The latest: a parliamentary committee has recommended that the law be changed.

This past Tuesday, there was a meeting of the Committee on Citizen Relations. This is a parliamentary committee of the Quebec government.

Parliamentary committees are work groups composed of provincial MNAs, usually from multiple political parties, who “examine issues within the committee’s particular area of competence”.

I’ve been told that the committee decided to recommend that the law be clarified, and will be sending letters to the ministers of justice, health and family affairs. The letter to the justice minister will recommend a change to the law. The letters to the ministers for health and family affairs will recommend a public awareness campaign to help normalize public breastfeeding.

If you look at the official page on what happens after a petition is submitted, you’ll see that the parliamentary committee “must produce a report and table it in the [Quebec National] Assembly”. After that, the government has 30 days to reply. Otherwise, it will be debated in the Assembly.

That means that any progression is now in the hands of the following people – in case you feel like encouraging them.

Dr Yves Bolduc
Ministre de la Santé et des Services sociaux
Édifice Catherine-de-Longpré
1075, chemin Sainte-Foy, 15e étage
Québec (Québec)
G1S 2M1

Téléphone : 418 266-7171
Télécopieur : 418 266-7197
ministre@msss.gouv.qc.ca

Jean-Marc Fournier
Minister of Justice of Québec
Édifice Louis-Philippe-Pigeon
1200, route de l’Église, 9e étage
Québec (Québec) G1V 4M1

Telephone: 418 643-4210
Fax: 418 646-0027
ministre@justice.gouv.qc.ca

Yolande James
Ministre de la Famille
425, rue Saint-Amable, 4e étage
Québec (Québec) G1R 4Z1

Telephone: 418 643-2181
Fax : 418 643-2640
ministre.famille@mfa.gouv.qc.ca

I’m happy to say that the complaint has now been settled out of court by the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

My original letter of complaint asked for three things:

1. An apology
2. An official store policy that permitted breastfeeding in Orchestra stores
3. To make the store policy public

It took a few days, after the media covered the story, for the store to reply but I got my apology.

The letter was distributed to the press, but you can read a copy here (in French).

The letter from the president of the company stated that he understood how I may have been hurt by what happened, but the action was that of a single, poorly trained, new employee who was not acting in the name of the company. The employee was disciplined, he added, and the policy in Orchestra stores is that mothers can breastfeed in the store “if they must”.

The president also offered to apologize in person, stated that he would do all in his power to ensure that nothing like this would happen again, though also that he could not completely control his employees’ behaviour, and he offered an apology. He also mentioned that his own children had been breastfed.

I accepted the apology, but it sure didn’t feel like justice.

I remember going home, feeling really down and I wasn’t sure why. It took a while to figure out.

Part of the reason for this was that while I was convinced of the letter writer’s sincerity, it didn’t seem that he took the situation seriously. There was no mention at all of a law being broken. Instead, it sounded a lot like the type of letter you would send to a client who had been treated rudely by an employee, the same type of letter you would receive if someone had refused to exchange a purchase.

The other reason was that it completely ignored the fact that while one employee asked me to stop breastfeeding, three employees were involved. Add to the fact that one of those was the manager and it seemed that there was more than just a single new employee at fault.

So I wrote back. The second letter was even harder to write.

I told the president that I believed he had been sincere, but that I though that he might have been (ahem!) misinformed about what had happened that day. I confirmed that it wasn’t just the case of one employee being rude, but of three employees breaking the law and infringing on my human rights. I asked him to produce a written policy allowing breastfeeding in his stores and to make it public. I also encouraged him to post the International Breastfeeding Symbol in the store. Not for people shopping there, but so that his employees would be reminded of the law. And I congratulated his wife for choosing to breastfeed, and him for supporting her. (I’m not a monster!)

He replied, said he would write a stern letter to his employees and distribute it to all of his franchisees.

This felt a better, but I worried that he might not follow through, and I would have no way of knowing, never mind enforcing, any such policy.

So I continued with the Quebec human rights complaint.

I asked for the public apology (which I had already received), and proof of a public breastfeeding policy.

I could also have asked for monetary compensation of around 3,000-4,000$. I almost certainly would have received it. But I chose not to.

What I really wanted was an assurance that this would never happen again. I wanted mothers to know that the law protects them. I wanted businesses to know that they cannot prevent women from breastfeeding. I wanted a legal record that a complaint had been lodged, and been found valid. I wanted everyone involved to know that this was a serious matter, a case of the law being broken.

On April 19, I reached a legal settlement with Orchestra. The president of the company agreed to sign an agreement (this is a draft without my address or our signatures) that includes having a public policy that allows breastfeeding in his stores.

Their official store policy is now as follows:

Nous vous rappelons, la politique Orchestra en matière d’allaitement :

La politique de l’entreprise est de favoriser de toutes les manières possibles, le bien être de nos clientes et clients, dans le point de vente.
Ainsi, s’il est besoin de le préciser clairement, les clientes qui désirent allaiter leur enfant dans le point de vente, doivent pouvoir le faire dans des conditions optimales et de sécurité.

Cette note, est une instruction, et tout manquement sera considéré comme une faute professionnelle.

(It basically states that the store policy is to encourage the well-being of clients in their stores and that women who choose to breastfeed there must be able to do this in an optimal and secure manner. Any disgression will be considered professional negligence.)

The company provided a photo of this statement, posted in the employee area of the store, to the Human Rights Tribunal.

The president and I also signed a legal document, that prevents me from suing the company or for collecting financial damages. However, it records what hapened in official, public documents. And should Orchestra ever act against the agreement, they could be held in contempt of court. Contempt of court can be punishable by a fine or jail time. What that means is that there is a way for me to enforce that policy through the courts in the future, if necessary. Though I hope that doesn’t happen, and I have no reason to believe that it will. (Of course, I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice).

I want to stress that I opted not to request the financial compensation by choice, but I had the right to request it. I would almost certainly been awarded it. And, I would probably have had the agreement signed by the company anyway and probably in the same amount of time.

It just didn’t fit with what I needed to make things better.

And is it better? Let’s say that as far as Orchestra is concerned, it’s resolved. It’s still not fair that I had to go to the press to get an apology, or explain to my kids that some people have a problem with breastfeeding in public, or deal with the hate mail and the threats. It’s still not ok that the right people didn’t stand up for me. And I still know that I’m very privileged to know the law, to be able to speak out, to have supportive people around me. It still isn’t quite justice. And it still hurts.

It’s still hard to go out in public and breastfeed and not look over my shoulder and have to think about what people think and worry about my safety and that of my kids. It’s hard knowing that people think I’m a bad person, and a bad mother and a whore for doing exactly the right thing, the best thing for my tiny baby, and a “whiny feminist b%$*&^” and an activist just for talking about it.

What I really want is for this to never happen again to another mother. But since that’s impossible, I want it t be easier for that next mother, for every mother. Easier for her to know her rights, easier to speak out, easier for her to get justice in whatever way that means to her.

As I see it, we, as mothers, as women, may have legal protection, but we don’t yet have justice.

I’ve already talked about how I think a petition is not the most efficient way to strengthen the law. But I am still happy with any measure that publicizes women’s right to breastfeed in public.

So thank you to all 5696 people who want more protection for breastfeeding women!

Curious about what happens next? Next a National Assembly commission will review the petition and have 15 days to decide whether or not to study the matter. If they do, they might interview interested parties. Then they write a report and submit it to the National Assembly. After that the government has 30 days to respond, in writing. The response will be posted on this page.

You can read about the entire process surrounding how a petition becomes a law on the Quebec government website.

Last Thursday, April 21, a mom says she was asked to leave a public area of Les Promenades Saint-Bruno shopping centre on the South Shore of Montreal. The mother, Kama, says she was sitting on the garden swings on sale in the central area of the mall, breastfeeding her baby, when a sales clerk approached her and told her stop.

“She told me that I would have to leave because “C’est publique.” “Publique!?”,  I repeated, “Madame, c’est tres acceptable d’allaiter en publique maintenant.” She then carefully schooled her features into a more pleasant expression and said “Je n’ai rien contre ça, Madame. Ce n’est pas moi qui a fait la loi.”

You can read her story here.

I called the mall to get the name of the store. The woman who answered the phone didn’t know, but the supervisor called me back to tell me: Confections Emrick.

Hearing about this mother’s anger is so incredibly frustrating. All the anger and tears and sadness come rushing back each time I hear about one of these stories.

It’s awful that this sort of thing is still happening. You would think that after the media frenzy surrounding what happened to me, that people would have heard that it’s against the law to discriminate against women who are breastfeeding. I guess some people just don’t read the news.

And it’s especially disappointing that so many businesses obviously don’t have a policy in place and are not informing their employees about the law. In this case, it appears that both the lawn furniture sales personnel and the mall employees were not prepared for this sort of situation. This “situation” being mothers doing what they’ve been doing for millennium, breastfeeding their kids.

Besides the large fine that courts can award mothers, there is also the court of public opinion. Most purchasing decisions are made by women, most women have kids and most women breastfeed those kids. And they generally don’t take well to being shamed in public. It’s true that not every mother feels courageous enough to march up to the supervisor or whomever is in charge and complain, never mind file a human rights complaint. But you can be sure that mothers are paying attention and their dollars are not going to businesses that don’t respect them. Mine certainly are not. Ask Orchestra clothing store if they wish they had a policy in place before I walked into their store. I bet they’d say yes.

But I’m also encouraged to hear that more and more mothers (and fathers and grandmothers) know that breastfeeding is a right and they are standing up for that right even when it is hard to do. Too many mothers have been shamed into silence. Enough. Ça suffit. Basta!

And of course you’ll need some addresses to write to….

Confections Emrick (the garden furniture vendor)
2460 route 122
St-Cyrille-de-Wendover
Québec
J1Z 1C1

Tel.: (819) 397-2940
confection_emrick@hotmail.com
http://www.confectionemrick.com

Promenades St-Bruno (the mall where the incident took place)
Denis Lamothe, Directeur général
Promenades St-Bruno
1, boul. des Promenades
Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, QC
J3V 5J5

(450) 653-1581
lamothed@cadillacfairview.com
http://www.lespromenadesstbruno.ca

Cadillac-Fairview (the company that owns the mall)
John M. Sullivan
President & Chief Executive Officer
La Corporation Cadillac Fairview Limitée
20, rue Queen Ouest, 5e étage
Toronto, Ontario M5H 3R4

Tél : 416-598-8200 | Fax : 416-598-8607
http://www.cadillacfairview.com
Online Contact Form

In the News
You can also read about this story here:

• April 29, 2011: Mom breastfeeding in public told to stop by Shuyee Lee of CJAD
• May 2, 2011: Cachez ce sein que je ne saurais voir… by Christine Bouthillier of QMI/Jounal de Montréal

Why? Because some of them are truly horrible people.

I was kicked out of a store for breastfeeding and this blog has been a great way to get my story out. It’s also been truly inspiring the wonderful positive response I’ve received from complete strangers. Just go to my original post and read the comments.

On the other hand, there are still some people in this world who think that the best way to keep a woman quiet is to threaten her with violence. Yes, even for breastfeeding.

Now I’m not talking about the people who respectfully disagree with me. I don’t actually expect the whole world to agree with me, I just expect them to respect the law.

I’m also not talking about the people who post anonymous comments on news sites. People who are so ashamed of their opinions that they can’t take credit for them by using their real names can’t really be taken seriously. As a friend mentioned to me, “Trolls can’t help but be a disagreeable species.” (Thanks S.!)

I’m talking about the people who have singled me out for personal attack.

Now I’m a pretty tough cookie (or I like to think so), but some of the comments and emails I’ve received have been truly awful.

Individuals have written to me in the comments of my blog to tell me I’m a “whiny feminist b%$ch”. They’ve told me that I’m “not a lady”. They’ve told me that I’m responsible for “the decline of traditional values.” Yes, all by myself. Who knew a single breastfeeding mother could do that in one afternoon at the mall?

People have singled me out on twitter to tell me that they think breastfeeding in public is like masturbating in public.

After my story hit the news I also started getting hate email. Individuals have written to tell me they want to come to my house, and expose themselves in front of my children. And much worse.

Now I know what you’re thinking… those things sound horrible, but it’s not really violence, is it? Yes, it is.

The United Nations defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

Threat of physical, sexual, mental harm? Check. Threats of the same against my daughters? Check. Arbitrary deprivation of liberty? Check.

Now are there worse cases of violence against women? Of course! And this blog post is not in any way intended to diminish the injustice of those instances. But there should be no cases.

And yes, don’t worry I have logged and saved all the email addresses and ip addresses just in case. Though I think it’s discouraging that I now have to save a file full of letters describing the violent and often sick things that individuals want to do to me and my children on my own computer.

All this for breastfeeding.

And of course the next question you probably have: “So why bother? Why go through all that?”.

Because it’s important. Because too many mothers have have had their human rights violated. They’ve been disrespected. They’ve been shamed. They’ve been threatened. How do I know? They write to me to tell me.

We live in a world where large newspapers think it is appropriate to publish columns that publicly shame breastfeeding mothers, by name.

We live in a world where journalists feel comfortable asking me directly if I staged a breastfeeding incident.

We live in a world where I can tell by the search terms that people follow to get to my website that there are some very sick people out there with some very disturbing views on breastfeeding.

I am very lucky. I am privileged enough to know my rights. I feel comfortable talking to the press. I speak two languages well enough to manoeuvre through both the media, and the Quebec human rights tribunal. I am technically savy enough to know how to use twitter and to set up a blog to tell my story.

But how much harder would it be if I were a new mother, or a young mother, or a woman of colour, or an immigrant mother, or a differently abled mother, or a single mother, or a gay mother, or a poor or homeless mother? How much easier would it be to shame me, or silence me, or threaten me?

Of all the wonderful messages of support I received, one stood out. It was from a stranger. She wrote to tell me that she had fought for the right to breastfeed her children in public 30 years ago and had hoped the fight was over. She could have been my mother.  “So, Sister, carry on and know all women who know the joys of holding their babies in their arms and to their breasts support you”.

In 30 years from now, one of the young mothers I’ll see out there could well be my daughter and I sure as hell hope I don’t have to tell her that the fight isn’t over yet.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. –  Mahatma Gandhi

At least we’re at the fighting stage. Next comes the winning.

Because if you don’t ask, they won’t know it’s important. And it is.

And they won’t say anything about it. And they should.

What should happen every time a woman is in the news for being kicked out of a store for breastfeeding in public, is a loud vocal reminder from politicians that they’ve already made a law that prevents discriminating against breastfeeding: a federal law, a provincial law, and yes you can even have a municipal law that protects breastfeeding, though these are rare.

But what actually happens when it comes to politicians…. is very little.

When I was kicked out of a store for breastfeeding I wrote to a number of politicians. I asked them for public support. I asked them to make the law more clear. And I invited them to the nurse-in.

None reminded journalists or the public that a law exists that protects women’s rights.

This is the most effective thing they could have done. It costs nothing. It takes very little time. But it reminds the public that breastfeeding in public is not just a privilege, but a right. It reminds people that there is a law, that there are penalties, that preventing a woman from breastfeeding in public is breaking the law. And it makes the news, which politicians love. Though usually the trifecta of news, politicians and breasts is a whole other kind of story.

Only one politician offered to change the law. Carole Poirier, provincial MNA for the Parti Québecois organized an official petition to make the law more clear. This is a good thing. It raises awareness and the petition received almost 5,000 signatures.

The petition closes on April 25, so if you haven’t signed please do.

But why a petition? If Carole Poirier, or the PQ think this is important, why not just present a private Member’s bill to the National Assembly? They are the official opposition. They can do that. They are encouraged to do that. It’s their job. And how unpopular would the provincial Liberals look, if they squashed a pro-baby bill? And how much of a media relations coup would it be to present their own law to clarify the law? Either way, breastfeeding mothers win.

Instead we have a petition, designed to position the PQ on the side of breastfeeding mothers, without any obligation on their part to do more, and packaged into a slow, and ineffective process that can easily be forgotton by politicians when the media brohaha subsides.

It’s nice, it’s appreciated, and I signed  the petition, but it isn’t justice.

(Sign it anyway, it’s important!)

And what about attending the nurse-in?

Every politician loves a baby to kiss, but public breastfeeding is a whole other story.

Of all the politicians that I wrote to personally, only two responded. None attended the nurse-in.

Alain Dufort, the borough director where the incident took place wrote to me saying that the municipality supports the rights of women (breastfeeding wasn’t mentioned specifically) and detailed a number of pro-family initiatives that the city is putting into place. But no municipal bylaw.

Jack Layton wrote to say he would be unable to attend the nurse-in as his schedule didn’t allow it.

No one else bothered to reply.

There is a Canadian law that protects a woman’s right to breastfeed, and depending on the province, can lead to thousands of dollars of fines. Depending on the province.

This is because human rights violations, which are filed in response to violations of the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, are evaluated by provincial human rights commissions. In Quebec, they are also filed in response to the Quebec Charter of Rights.

But wouldn’t it be better, if there were some federal penalty, some clarity in the federal law, so that women didn’t have to fight for their rights 11 times, in 11 jurisdictions? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a publicly funded media campaign to raise public awareness for the law? Like this ad, by the Australian Breastfeeding Association.

Ask for this. While the politicians are listening.

Find your local candidates. Go to their rallies and ask them, loudly, and when the journalists are listening. Bring your baby. Breastfeed in public at their rallies.

My husband was joking about what would happen if you breastfed your baby at a political rally.

He said… You’d never get into the Conservative rally, because they pre-screen attendees. The Liberals would ignore you. The Bloc Québecois would blame anglophone culture for oppressing your rights. The NDP would invite you up on stage. And the Greens would get up onstage and breastfeed with you.

Think he’s right on the money? Or making crazy exaggerations?

Why not test the theory? Prove it right or wrong.

Just don’t let the politicians off the hook.

They tell me when their sister is hungry. “Feed her, feed her!”

They remember not to share their snacks. “She’s too little for [toddler snack food], she only drinks breast milk.”

They breastfeed their dolls.

And they ask lots of questions. “Why don’t daddies breastfeed babies?”

So I was worried about what they would think after this whole thing.

They didn’t really notice what happened in the store. And later that day, they just knew that I was upset. Little kids always notice when their parents are upset. Even when their parents are doing their best just to hold it together.

But they definitely noticed the reporters and the TV cameras. They noticed my phone wouldn’t stop ringing and buzzing and beeping for two whole days from first thing in the morning to 10 o’clock at night.

And they noticed the extra security guards following us around at the mall the next time we were there. There were a lot of them, and because my photo had just been in the paper, I’m sure they recognized me. They followed me around all day. The kids kept staring at them with their big bright eyes.

And they noticed me feeding my baby in the bathroom, in tears, like I should never have to do, because of the constant scrutiny of huge male security guards following me around.

And they heard me call up my husband in tears and tell him that I didn’t ever want to go to the mall ever again, or really anywhere ever again, and how I didn’t even want to breastfeed anymore. (I’ve since reconsidered on all three points.)

And once I had decided I would attend the nurse-in, I had to explain to them what was going to happen and why.

I had to explain that the people in the store didn’t want me to breastfeed there.

“Why?”, said in utter disbelief.

An excellent, heart-wrenching, impossible to answer question. The kind that 4-year-olds are best at.

“Because some people don’t think mummies should feed their babies in the mall. But that’s just silly. Babies need to eat, and mummies can feed them where they want to.”

“They are silly”. Two-year-olds are quite good at sounding very serious and grown up when they want to.

“But why?” Four-year-olds are more persistent.

“Because they’re grumpy.”

Grumpy explains a lot to little kids. When you are 2 or 4, not having a snack, or a nap, or a hug when you need it, is the end of the world.

“Yes, she was grumpy.” They both agreed.

It’s not exactly the full history of the fight for women’s rights, or a careful analysis of women’s traditional roles, or a manifesto for change. But happy people don’t usually chase away mums and babes. Happy people don’t frown and mutter something about public decency under their breath. And if I teach my children to ignore “the grumpy people”,  they’ll probably do all right.

And then I explained to them that that’s why all the mummies and babies were going back to the mall, so that everyone knows that they can feed their babies where they want to.

They liked this plan, since it did, after all involve lots of kids and the implied promise of snacks. Friends and snacks are very nice things, especially when you are small and having a rough time.

And when we got to the nurse-in they were thrilled to explain to my friends in great detail, why we were all there, and why it was important.

“We’re here so all the mummies can feed their babies”. Which we were.

According to the Vancouver Sun, the store owner told mother Samantha Watt that “It was shocking to me, especially when she said, ‘I can do what I want,’” he alleged. “I told her it was a private space compared to a public space.”

It’s a commonly held opinion. In fact several people wrote to me to tell me that they think stores are private spaces and store owners should be able to do what they want.

They are wrong.

Now I could easily discuss the fine points of the private sphere and the public sphere, how they are changing, and what they mean for different groups in society. Or you could read this book.

But in this case, it would be a distraction. This is a legal matter, and the law is clear. Stores are public spaces.

I’m not a lawyer of course, but I can read the law just like anyone else.

Public vs Private in the US

For some reason, a lot of the letters came from the US, so let’s look at the law there.

In 1979, the California Supreme Court [107 Cal.App.4th 109] concluded that “a privately owned shopping center that attracts large numbers of people to congregate in order to shop and take advantage of other amenities offered by the shopping center is the functional equivalent of the traditional town center, which historically is a public forum where persons can exercise the right to free speech. (Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center (1979) 23 Cal.3d 899, 910-911 & fn. 5 [153 Cal.Rptr. 854, 592 P.2d 341]”

This was a case where people were handing out leaflets, and involved the exercise of free speech, but it doesn’t change the fact that the court ruled that a mall is a public space. Generally, if you invite the general public to congregate in your space, you make that space public, in the eyes of the law. And the public then has the same rights within that space as anywhere else in public. That includes the right to free speech, to congregate, and to not be discriminated against.

The public doesn’t have to own the space for it to be considered public, they just need to be given access to that space. And what store owner doesn’t give the public access to their store?

Public vs Private in BC

But that is in the US, what about in Canada?

In Canada, things are even easier to clarify, since many provinces have laws that specify that women can breastfeed in public, but also sometimes provide a list of examples of public spaces where they can breastfeed. BC is one of them.

The BC human right tribunal policy handbook says: “Entities that provide public services/facilities customarily available to the public also have a duty to accommodate lactating women”.

Then it documents some examples.

For those women who wish to breastfeed / express milk in public accommodation includes:
allowing mothers to breastfeed / express milk on public benches such as may be found in shopping malls, museums, hospitals, public parks, restaurants, etc.;
allowing mothers to breastfeed their babies while walking in stores, etc.; and
allowing mothers to breastfeed / express milk in the regular passenger areas on ferries or buses.

So instead of the American ‘privately owned spaces where the public is invited to congregate’ (not an exact quote) the BC law uses the language ‘Entities that provide public services/facilities customarily available to the public’.

You can find the exact language in article 8 of the BC Human Rights Code:

8. A person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification,
(a) deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public,

So unless you prevent everyone from being in your store, you can’t prevent women from being there, just because they are breastfeeding. That means women get to breastfeed in stores in BC.

Public vs Private in Quebec

Unfortunately, the Quebec Human Rights Commission doesn’t publish a nice, easy-to-read document that sets everything out. That makes it difficult for women to know their rights, and more difficult for store owners to know their responsibilities before the law.

But the law is still clear:

10. Every person has a right to full and equal recognition and exercise of his human rights and freedoms, without distinction, exclusion or preference based on race, colour, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, civil status, age except as provided by law, religion, political convictions, language, ethnic or national origin, social condition, a handicap or the use of any means to palliate a handicap.

15. No one may, through discrimination, inhibit the access of another to public transportation or a public place, such as a commercial establishment, hotel, restaurant, theatre, cinema, park, camping ground or trailer park, or his obtaining the goods and services available there.

And there it is: a “commercial establishment”, in other words, a store, defined as a public place. A place, where women can breastfeed.

[Added April 29]
I noticed some visitors coming from other countries, so I wanted to clarify the situation in the UK and Australia.

Public vs Private in the UK

In October 2010, the Equality Act came into force. Part 2, Section 17(4) of the act specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of breastfeeding. Part 3, Section 29 states that anyone that provides services to the public or a section of the public (like a store or cafe) cannot refuse services, or lower the standards of services and cannot harass individuals.

Public vs Private in Australia

According to the Australian Breastfeeding Association, there are laws that specifically protect women breastfeeding in public in Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. In Victoria, the Western Territory and the Australian Capital Territory laws prevent discrimination on the grounds of parenthood and/or sex that could be used to protect the rights of breastfeeding women.

After my story was posted by the Canadian Press, my story was covered in hundreds of media outlets from the local paper, to the London Daily Mail to the Sydney Morning Herald. It even made the Samoan media (not bad!). You can see the full list of media coverage here.

But for the most part, the coverage was disappointing. Why? Because the journalists missed the point.

The first question they asked was always “Can you tell me what happened?” Fair enough. If you’re new here, you can read the full account here.

It was the second question that set the tone: “Were you being discreet?”. (And kudos to Michael Smyth of CKNW radio, for being the only journalist who didn’t ask).

Of course that wasn’t really the question. “Were you being discreet?” is code for “Could anyone see your breasts, ma’am?”, and “Were you behaving like a lady, ma’am?”, and not such a jump to “Were you being a whore?”.

Some people will read this and wonder what I’m talking about. They’ll say I’m exaggerating. They’ll argue that the public will want to be assured that I was’t behaving “inappropriately”, so the journalists had to ask. Because I’m sure you’ve all seen that, the new mom who gets drunk at the mall, starts talking too loudly, starts dancing, climbs up on a table, takes off her shirt, flashes her breasts and starts (gasp!) breastfeeding. Yeah, I didn’t think so. That doesn’t really happen. Breastfeeding mothers don’t actually flash their breasts to the world. They sit in a comfortable chair, look for a stool to put up their feet, cuddle up with their newborn, look into her big bright eyes, and breastfeed her to sleep. Of course, my chair was not so comfortable and I was interrupted before she got to sleep, but you get the idea.

The lengths someone would have had to go to to see my breasts while breastfeeding most resembles something between an obstacle course and a scene from Mission Impossible. If you can get past the over-sized post-partum t-shirt, and the mandatory jacket, cause those t-shirts ride up, and the small but wily human blocking the view (and this one comes with a built-in alarm), you will still be faced with diaper bag, double stroller, siblings tossing goldfish crackers at you, and shopping bags full of purchases for a family of five. I’ll be sitting in a quiet corner, so you’ll have to be stealthy, and quiet, and then you’ll only be able to approach from the front. And there will likely be other mothers with me running interference.

But it doesn’t matter.

The question is a test, a qualifier. It’s meant to determine whether or not I’m deserving of public sympathy. Probably, most of the journalists who asked the questions were sympathetic. Probably they just wanted to get across that I’m just a normal person. But it’s still insulting.

My human rights were violated, but I have to prove I’m not a whore to get justice or public sympathy? Really? In 2011?

Imagine if the law had been broken and my car had been stolen. Do you think journalists would go out and ask the general public what they thought about women driving in public? Do you think people would say things like “It’s ok, as long as it’s discreet”? Or would journalists ask if the laws were strong enough? If the penalties were great enough? If enforcement were below standard? Or if there were some social force at work leading to increases in car theft?

“Were you discreet?” goes along with the question “You’re not an activist are you?” One “journalist” actually asked if I had staged the whole thing. Umm, no. I don’t even know how I could do that, plan to be thrown out of a store for breastfeeding. Probably the person who thinks they can see my breasts can think up a way. But not me.

So I also have to prove I didn’t instigate the law breaking myself now. Nice technique there, blame the person whose legal rights have been violated.

Then the journalists would often get a quote from the public and of course, the most common response: “I have no problem with it, as long as it’s discreet.”

I’ve already mentioned how unlikely public breastfeeding is to be some sort of carnival sideshow, but even if it were, why ask? Why ask what the general public thinks about public breastfeeding? The law was broken. Why not ask the what they think about the law being broken? Why aren’t you asking a lawyer what he thinks? For the record, he thinks “Prohibiting breastfeeding is one of the sillier things that I can think of“. Thank you Julius Grey. But the CBC was the only one who asked. Everyone else asked if people thought it was “decent”.

And then the last question: “Can we just get a quick photo of you breastfeeding?” Um, no.

I was asked to breastfeed for the 5 o’clock news. The Gazette declined to take my photo at all when I refused to breastfeed for their photographer. The Globe and Mail asked me to stand in front of a perfume ad featuring, what else, Charlize Theron’s breasts, after I refused to let them feature mine. And does anyone question the 8 foot high perfume ad featuring women’s breasts? Of course not. (Hers are much nicer anyway, and I really shouldn’t complain about their choice of body double).

Why so camera shy? Because this isn’t a story about my breasts. It’s a story about the law, articles 10 and 15 of the Quebec charter of human rights specifically. It’s a story about human rights.

How many journalists asked me what I thought about the law? Two. How many asked a lawyer what he thought? One. How many asked a lawmaker? Zero.

As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.

bell hooks

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And the law will be the subject of my next blog post. I filed  human right complaint and you can hear about it in my next blog post. There’s a mailing list in the right hand column, if you want to be alerted.

And don’t forget to leave your comments! What do you think of the media coverage? Do you think mothers need to be “discreet”?

There is a cool photo project called “Allaiter partout… simplement!” [Breastfeed everywhere… of course!]. The plan is to take photos women breastfeeding in public, for a gallery showing this October during International Breastfeeding Week.

The organizers hope that by showing photos of women breastfeeding in public, the general public will get used to the idea and be more accepting.

You can participate by contacting the group via their website or facebook group. They are especially interested in including photos of twins, toddlers, tandem nursing, visible minorities, etc.