The following Op-Ed article originally appeared in the West Seattle Herald print edition on April 2. It prompted a response. The author of the original piece responded . We present all three in sequence.-

By Alie Fathi
I’m not that much of a TV watcher but a few nights ago I happened to be at a friend’s house in time for the night news. I was stunned at what was termed News. Apparently a mother took pictures of her half naked chest while breastfeeding her babies and placed the photos on her Facebook space. What was shown on the News was a picture of a supposed mother, seating on a sofa with her legs wide spread (she was wearing jeans though) and holding what seemed like infant twins sucking on her breast. This picture had apparently been taken down by Facebook for seeming obscene. In response, supposed mothers went berserk and created a website called ‘Hey Facebook breastfeeding is not obscene’, in order to petition Facebook. What was dumbfounding about this casting was the fervor with which the ‘News’ displayed the picture unapologetically. Theirs was an added support to the breastfeeding frenzy also known as lactivism—movement calling for mothers to publicly breastfeed their babies.

However, for an innocent observer like me, the so called News raised more questions. Why, for instance, would a mother resort to such extreme measure in order to make a case: the case being that mother’s should be allowed to breastfeed in public areas. Isn’t the breast also a powerful organ of sexuality and sexual statement in as much as it is a nurturing organ? How can any one divorce these two facts in a society that feeds on sexualizing body parts and marketing the sexualized? In trying to understand these Lactivists, in a society like ours, one can’t but point to the lapses in democracy in as much as to its beauty. Particularly the persistent conceptual wrestling between personal rights and societal morals (and values).

For, while on the one hand the issue of a woman wanting to expose her body parts to the public in order to make a statement can better be understood as a Rights issue, on the other it can be viewed as a narcissistic bravado and or heroism for a movement that grounds heroism in commercializing a mother’s breast milk. Incidentally, Wikipedia notes that paraphilic infantilism is on the rise: these are adults who like to wear diapers for non-medical reasons. In a world of proliferated Rights-talks, where adults wear diapers for capricious reasons, what then is the lay public to make of Rights?

In a magnificent book titled ‘Rights: talk’, Ann Glendon notes that modern American political discourse, by emphasizing an ever-expanding catalogue of rights to the exclusion of duties and responsibilities, has lost the central role in civic life envisioned for it by the Founding Fathers. And as a consequence, she adds, the American political lexicon lacks a vocabulary for expressing normative and moral concepts that individual Americans understand and value highly, and that the legal culture, with its single-minded emphasis on obtaining civil rights (as opposed to cultivating moral norms), has actually contributed, albeit unwittingly, to the debasement of American political and legal discourse. Since what these lactivists seem to call for is the Right to breastfeed their babies in public space, the question of societal morals and values become secondary. What Glendon articulates, in this regard, is the need to moderate Rights-talk. The fear being that non-moderation could foster a society where narcissistic rights prevail over morals and values.

The conundrum is this: should Rights-talks be advanced at the expense of moral duties and responsibilities? Even when such Rights-talks are contrary to Facts? Isn’t democracy grounded in informed citizenry? Take for instance the fact that, despite the advice of both the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) that infants should exclusively breastfeed for six months, only 17% of American women adhere to the recommendation: this contrary to WHO recommendation that mothers need to breastfeed for at least two years. So why then the media frenzy? It makes one wonder why almost, eleven thousand persons (I say persons as opposed to mothers for fear of undercounting lactivist men), go on ‘Hey Facebook’ to make a Rights-talk statements in order to force Facebook to allow such picturesque moments into the public domain contrary to Facts.

Additionally one has to ask, if these so called motherly concerns are in the best interest of the child? This, time will tell. What we can tell, now, is this: breastfeeding is one thing and public exposure of mothering acts totally another. Similarly, demanding one’s right is one thing and cannibalizing that ‘right’ for narcissism pleasure totally another.

By Betsy Hoffmeister, IBCLC
I was startled by the headline in the Friday, April 2 edition of the Herald, “Breastfeeding on Facebook, Motherly or Narcissistic Mothers.” I read and re-read the article multiple times, attempting to understand exactly what Alie Fathi was upset about. I would like to respond to what may possibly be some of her points.
I have been a La Leche League Leader in West Seattle since 2002. As a mother of two and volunteer with the world’s leading breastfeeding organization, I have personally helped hundreds of women per year to achieve their breastfeeding goals. I lead community support groups, counsel women on the phone, and visit new mothers in their homes to help with problems. I was recently accredited as an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant, so that I can help women with even more challenging problems. Often when I go to the playground or the grocery store, a mom introduces me to her child and says “this is the lady who helped you learn how to breastfeed.” And yes, I have participated in petitions, letter drives, and occasional lobbying in support of breastfeeding legislation. That all makes me a lactivist: a lactation activist, someone who works to ensure that infants have access to optimal nutrition. If you think that makes me part of a “breastfeeding frenzy,” well, then make me a “breastfeeding frenzy” lapel pin, because I’m all for it.
I was interviewed for an appearance on Fox News, and went into it knowing that Fox tends to sensationalize and distort. However, I knew the reporter and felt that she would try to be even handed. I thought her presentation was reasonable. I was interviewed for 20 minutes and she selected 8 seconds of our discussion. All she quoted me saying was, “A mother breastfeeding her baby is by definition not obscene.”
It’s not clear from your article whether you visited the Facebook pages in question. If you had, you would have learned that the mother portrayed is, in fact, the mother of the twins pictured, not the “alleged” mother. The word “alleged” means “asserted but unproven.” I find it curious that you would not believe that the woman pictured was the actual mother of the twins, but somehow assume that in order to perpetrate her lactivism, she somehow borrowed some other, random infants and staged a photo. You would have read about her trials and difficulties in breastfeeding her twins simultaneously. You would have read about her feelings of triumph and excitement in finally reaching this goal. Then you would have learned of her disappointment in finding that her photo, posted with the intention of inspiring other mothers nursing twins, was deemed obscene.
Had you then visited the “Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding is Not Obscene” page, you would have seen that its existence predates this woman’s run-in with Facebook. Therefore, it was not created by “berserk” mothers in response. You would have observed that hundreds of other women had photos taken down, including photos of (gasp) the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Infant Jesus. You may also have noted that the page has 260,490 members, (not 11,000 as you state), implying that a not insignificant number of individuals are not offended by photos of babies eating. You would have learned that Facebook hosts countless images of women exposing far more cleavage than the breastfeeding images, including the page “Big Boobs,” and does not take down those pages.
I’d also add that throwing up a Facebook page or posting a photo hardly constitutes “extreme measures.” It’s a 30 second process. Writing a three column letter to the editor is a lot more effort!
You assert that the pictured mom was making the case that mothers should be allowed to breastfeed in public areas. She wasn’t. She was showing that she breastfed her twins, on her own Facebook page. Period.
On April 22, 2009, Governor Chris Gregoire signed into law a breastfeeding civil rights bill. HB1596 amends the state anti-discrimination statutes RCW 49.60.030 and 2007 c 187 s 3 to add the following civil right: (g) the right of a mother to breastfeed her child in any place of public resort, accommodation, assemblage, or amusement. HB 1590, which was signed into law in 2001, exempts breastfeeding from criminal prosecution.
So, in response to your alarm – babies have a state-protected right to eat in public. So do you. So do I. Funny thing, that. Babies are humans and have the right to eat.
How can you divorce the sexual function of the breast from the nurturing function of the breast? Easy. When you are in the privacy of your home, with your lover, you use your breasts in a sexual capacity. When you are nurturing your infant, wherever your infant happens to be, you feed the baby. Feeding an infant is not a sexual act. It is a deeply emotional experience, and yes, it does involve the love hormone oxytocin, but it also involves the powerful hormone prolactin, the mothering hormone. And that is how we do it.
As long as mothers allow themselves to be overwhelmed by societal messages that denigrate mothering but glorify sexuality, people will be confused about the beauty and function of the breast. Ours is one of the minority of societies in which breasts are considered erotically charged and where breastfeeding is considered improper.When mothers simply, normally, feed their babies whenever and wherever the baby is hungry, people will gradually learn to accept that breastfeeding is normative.
I believe that it is morally imperative that every human child have access to optimal human nutrition. An article in the most recent journal of Pediatrics states that if 90% of American babies were exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life, 900 lives would be saved, along with $13 billion per year.
Is it possible that many women wish to breastfeed, but don’t out of fear that someone is going to ridicule or condemn them for breastfeeding in public? If women were never allowed to breasted in public, they would have two choices: to stay at home, in a sort of Taliban like state where they are never allowed to venture outside for fear of being seen breastfeeding; or to breastfeed at home and bottle feed in public. Should mothers be required to deny their children and themselves the benefit of breastfeeding because of fear that they might offend you?
I would urge you to feel compassion towards women who don’t breastfeed, rather than condemning them for not living up to the WHO standards. You have no idea what informed her decision. Maybe hospital policies undermined her initial attempts at breastfeeding. Maybe her husband or boyfriend forbade her to breastfeed because he considers her breasts “his own personal playthings.” Maybe she works at one of countless businesses that are not family friendly, so she doesn’t have access to a place to express her milk during the day. Maybe she had breast cancer. I have talked with and worked with women who have experienced every single one of these situations. I have provided some of these women with information that could empower them to breastfeed a subsequent child.
I have seen women at Target exposing more skin in a tank top and low-rider jeans than I have ever exposed while breastfeeding either of my children. If I don’t like to see someone’s tattoos, belly button rings, rolls of fat, or bottom crevices, I look the other direction. If other people observe a mother feeding her infant in public, and for whatever reason feel offended, they have the opportunity to look away. Alternatively, they could stare. But then who is in the wrong, the person for staring, or the mother for simply feeding the baby?
In answer to your question, yes. Breastfeeding is in the best interest of the child and the mother. Feeding a baby whenever and wherever the baby is hungry is in the best interest of the child and the mother.
I welcome your questions and comments.
Sincerely,
Betsy Hoffmeister, IBCLC
President, Board of Directors, La Leche League of Washington
Leader, La Leche League of West Seattle
Mother of two

By Alie Fathi
The responder, references, “an article in the most recent journal of Pediatrics states that if 90% of American babies were exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life....” But I was not talking about ‘ifs’. I was but trying to understand: Not the need to breastfeed per say, but rather what breastfeeding, say on Facebook, and or terming breastfeeding ‘News’ means to the lay person (like me).

The responder quotes AAP’s insinuations but then disregards AAP’s facts. The study released on April 5, 2010, to which the responder alludes, notes ‘if mothers breastfed for six months’ implying mother do not breastfeed for six months. Even more to my point, the study showed that though 75% of US mothers breastfeed at first, only 12% are breast-feeding after six months. Even worse, fewer than 5% of American mothers do so by the year’s end (PEDIATRICS Vol. 99 No. 4 April 1997). It would be interesting if the gentle-lady could tell us how many of these, remaining 5%, claim Lactivist status. So the question remains, why the frenzy? Why the need to Facebook it? The response does not in any way offer an explanation.

Responder states “I would urge you to feel compassion towards women who don’t breastfeed, rather than condemning them for not living up to the WHO standards”. I think she meant to say ‘women who do breast feed’ (as opposed to “who do not…,”) but the fact[s] remain. I was not condemning any one for not living up to WHO standards. I was merely showing intellectual inconsistence in both the movement and telecasters’ (news) expression while at the same time explaining why, in a society like our, such inconsistencies persist. More important, the responder seems to state that breastfeeding is a nurturing moment: if this is so then my argument is well placed in that nurturing moments should not translate to bravado moments.

Facebook is NOT like, say work or the Mall nor does it have any similarity with such environments. The former is a forum, more like a theater—to make, express, show, solicit and or expand one’s own modalities. I wonder how many mothering mothers get up at 2am and go on to Facebook in order to breastfeed. Additionally, I’m not at all sure mothers carry infants to work. So the question of breastfeeding at work sounds ticklish and away from reality. However, I do understand, appreciate and have compassion for a mother’s need to breastfeed her child at, say the Mall.

I appreciate the fact that the responder has been on Fox news and also helped ‘lots of women to learn to breastfeed’, I too was breast fed—for more than two years. My analysis had nothing to do with encouraging or discouraging breastfeeding: all I did is try to understand what ‘in your face’ breastfeeding means.

Also the law signed by the governor calls for respecting mother’s who must breastfeed not mothers who wish to show off their breastfeeding. I appreciate this addition by the responder but, still, this falls short of explaining the need to Facebook it or the need to term breastfeeding News. I might also add this: I counted at least forty eight states as having some sort of breastfeeding law. So why the frenzy? By frenzy I also imply urgency.

What I did try to articulate is that the use of such modalities amount to narcissism, first because they fail to show: If the expression is in the child’s best interest as opposed to the mother’s: personally I’m glad my mother kept her breasts to herself. Secondly, it shows that sentimentalizing such ‘frozen’ moments actually expresses a WANT rather than a NEED to ‘feed’. The gentle lady (responding) has not articulated the contrary, in fact has said nothing about my analysis that the use of such modality could better be understood, in a society like ours, as resulting from contradictory democratic notions: namely the conceptual and persistent wrestling between Rights vs. Morals and responsibility.

Though I totally understand the response as both an extension and methodological of rights-talks, I’m afraid to note that the response is lacking in content. It is more of an outcry. In as much as I appreciate the outcry, the problem, is that the response is tendentious and conflates issues.