educating children about what breasts are really for. Sexually, and lactatingly speaking. I mean, they are kind of important, and we all know what kind of change teaching children can bring.
It's true not all men who feel awkward at the sight of breastfeeding would shame a mother into exclusion though. That really takes a special sort of stupid, usually perpetuated by patriarchy. I often hear men say we ought compromise. We ought understand their biological attraction to breasts and therefore be discreet. Isn't that the same reason women cover their faces in the Islamic faith? Because the sight of a female cheek bone may send a man into distraction? Yes. It's the same thing and no I won't (nor does any western society) have tolerance for misogyny or discrimination. Maternal Feminists don't give a rats ass if it makes anyone feel awkward that there is a baby feeding off her breast nor will she tolerate anyone assuming it is an invitation to be gawked at or shamed. Nor should we. Their mothers failure to school them in female biology isn't my problem but if made my problem I will school them myself. Then I'll sue, because shaming me for feeding my baby is no different than shaming me for being a woman.
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