Breastfeeding: The Argument Against Perv Blaming and Breastfeeding

We see the images of Miley Cyrus, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and other stars making the rounds on social media. Usually there's a lot of comments about how slutty they dress and how distasteful and disgusting they are for showing so much of their bodies in suggestive fashion to their audience. Invariably there will be the contingency of people who say that females should not be slut shamed because of how they choose to dress especially if they are of the age where they can make those decisions for themselves. I personally wouldn't want my daughters or females in my family to dress that way, but just because some women choose to dress a certain way does not automatically make them sluts nor does it make all females sluts by association. So there is a great deal of validity to the argument against the slut shaming of females.

There's another shaming or rather blaming going on with regards to breastfeeding. It seems like anytime the subject of breastfeeding comes up especially in the presence of others there's always a contingency of people who try to shame mothers into hiding using what I am going to call the perv blaming of males. We always hear about how mothers should cover up or nurse their babies elsewhere because pervs will get off on it or some perv might follow a mother home and sexually assault her or men will leave their wives or significant others for the mothers they see nursing their babies simply because they caught a glimpse of a woman's breast. People seem to have this idea that males will turn into uncontrollable horny beasts whenever they see a breast. When all else fails it's time to blame the shaming of mothers on every make being a pervert. Just like slut shaming is offensive to females, perv blaming when it comes to breastfeeding is offensive to men.

There are 3 reasons why as a male I personally find perv blaming extremely offensive.

The first reason why perv blaming is offensive is that males see women in provocative or revealing outfits on a regular basis and we manage to control ourselves. We can go to the mall, or park, or anywhere women are likely to be and there is likely to be at least one female with a low cut top or outfit that shows off a significant portion of her body. Somehow we manage to keep our libidos in check. We can go to the beach during the summer and see more breasts than we could possibly see from average breastfeeding mother. Guys manage to control themselves there as well. It is also interesting to note that nobody including those who use perv blaming to shame breastfeeding mothers seem to be too worried about playing the perv blaming card when it comes to the skimpy beachwear of the females who frequent the beach. Why not the same concern? Why label all men perverts only when it comes to trying to stipulate how a mother should feed her baby? There are no logical answers to those questions which means that people are only picking and choosing when to perv blame to suit their purposes which is to shame mothers into hiding when they go to feed their babies.

The second reason that perv blaming is offensive is because it is unfair to the many males who are respectful. How many times have we heard stories from mothers who say they have received more support and encouragement from men than they have from their fellow women? Very seldom do you hear stories where guys have exhibited creepy behavior or treated a breastfeeding mother horribly. Most decent guys will condemn that type of behavior. Most guys grew up with mothers like mine who did take the time to teach them a healthy respect for women. It isn't fair to respectful guys to take the few exceptions to the rule of respect and decency and hold them up as reasons why mothers should hide when feeding their babies. Using the guys who do exhibit less than stellar behavior towards breastfeeding mothers paints a negative picture of all males in the minds of new mothers who are breastfeeding and mothers to be who are planning to breastfeed. It can discourage them from feeding their babies around males and make their breastfeeding journeys more difficult because they have been led to believe that all makes are dirty minded perverts whose sole missions in life are to cop looks at the breasts of unsuspecting mothers. Why not take the majority of guys who do show respect and decency and use them as a examples to encourage mothers to nurse their babies wherever they are with comfort and ease? After all there are more of those guys out there than the guys people consider perverts.

The third and final reason why the perv blaming of males when it comes to breastfeeding is offensive is because not all males are pervs, and perverse and creepy behavior is not limited to breasts. While it is true that some men can be perverts and many men are attractive to the female body which includes breasts not all men take their attraction too far to where it becomes a problem sexually or a problem for women in general. It is also true that some men have breasts fetishes. But it is also true that some men have fetishes that involve just about every other part of the female anatomy. Some men have foot fetishes, some have hair fetishes, or hand fetishes etc..., but we don't tell women to cover up those areas of their bodies to prevent men with fetishes from fetishizing them. What's the difference? We've over sexualized breasts for one, but if a guy really has a sexual fetish involving other parts of the female body then wouldn't the exposure of those parts place women in just as much danger as people think they are when they breastfeed their babies? In most cases women will say if a guy has a fetish with another visible part of their bodies that's his problem and it won't stop them from wearing what they want and going where they please. So the argument that limits male perv shaming to breastfeeding is inconsistent, hypocritical, and illogical.

Guys are people too and sometimes it seems that people forget that we can be decent upstanding human beings too. It is not fair to shame the majority of breastfeeding mothers by blaming or accusing all males of being perverts when in fact perverts are the exceptions rather than the rule among males. If mothers choose to cover or breastfeed out of the presence of males because it makes them uncomfortable that's perfectly fine. What isn't fine is to expect all mothers to do so because people think they know how all men think and their perception of how we think is always negative. Most of us are decent when given the chance to be. Just like it would be unfair to label all females sluts and whores just because a few females may choose to dress or act in a highly provocative way, it isn't fair to take the less than ideal behavior of some males and use their behavior to define all males. Let the slut shaming and the perv blaming cease!

Breastfeeding: The Modesty Dilemma

   When I hear people say that they are all for breastfeeding but there's nothing wrong with a little modesty I'm reminded of the times I would visit the aquatic center pools at the physical education building in college. They were open to the families of students, faculty, and staff on the weekends. Being that it was in a university setting you would get an eclectic group of people out there. I remember there were several Muslim families that would visit quite regularly and the women would get into the pool wearing swimming attire that covered everything except their faces, hands, and feet. That was their definition and exhibition of modesty. There was a rule that no thong bikinis were allowed, but the spectrum of swimming attire out there included everything from what the Muslim ladies were wearing to the bikinis that other ladies were wearing that got about as close to being thongs as they could get without actually being thongs. Just about every style of swimwear between those extremes was represented. That's typically what you see when it comes to breastfeeding. You have mothers who feed their babies covered up and out of the way and you have those who just pull out a breast wherever they are and take care of business. You have mothers whose nursing styles fall somewhere between those two extremes. I don't mean extremes in a bad way I only use that word to show how opposite those styles are from each other.

   If you were to make the same statement about modesty with regards to swimwear as you would about breastfeeding my question would be the same for both, whose standard of modesty are we abiding by? Everyone at the pool was wearing what in their minds was modest for them and what they felt comfortable wearing just like every breastfeeding mother feeds her baby according to her standard of modesty and what's comfortable for her. That's why it's confusing when people make such a statement. Modesty is such a subjective term as we've heard hundreds of times before. If you gathered a hundred people together from all backgrounds and all walks of life and asked them what modesty looks like to them with regards to breastfeeding you could potential get a hundred different variations of modesty. How do you pick one that everyone can agree on or that will actually work for everyone? Which version is the right version? It is virtually impossible. The only workable solution is to allow people the freedom to choose what version works for them.

   Modesty is tricky when it comes to breastfeeding because even if a mother wanted to cover or be discreet about what she was doing her baby might not allow it. For people that have been exposed to breastfeeding all their lives like myself it can be as disturbing and uncomfortable to see a baby struggling and fighting under a cover as people claim it is for them if they should happen to see a nipple during a nursing session. When we demand a certain standard of modesty for every mother we can make feeding their babies exponentially more difficult then it has to be. I witnessed a mother trying to walk and nurse her baby and keep him covered while her husband looked at tools in the home improvement department in the store where I work. After struggling and becoming noticeably frustrated as she tried to keep her baby covered she threw in the towel and ended the nursing session altogether. She wasn't happy and judging by her baby's cries of discomfort he wasn't very happy either.

   So when people say they are all for breastfeeding but there's nothing wrong with a little modesty, they may actually be correct provided they could actually come up with one single standard of modesty that works for everyone. Since it is virtually impossible to find a version or standard that works for everyone then perhaps there is something wrong with saying there's nothing wrong with a little modesty: it's potentially different for everyone.

~Tom Miller

Breastfeeding Laws

Nursing In Public Laws
From National Conference of State Legislatures

Forty-five states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands have laws that specifically allow women to breastfeed in any public or private location.  (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.)

Twenty-eight states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands exempt breastfeeding from public indecency laws. (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.)

Twenty-four states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have laws related to breastfeeding in the workplace. (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.)

Twelve states and Puerto Rico exempt breastfeeding mothers from jury duty. (California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia.)

Five states and Puerto Rico have implemented or encouraged the development of a breastfeeding awareness education campaign. (California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Vermont.)

Several states have unique laws related to breastfeeding.

Here are two pages that list all the Federal and State laws pertaining to breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding State Laws

Breastfeeding Law: Know Your Legal Rights

Pumping At Work Laws

From United States Department of Labor

Fact Sheet #73: Break Time for Nursing Mothers under the 
FLSA 

This fact sheet provides general information on the break time requirement for nursing mothers in the 
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), which took effect when the PPACA was signed 
into law on March 23, 2010 (P.L. 111-148). This law amended Section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards 
Act (FLSA). 

General Requirements 

Employers are required to provide “reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for 1 year after the child’s birth each time such employee has need to express the milk.” Employers are also required to provide “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.” 

The FLSA requirement of break time for nursing mothers to express breast milk does not preempt State 
laws that provide greater protections to employees (for example, providing compensated break time, 
providing break time for exempt employees, or providing break time beyond 1 year after the child’s 
birth). 

Time and Location of Breaks 

Employers are required to provide a reasonable amount of break time to express milk as frequently as 
needed by the nursing mother. The frequency of breaks needed to express milk as well as the duration of each break will likely vary. 

A bathroom, even if private, is not a permissible location under the Act. The location provided must be functional as a space for expressing breast milk. If the space is not dedicated to the nursing mother’s use, it must be available when needed in order to meet the statutory requirement. A space temporarily created or converted into a space for expressing milk or made available when needed by the nursing mother is sufficient provided that the space is shielded from view, and free from any intrusion from co-workers and the public. 

Coverage and Compensation 

Only employees who are not exempt from section 7, which includes the FLSA’s overtime pay 
requirements, are entitled to breaks to express milk. While employers are not required under the FLSA 
to provide breaks to nursing mothers who are exempt from the requirements of Section 7, they may be 
obligated to provide such breaks under State laws. 

Employers with fewer than 50 employees are not subject to the FLSA break time requirement if 
compliance with the provision would impose an undue hardship. Whether compliance would be an 
undue hardship is determined by looking at the difficulty or expense of compliance for a specific 
employer in comparison to the size, financial resources, nature, and structure of the employer’s business. 
All employees who work for the covered employer, regardless of work site, are counted when 
determining whether this exemption may apply. 

Employers are not required under the FLSA to compensate nursing mothers for breaks taken for the 
purpose of expressing milk. However, where employers already provide compensated breaks, an 
employee who uses that break time to express milk must be compensated in the same way that other 
employees are compensated for break time. In addition, the FLSA’s general requirement that the 
employee must be completely relieved from duty or else the time must be compensated as work time 
applies. See WHD Fact Sheet #22, Hours Worked under the FLSA. 

FLSA Prohibitions on Retaliation 

Section 15(a)(3) of the FLSA states that it is a violation for any person to “discharge or in any other 
manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint or instituted 
or caused to be instituted any proceeding under or related to this Act, or has testified or is about to 
testify in any such proceeding, or has served or is about to serve on an industry committee.” 

Employees are protected regardless of whether the complaint is made orally or in writing. Complaints 
made to the Wage and Hour Division are protected, and most courts have ruled that internal complaints 
to an employer are also protected. 

Any employee who is “discharged or in any other manner discriminated against” because, for instance, 
he or she has filed a complaint or cooperated in an investigation, may file a retaliation complaint with 
the Wage and Hour Division or may file a private cause of action seeking appropriate remedies 
including, but not limited to, employment, reinstatement, lost wages and an additional equal amount as 
liquidated damages.