What a freakin peasant!

really?? calling her a peasant? because the gentry would never stoop so low, I guess. *sigh*

I wonder how many NIP supporters here and elsewhere “happily watched Secretary”.

Not sure what your point is here, but I nursed in public AND I absolutely loved Secretary. So I guess that proves…something, I dunno.

Her tit hanging all over the place is not natural.

Of course not! It’s so much more natural to strap your tits in place with a bra. Letting them hang free–I mean, if we were meant to let our tits hang free, we would have been born without bras! Oh wait…

In my speech class last fall, the girl who sat next to me gave an informative speech on breastfeeding and mentioned at one point that, thankfully, in Michigan a woman has the legal right to feed her child wherever she chooses. She lost points on the speech because our professor decided this made it a persuasive, not an informative, speech. Fucking sad.

Edit:

it’s 100% legal for women to be topless in any public area in NYC that it’s legal for men to be topless.

Yay! Fucking awesome! One more step toward society understanding that breasts are not sexual organs. Now, every time I say that, I always get some asshole saying that because they are often erogenous zones, breasts are sexual organs, but fuck that, because the neck and earlobes are often erogenous zones and nobody’s telling me I have to cover them up.

Edit again:
Holy shit, have just gone to look at the pictures. I think the only way these people could possibly consider that a “saggy” breast is if the only breasts they ever see are of the sphere-attached-to-ribcage-beneath skin implant variety.

Let’s also not forget that this doesn’t even matter in NYC, which is where Maggie lives, since it’s 100% legal for women to be topless in any public area in NYC that it’s legal for men to be topless. Whether or not there’s a baby attached.

See: http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/18/topless.settlement.ap/index.html

Breathing is natural, too; should I have to go into the bathroom to do that? Equating feeding one’s child with urinating and defecating is … stupider than I can properly express.

This is so frustrating. She’s feeding her child, get over it!

I believe it was Parenting magazine who did an article this month about reactions to nursing in public. It was pretty depressing. Lots of angry looks and the like directed at a mother who *was* “covering up”. I’d hate to see how they act towards someone who doesn’t drape a blanket over herself and her baby so as not to offend.

June 19th, 2007 at 4:30 am
“I have a modest proposal. A social rule, if you like, which seems to me to be fair and reasonable in all circumstances:

Anywhere it’s reasonable to take your baby, there it should be OK for you to feed it, in such a manner as best suits you.”

Actually, this is more than just a social rule. In any state where there is a law allowing NIP, it is worded almost exactly like that - anywhere it’s reasonable for a mom and baby to be, it’s reasonable to feed said baby in whatever means is necessary. Some of the less progressive states add in a little tid bit about “discretion” although most at this point have taken that language out at this point.

The laws exist. The social support hasn’t made it that far yet. In fact, there’s a woman in Florida suing a restaurant for throwing her out while nursing her infant. http://www.local10.com/news/13503933/detail.html I don’t particularly think a civil suit is in order… if the laws are in place to protect NIP, then I think legal action should be taken, but it doesn’t belong in civil court, IMHO. But at any rate - the law exists and yet still many businesses do not adhere - and certainly many PEOPLE do not agree with the law.

Anywhere it’s reasonable to take your baby, there it should be OK for you to feed it, in such a manner as best suits you.

I wonder how many NIP supporters here and elsewhere “happily watched Secretary”.

Additionally, my other celebrity gossip guilty pleasure, Gawker, had an entire post dedicated to the topic of commentors who freak out about the breastfeeding pictures and how those people are assholes. Most celebrity blog comments are completely idiotic anyway, so the idiocy over breastfeeding is not surprising.

One of the central ideas in ecofeminism is the way that a dualism of Culture/Nature is constructed in our culture, and then projected onto all kinds of other forms of difference, so that women, people of color, etc. are seen as less valuable and in need of control by the white male Culture pole.[…]

The commenters describe Gyllenhaal as an “animal,” “Africa[n],” and a “peasant” — a trifecta of species, race, and class discrimination applied to reinforce a demand that a woman comply with the ideal of the body-free masculine-style self.

Click through to read the rest…

It’s bad enough when people IRL go out of their way to be offended by females nursing in their midst but I can only think that these people have had their brains vacuumed out when they voice resentment about a female nursing in a photograph that is posted on a website under the category “Celebrity Baby Monitor.” If someone goes out of their way to look for pictures of celebrities and their babies, duh, that’s their problem, not Maggie Gyllenhal’s. I mean how long did they sit and stare at the offending picture before they realized that they were sufficiently offended to look away? And were any of them so offended that they asked to have the photo removed?

And ouch, at that latch.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s breasts naked in a film for purposes of a sexual scene? YES!

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s breasts semi-exposed as she uses them to nourish her child? NO!

I wonder how many of those complainers happily watched (or would watch) Secretary?

Because, you know, she IS.

And if “Conrad” thought she wasn’t, boy would I like to see the expression on his face when he realizes he’s an animal, too…

And Kate, I salute your patience with those bozos. It’s not the occasional person who doesn’t wear a full-body tent while NIP who “gives it a bad name”–the morons who whine that it’s OK to flash tit on the red carpet but not when feeding a baby would do so if they’d never, ever seen a woman breastfeed in their lives.

Also, there are those who say things like, “I’m all for NIP (nursing in public) if that’s what you need to do, but she could have been more discreet. This is part of what gives NIP a bad name.” (there was also some discussion on the incredibly uncomfortable looking latch - OUCH! but that’s neither her nor there). And to an extent I do agree. MOST women I’ve seen NIP (myself included) are not showing quite as much breast as she is here and so when people get their panties in a bunch over NIP, many of us say, “You can’t even see anything - what are you complaining about?!” OTOH, given the fact that we see more boob on the red carpet at any given event than was even shown here, I say, “why should she have to cover up?” No one has ever asked her to do it before. Hell, Rose McGowen (sp?) walked a red carpet basically naked one day (the mesh dress - anyone know what I’m talking about?) and you didn’t have the same controversy.

For the most part I have to tune these kinds of conversations out. On the plus side, I NIP for about 5 months or so, and never once had to “fight” for my right to do it. On the contrary, the worst I got was a dirty look or so, and many many people smiled once they figured out what I was doing. So, while there are haters out there - and certainly I’ve heard the stories of people getting kicked out of places, thankfully, the laws at the very least support NIP in most states and many attitudes are coming around.

What a ridiculous, backwards culture we live in.