What should a man do when he sees a woman breastfeeding?

Breastfeeding women packed a Seattle City Council meeting on Wednesday. (Image courtesy Seattle.gov)

Most states have passed laws protecting a mother’s
right to breastfeed, but there are still cases where
nursing women have been told to cover up or move.

So breastfeeding women packed a Seattle City Council
meeting to ask for a city ordinance which would make it a
civil rights violation for any business to even suggest
that a mother cover up or move when she’s breastfeeding.

“There has been a lot of breastfeeding going on in this
chamber today and I don’t think anyone has just flopped it
out,” said one woman.

And yet as discreet as the moms are, they are still
sometimes asked to leave.

“I was told that I need to go to the restroom. Would
you bring your lunch to a bathroom stall? It really was
discouraging when I was sitting on that toilet feeding my
child,” said another woman.

So these moms want to be able to bring complaints
directly to the Seattle Office of Civil Rights, because
they still have this feeling that breastfeeding isn’t
respected. In fact, one witness had an interesting
proposal on how MEN could help the effort.

“What you can do, especially as men at that table, is
when you see a breastfeeding mom, you can thank her for
breastfeeding her child. When you’re walking around the
city and you see a woman, you don’t need to ask her if
she’s breastfeeding, because you can kind of tell, thank
her for making the right choice for her baby.”

Hmmm. I don’t know about that. Maybe I’ll just smile.
Or perhaps a simple thumbs up.

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