It’s not uncommon for women of all walks of life to be shamed for how they choose to use their bodies.
But it’s perhaps most common for breastfeeding women. For some reason, people have a problem with women breastfeeding their children in public. This goes to show some people’s ignorance – after all, that’s why women have breasts: to feed their children. They should not have to cover up something as natural as feeding a child.
This kind of attitude stems from the fact that women’s bodies are sexualized.
Because of this idea, breastfeeding seems to be sexualized by some men despite the fact that there’s nothing sexual about it at all.
Avery Lane knows this attitude all too well. While in an H&R Block on a Georgia military base, she was asked to cover up while breastfeeding her child. And her response was amazing.
When the manager of the H&R Block came out to speak to Avery, he asked her:
“Can you cover up with a towel or something?”
Avery was shocked that he asked her such a thing. Who wants to eat with a towel over their head? Why should a baby have to? Instead of just covering up despite knowing that it wasn’t necessary, Avery retorted, telling the manager:
“No, but I have a muslin if you would like to cover your face. You must not know Georgia’s breastfeeding laws.”
Even after this, the manager did not step down. He asked her to leave the establishment because he was helping a friend of Avery’s – not her. Instead, she called the military police to explain the law to the manager. They did so, and Avery was allowed to stay with her friend while they finished their business. One of the military policemen even told her and the manager that there was nothing wrong with a mother feeding her child in public.
Avery posted her status on Facebook so that other mothers wouldn’t feel the same pressure she does to cover up or to find somewhere private to breastfeed.
She wrote:
“I’m only posting this because I hope more moms will stand up to normalize breastfeeding. I refuse to cover my child or nurse in my car.”
This is a conversation that keeps popping up on social media. Even though women should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies in order to take care of their children, people still seem to have an issue with it. But how does it hurt anyone else? What does it take away from those in the vicinity if a woman feeds her child? The bottom line is that it doesn’t. It’s easy for someone to look away if breastfeeding bothers them. But it’s much more of a hassle for breastfeeding women if they have to leave wherever they are simply to feed their children.
This is just one more way in which sexism shows itself in society.
Because men have deemed women’s breast sexual, that’s the way they are treated. In the meantime, their main biological function gets completely ignored, and women are made to feel ashamed of doing what they have to in order to take care of their children.
Luckily, there are women out there like Avery that are fighting to normalize breastfeeding.
It’s important to make this activity a normal part of life so women can live their lives in peace while taking care of their children. And it seems like other women agree with her. One poster named Abbie Smith commented:
“This is truly amazing! I’ve only had one time that breastfeeding has been a problem where there kids being rude and my other half told them off. Good for you to stand up for yourself!”
Another wrote:
Hopefully, women like Avery will continue to be brave and stick up to people who insist that they be ashamed of their bodies.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
