Recently, Wal-Mart has been sued by two women who have claimed that the national chain has discriminated against them while they attempted to breast feed their infants in company stores. Wal-Mart has responded that it has a storewide policy that women may breast feed at any time and that whatever the involved employees may have told these women was incorrect. It appears that the matter will be resolved in court, although this prompts a few observations.
First, I think that there is very little argument that breast feeding is healthier for babies. Only recently, a study from the University of Michigan provided additional support for this position, showing that babies who were breast fed during the first six months of life were less prone to infection and showed higher uptake of nutrients. It also has the distinct advantage of being cheaper than buying formula.
There is also additional research in the July, 1999 issue of Psychiatry showing that a certain chemical called oxytocin is important in the ability to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships and healthy psychological boundaries with other people.
The important role of oxytocin in the mammal reproduction is examined as well as how the hormone facilitates nest building and pup retrieval in rats, acceptance of offspring in sheep and the formation of adult pair-bonds in prairie voles. In humans, oxytocin stimulates milk ejection during lactation, uterine contraction during birth and is released during sexual orgasm in both men and women.Therefore, most everyone would agree that breast feeding should be encouraged
Many years ago, laws were in place that required many public places to provide for these sorts of situations. So-called "couch laws" required that businesses and other public establishments supply a seating area for women. In many instances, this took the form of a room adjacent to the women's restroom. In those instances, women breast feeding would be able to sit down and they would only encounter other women entering the room enroute to the restroom.
Our legislators (mostly men) decided that there was something discriminatory about this policy since there were no couch rooms adjacent to the men's restrooms (a blow, I am certain, to the many men who wished to breast feed their children).
Of course, without these types of areas, women who needed to breast feed were basically forced to either do so in the restroom or any other secluded area they could find or, in the alternative, undo their blouses in the middle of the produce aisle.
Here's a few thoughts. First, I believe most women are not comfortable breast feeding in the middle of the produce aisle. People, and particularly men, can see their exposed breasts. Plus, this is far from the most maternal of situations.
Second, we have laws that protect people with disabilities that require that architectural changes be made to areas such as restrooms to accomodate wheel chairs and similar devices.
Third, we have (mostly) local laws that require public facilities to supply additional restroom space to women. It is not uncommon to see local building codes require that women's rooms have a combination of additional plumbing facilities at a ratio at 2:1 or 1.5:1 to men's facilities. For various reasons, women simply need more use of these facilities and the discrimination is justified by this need.
Taking all that into account, shouldn't legislation also address the need for mothers to nurse their children in private areas? In other words, a return to the "couch" laws, requiring that busiess and public establishments provide an area away from the gazes of men. Certainly men who may enjoy watching would be disappointed, but what other objections could there be?
It is something to consider.