The Unlikely Lactivist
TV NEWS LEGEND Barbara Walters once complained that her plane flight was ruined by a woman sitting next to her who insisted on breastfeeding her infant.
The things you have to put up with in First Class!
A great number of breastfeeding moms spoke out to protest Walter's prejudices. Baba got an earful! We didn’t hear such complaint from her again.
I admire all parenting rights activists— breastfeeding is a perennial feminist and healthcare issue— but as the years went by, I got swept away in other mothering priorities. Then menopause. Each has a common thread of “Get your laws off my body and respect my cunt!”
You may imagine my surprise, when fifteen years after I stopped lactating, I found myself used as an example of a milky pervert in a women’s column called "It's Getting Tough to Keep Abreast of All the Boobs in Nursing Battle,"
from the Boston Herald, by Margery Eagan:1
You know once I interviewed Susie Bright, a famous gay writer who jumped up mid-interview in her Cambridge room, whipped off her shirt, breasts waving in the breeze, to nurse her son, topless, as if this was ho-hum.
Only later did I think of clever remarks I might have made. “Susie, are you seducing me?” Or, “Susie, are you trying to intimidate me with your enormous nursing breasts?”
Instead I sat there trying to be cool, taking notes so furiously I couldn't read them. Then I ran from the room. No need to see me out.
Power bosoms do indeed make us very nervous. I can fully attest to that . . .
Why on earth did she write that, all those years later? She seemed so understanding at that time.
I'll tell you who makes me nervous: bitchy prudes.
My enormous breasts, I mean, my gigantic mind and pen, decidedly need your support to keep this newsletter ticking. Have I seduced or intimidated you yet? Hopefully, I have gently lulled you into subscribing!
Margery says she doesn't believe women should have to hide in smelly toilets to feed their infants, but she's not so sure they should, you know, “just make themselves comfortable.”
And in Cambridge of all places! Pass the smelling salts.
I was so floored, I submitted the following "Letter to the Editor" to the Herald, even though I was decades late. I didn’t care; it really pissed me off.
DEAR EDITOR:
Ms. Eagan used me as an example of someone who had inconsiderate, and perhaps even salacious intentions when I nursed my baby in the same room with her, during an interview she conducted with me years ago.
I'm afraid she has both the facts and my intentions dead wrong.
I do not have a “son.” I'm not gay, merely bi. Her reporting would be a fine description if it was true, but since I've published 40 books since I met Ms. Eagan, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine columns, fact-checking should have been easy.
I met Margery during a book tour where I covered 15 cities in 30 days. I naively thought I could travel with my six-month-old daughter. I was young, 33, and this was my first book tour. It was grueling.
The day Eagan interviewed me in my hotel room, I was called to nurse my daughter because she was starting to fuss or cry, and it was clear she wanted to be fed. I wouldn't have denied her food, or set off a screaming fit. I nursed to satisfy the child, and also give Ms. Eagan a quiet interview. The notion that I would be in the mood to "seduce," or "intimidate" Eagan with my breasts, embarrasses and angers me.
I can't think of one nursing mom with kinky motives; it's ludicrous. It may strain the prurient mind, but lactating moms are focused on one, and one thing only. . . feeding that baby before she howls. I never yearned to be the object of anyone's attention when I nursed, or changed a diaper, or patted out a burp. I always wished I had some decent back support. I hated traveling in airplanes. I spent all my time trying to meet the day's most demanding challenges while the baby was asleep.
I don’t know how we moms did it, looking back. RESPECT.
When Eagan describes me "waving my breasts in the breeze," it gives the impression of a flag, of a militant conquest. Breasts have more gravity than that. Eagan doesn't describe nursing reality. Apparently, I made the mistake of being comfortable breastfeeding in my room, in front of a woman a little older than me, who I thought was a mother herself.
My mind was so focussed on my kid, that I didn't sense that Eagan was the type who would be scared to meet me in the first place— whose mind would race to the carnal corners of her fears and fantasies.
To get written up as her joke, an example of boorish behavior, years later later, was no treat. The next time Margery meets a woman whose bosom incites such feverish paranoia, maybe she ought to excuse herself and go sit in the bathroom for a while.
What to do when you see a woman breastfeeding in public:
Mind your own business. This works every time.
A smile of recognition, if you’re a woman. Offer her some pillow back or arm support if it looks like she’s in a dreadful seat.
Kindly offer her some water . . . Breastfeeding is dehydrating!
The link has been taken down! Probably not bc of me, just the Herald cutting back . . .
POWER BOSOMS!
(But honestly. I was astonished to learn how ridiculous people are about nursing.)
This would be really funny if it wasn't so infuriating. FFS, how many times do we have to go through this? I was one of those "I have a baby... what's the big deal? I can travel, picket, go dancing, rally, speak, whatever with a baby slung over my shoulder..." (for a while, anyway) and that meant I nursed in public a lot. I have to say, at least half the time people were supportive or at least nonchalant. I wish I'd ever come up with a good comeback for the other half. I saw a women once, who when challenged said to a man (in a haughty, loud, outraged tone) "Get your eyes off off my breasts this minute!" which had the dual effect of throwing the guy off balance and getting the women in the room (who had all been ogled unwillingly at some point) on her side. I wanted to be her.