breastfeeding: getting eyeballs

You see a woman feeding her baby from her breast, in a public place.  Most people will quickly think it through and quell any gut reaction of shame and fear;  they are at the very least aware that the American Academy of Pediatricas recommends nursing a child for at least a year, and  may possibly have heard in passing of the many other benefits an abundance of research has attributed to breastfeeding.

But some don’t  quell that reaction: some act on it,  demanding a woman stop  feeding a baby in public, citing  it as an offense.  I’ve been considering what might be at the core of this gut reaction.

What about public breastfeeding is freaking out the starbucks latte drizzlers and retail assistant managers (not to mention media talking heads) around this country? The point has been adequately made that the average cover of Cosmopolitan available in the grocery checkout line shows more ta ta flesh than most women giving baby mee mee at the mall. And therein lies an explanation, and possible solution.

Breastfeeding is an inherently anti-market act. It does not require the repeated purchase of mass produced formula, and when done consistently, neither requires the purchase of plastic bottles and their accompaniment paraphernalia. Additionally,  the media has reported over time the considerable amount of research which suggests that breastfeeding encourages a much healthier baby and child, a child who may not need as much assistance from the pharmaceuticals industry as a pharmaceuticals industry executive might hope. One can add to that studies implying that there are health benefits to the nursing mother, as well, which accrue the potential damage to drug sales.

Perhaps the people feeling such intense shame and fear when noticing a woman breastfeeding are responding to their powerful insecurities about our market economy. Perhaps they are, at an atavistic level, perceiving breastfeeding as a threat to the complex consumer transactions that ultimately underlay their  personal livelihood. Are they afraid that baby on the teat is the counter economic force that could ultimately Destroy the American Way of Life?

Or could it have something to do with the visible breast flesh itself? Certainly the Average American sees plenty of bra-busting boobie everywhere he looks; it’s on tv, billboards, Internet, in movies, in the window of the local Victoria’s secret. So why are media displayed dairy-dispatchers accepted without protest, but on a live nursing woman, some visible portion of  pushmatahas can  provoke the citizenry to moronic excess?

Following the economic thread: the media uses mammaries to sell. Breasts in the media are associated fundamentally, through hypnotic repetition,  with the efforts to move product. Free market efforts, I will point out. It seems possible that one effect of advertising  has been that  breasts are now so chronically identified with sales, that the sight of a non-media presented, partially exposed breast in a public place must be causing great confusion in some unfortunate people’s minds: they have become so addled they cannot tell the difference between a woman feeding her child and a sex worker.

The solution? Nursing moms: Sell advertising space on your bosom ! That way, your breast is no longer subversive; it is being used for the purpose that has come, in our befuddled  culture-mind, to replace the breast’s true biological purpose. Now, ad plastered to your tit, you are supporting the Market Economy, you are helping to sell.  And sell product that can be clearly identified as NOT  that of the sex worker, to eliminate any sad confusion.

Ad’s on boobs should  calm the most sensitive observer; your public nursing will be met with the agreeable nonchalance that is now accorded a 20 foot billboard filled with the image of extruded lacto-fat. Plus, you make some extra cash: everybody wins!