African Americans seeking equality in the 1950s and 1960s did not simply walk around being black and wait for change or send a letter to a business owner when kicked out of their establishment. Women fighting for equality did not expect that simply normalizing the sight of women would get them the right to vote or their physical safety protected by law. The United States of America did not defeat the British by sitting around hoping they would leave. The breastfeeding movement, like all movements in history, is multilayered. In order to normalize breastfeeding for society (it is biologically normal, but it is not culturally normal), in order to pass better laws (the laws that exist do not protect women as well as many people think they do) and in order to force a paradigm shift we must incorporate all levels of a movement. And we must allow each person to embrace their role while we focus our energy on our work, not inter-cause fighting.
It seems many people believe that women who attend nurse-ins chant or verbally abuse employees. This could not be further from the truth. It’s more of a play date than a protest. Nurse-ins are carefully planned and thoughtfully executed. Behavior expectations at nurse-ins are clearly stated by the organizers. The most preposterous of the uninformed criticisms of nurse-ins is that the women participating in the nurse-ins are not “classy.” I have heard this word too many times now not to address it. To suggest a woman attending a nurse-in is not classy is disrespectful and demonstrates the cattiness between women that threatens to hold this movement back. A nurse-in is not a violent confrontation in any way. There are no Molotov Cocktails being thrown through windows or tear gas or running through the streets. Every nurse-in I’ve been to has been downright pleasant.
The woman who feels that breastfeeding her baby in public during her normal daily routine will help to normalize this for her community is doing an extremely important job. The woman working at her local WIC office as a peer counselor is an important part of this movement. As are the educators, the law makers, the protesters, the cover girls, the bloggers, the artists, the letter-senders, the petitioners, (insert your role here-it’s important!).
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations… can never effect a reform.” Susan B. Anthony
When someone calls you a “crazy hippie” it is not because of nurse-ins but because those people are not used to seeing breastfeeding. And it’s also because they are rude. Those people have not seen nurse-ins; they are not reacting to the waves of our movement. They are reacting in an immature manner to something that is seen in our culture as dirty and inappropriate. If they see it more they will not act this way. It’s bumpy right now. This movement is in its infancy. It will get better. The answer is not to turn on each other, but to remain united, arms locked, steadfast. It would not behoove us to stop nurse-ins—quite the contrary. We must hold them more and more often. We must breastfeed in public at every opportunity (meaning whenever our babies are hungry). We must push through the dirty looks and negative attention until it becomes normal, commonplace and routine. “Oh, look, there are some breastfeeding women.” *shrug* Some are concerned about how the media portrays nurse-ins. I believe it would be highly irresponsible to take the media’s lead on anything at all considering that their job is to make a sensationalistic mockery of everything they cover. And again, the more nurse-ins that are held the more boring they will become to the media.
If we are to truly accept this as our cause then we must put on our big girl pants and accept our place in history as agents of positive change. This kind of change is always going to cause friction from all directions. According to The Struggle for Black Equality by Harvard Sitkoff, the historic first sit-in of the civil rights movement, in Greensboro, North Carolina, was criticized on the spot by a black dishwasher behind the counter. “That’s why we can’t get anyplace today,” the dishwasher told the participants in the sit-in, “because of people like you, rabble-rousers, troublemakers . . . This counter is reserved for white people, it always has been, and you are well aware of that. So why don’t you go on and stop making trouble?”
But the reality is that the protesters, preachers and marchers of the civil rights movement were not the enemy. They were fulfilling their role in a multi-layered movement. Every large act is balanced with a small act. These acts are greater than the sum of their parts. These acts together give us a “movement.”
If you do not like nurse-ins, if they aren’t your style, then that is OK. I respect that. But to suggest they have no place is a narrow view of this cause. People will want to continue to respond with comments that there are better ways to make progress in this cause. I wholeheartedly agree. I spend 99% of my available time educating, supporting, counseling, writing, reaching out, etc. And about once a year I attend a nurse-in because it’s an important aspect of the movement and I respect all levels of this cause.
Abby Theuring, MSW
