Women, breastfeeding and the classroom
An earlier version of this article stated the wrong age of the American University's professor's child. Her child is 1 year old.
in front of her college classroom
Reactions varied; some students reported feeling uncomfortable with the professor's decision to breastfeed in class, others questioned why the media would consider the incident at all newsworthy.
In a society where the breast has transformed into a sexualized symbol, why does the natural function of the breast stir a reaction? The case of the AU professor marks only a part of the multi-layered story. It’s also a story of a woman’s right to choose how to use her own body within the workplace, in addition to raising the question as to who has the right to regulate a woman’s judgment.
“If the woman had fed the baby with a bottle, this wouldn’t have been a story,” said Paige Hall Smith, director of the University of North Carolina - Greensboro’s Center for Women's Health and Wellness. “It’s not really about feeding a baby in the classroom. It’s about feeding a baby in a particular way ... that’s more unattested to see in a public space, like work.”
"It's not like I'm a 1950s sexist," said Joseph Ross, a freshman at AU. "I just think there's a time and place for these things."
Women have come far in the workplace, from the scrutiny women once received for donning the pantsuit to the passing of the landmark 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, requiring employers to treat pregnant employees like all employees -- based on their ability to work rather than judging performance off the growing bump of an employee’s pregnant belly.
“We’re not going back to the days where it was a shock to have a woman in an executive position,” said Nancy Mallin, an international board certified lactation consultant at the Breastfeeding Center for Greater Washington. “But we still have some reflexes left over from when the paradigm was completely different.”
The AU professor who breastfed in class broke no law -- Washington, D.C., in addition to 45 other states, grants women the right to breastfeed in any public or private space. While AU provides no lactation rooms for nursing mothers, nor specific policy related to breastfeeding, the university follows federal law, “which neither prohibits nor allows breast-feeding in certain environments,” AU said in a statement.
Federal law, such as the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, requires that employers allow mothers time to “express milk,” in addition to providing a place, other than a bathroom, for mothers to nurse.
Universities across the country have taken steps to make their campus more breastfeeding friendly. The University of North Carolina - Greensboro (UNCG), for one, offers five lactation rooms.
“We have moved in a direction towards progress, towards justice, towards equity,” Hall Smith said. “How we as a society respond to this [event] tells us a lot of what we think about women, what we think about women working and what we think about mothers working.”
Hall Smith, who helped head the project to make UNCG an open campus for employees who wish to nurse, notes that in furthering UNCG’s breastfeeding-friendly climate, conversation relating to breastfeeding tended to shift away from that of an ethical focus, as found when discussing rights related to disabled workers, to one centered on the regulation of women’s bodies.
But how to define regulation? Should those in the workplace expect that a woman break -- mid-class, for example -- to nurse in a separate and specified lactation room? Or should society move toward viewing breastfeeding as an act done in front of any setting -- public or private, home or the workplace?
“The best way for this story to spark change is for us to really look at some of the broader issues that it raises for us,” Hall Smith said. “I hope we recognize that [breastfeeding] is a part of women’s lives; that there are bodily changes and that we accommodate the body. I hope in 20 years, a woman breastfeeding in the workplace will be just as accepted in the mainstream as is being pregnant in the workplace.”
Emma Beck is a Fall 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.
This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.