Applause for women who breastfeed at work — if they want to
There’s no fashion accessory more fetching than a newborn babe. For proof, look to Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Mara Martin, who earned heaps of praise this past Sunday when she walked the runway at a Miami fashion show in a gold metallic bikini while breastfeeding her 5-monthold daughter, Aria.
Baby Aria wore a diaper, a lime green swimsuit and bright blue, noise-cancelling headphones. But she could have donned a paper bag. Nothing would have distracted from the remarkable fact that her mom breastfed her not merely in public but on a swimsuit catwalk — what is historically the antithesis of an empowering work environment for women.
The audience loved it. So did the model’s many female fans who immediately reached out to tell her how inspiring the spectacle was. The morning after the show, a chuffed Martin wrote the following on her Instagram page: “I can’t believe I am waking up to headlines with me and my daughter in them for doing something I do every day. It is truly so humbling and unreal to say the least. I’m so grateful to be able to share this message and hopefully normalize breastfeeding and also show others that women CAN DO IT ALL!
“But to be honest, the real reason I can’t believe it is a headline is because it shouldn’t be a headline!!!”
But of course it’s a headline. It’s a headline because it is still relatively unusual to see a woman breastfeed her baby in public, let alone at work, let alone in an industry that doesn’t typically highlight the postpregnancy form. Martin’s decision to do something natural in an environment that favours all things unnatural was not only very cool and kind of punk rock, but effective in eroding stigma around what should be an already normalized practice: feeding one’s child.
Of course, Martin isn’t the first to make headlines for breastfeeding her child in an unconventional setting. Last June, an Australian MP named Larissa Waters introduced a motion on black lung disease in her nation’s parliament while breastfeeding her infant daughter, Alia Joy. In 2016, an Icelandic lawmaker breastfed her baby while giving a speech in parliament and, last month Canadian MP Karina Gould made headlines when she breastfed her baby boy in the House of Commons, later tweeting, “Baby’s gotta eat.”
Every one of these incidents was met with enormous approval and encouragement, which is great. If a woman wants to breastfeed at work, in a meeting or on the runway advertising a designer bathing suit, that’s her prerogative.
But it isn’t everyone’s.
This is why, though I am 100 per cent fond of public breastfeeding, I have begun to wonder lately if in the rush to commend and encourage workplace breastfeeding we have abandoned one unhelpful feminist mantra — that women can “have it all” — for another unhelpful mantra: that women can do it all at the same time.
Simply put, what if a new mom doesn’t want to do it all at the same time? What if she’d rather step outside for a few minutes to feed her baby? What if she’d like a little bit of privacy? What if she doesn’t feel like dealing with the darting eyes of her colleagues?
Or (this would be my problem) what if she’s just really bad at multi-tasking? What if she is incapable of breastfeeding her baby while giving a presentation on this year’s quarterly profits, or while installing an air conditioner, or writing a newspaper column? Does this make her less modern and render her less valuable in the office than her multi-tasking, lactating peers?
I get it. It’s nice to see women unapologetically feeding their babies in public. They should be applauded. But I hope we aren’t in store for a future where multitasking of this nature is expected of new moms.
I hope we’re in for a future, rather, where multi-tasking is an option — where women who breastfeed at the boardroom table are shown respect and patience from their male colleagues. But so, too, are women who duck out and take five.
I hope we aren’t in store for a future where multi-tasking of this nature is expected of new moms.