Men can breastfeed

[shinynewusername]

La Leche League - the US equivalent of the NCT - now claims that men can breastfeed. NB, they are not just talking about transmen (born women), but actual men. WTF?

(Mens' nipples do occasionally produce some fluid, often as a result of disease but to say this is breast-feeding is deranged and insulting to mothers)

Over the weekend, I have also seen transwomen on social media claim that women seeking abortion should feel privileged to have an unwanted pregnancy and a 16 year old student at an American school in Spain reporting how she was not allowed to mention FGM or use the word 'woman' in a class on feminism because it 'triggered' a non-binary male in the class.

AIBU to think this is fucking out of hand? Every aspect of women's identify is being colonised and erased.

If he had really wanted to then he could have pursued it

That's a really interesting perspective, shouldwest and I'm glad it helped you when you were feeling vulnerable, but actually there is no scientifically documented case of a male human (or, AFAIK, any male mammal apart from a bat) successfully feeding a baby.

It does matter that the LLL is pretending that men with a hormonal disorder that should be checked by a doctor are just garden variety "lactaters".

Pretending breastfeeding isn't gendered just means it no longer needs to be covered by anti sex discrimination legislation. Stop walking blindly in to this shit.

If men want to take stereotypically feminine pursuits (i.e. Knitting, washing up, ironing and child rearing) on, FUCKING get on with it.

That's not breastfeeding.

That post about no one spontaneously lactating is bollocks. There is no prep for breastfeeding for a woman. A baby comes out of your vagina and then the milk starts bar certain physical issues it's exactly why is the female body was designed for.
That's not the same as creating a disorder and starting male lactation.

I've stepped into the mumsnet twilight zone.

Of course men can't breastfeed even if they can produce a little non norishing liquid.

I've only skimmed the thread. Is it about trans men because they're actually women aren't they? So its still women breastfeeding

I'd like to see the science on this 'milk' they produce. Colostrum for a newborn? And hen the milk changes the nutrients as the baby grows? Fuck off does it.

Spunk and pee come from the same hole they aren't there he same thing!

This is like that bloody stupid tw that the Guardian published talking about his "period". He had regular anal bleeding due to a prostate condition. But if blood comes out of your bottom somewhere it's just a period right?

Words don't mean anything anymore.

What is this thread actually about, its quite hysterical really.

OP are you actually calling on women to protest for male breast feeding to be banned?

Modern feminism often makes me embarrassed to be a woman, yes. Words like 'triggered' and 'non-binary' make me feel sad for the future. I'm likely to be older than you and I remember when feminism meant something and was fighting against meaningful injustices. The problem is that as we get closer to absolute equality, you have to fight about smaller and less inconsequential things like some random transwoman on social media saying something that offended you so much you started a thread about it

I think you have missed the point of my OP. I agree that 'triggered' and 'non-binary' are ridiculous. But the point is that they are being used to silence women - and not just on social media, but in real life.

I don't care how old you are, it is incredibly naive to think that social media doesn't matter. Social media has driven the undermining of women's rights that we are now seeing. Only last week, Canada passed an act effectively erasing any rights that women hold as a biological sex. The pressure for that act came almost entirely from social media. Social media is powerful and it is erasing all the achievements of older feminists. And young women are being silenced - they don't have the rights to discuss their bodies that we took for granted at their age. . I can't believe that anyone who calls herself a feminist doesn't care about that.

It's about the erasure of female biology for male feelings.

And the way people who complain about it are called misogynistic words like "hysterical"

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6653418

Already impacting on women's rights.

I agree with you entirely @shinynewusername

Neo, there are biological differences between men and women that cannot be removed. For example, women get pregnant, men do not. As a result, women menstruate and men do not. The sex differences between men and women are inescapable and the root of women's oppression. I want that to be recognised and women protected from any attempts to discriminate or abuse them as a result. I do not recognise your description of what you call "modern" feminism.

HEAD DESK HEAD DESK HEAD DESK

That's horrific

its quite hysterical really

That beautiful irony of that choice of term says it all, really.

I get that it's hard to think about this stuff. I get that we would prefer to believe it's all a stupid fad that will go away if we ignore it. But it is affecting women's lives right now. In Canada, men can access (female) rape shelters and participate in groups for (female) rape survivors. A women's library was vandalised by trans activists for stocking books on feminism.

In Australia, women prisoners were sexually assaulted and one was impregnated by a TW. Imagine how terrifying it must be to be locked into a cell with a man - especially as a huge % of female prisoners are survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.

In the US, an entire teenage girls' swimming team now has to change in the janitor's closet because a middle aged man choses to use the women's changing room.

Don't think it can't happen here. Don't think that common sense will prevail. I bet that's what women in Canada, the US and Australia thought too.

Here's a 70 year old woman having to change in front of a masturbating man and being told that he has a right to be there.

Here's a man who identifies as a “tranny cyborg Hindu,” and a “heterosexual lesbian,” taking over a university women's centre and then expelling the women's group as transphobic.

But, yep, I'm hysterical

But you could just as easily have a gay man masturbating in front of a 70 year old man in the men's changing room. Or lesbian in the female rooms. There are always a few weirdos / deviants but as a society we embraced equality and realized most people aren't like that. If these things happen we deal with them we dont make society less equal and stigmatize a whole group of society.

So you don't think that there is any difference in the rates of sexual offending and voyeurism between men and women, Jamie? 97% of sexual offences are committed by men.

And does the fact that most women would prefer not to be naked in front of a male stranger not matter to you? Why do women have to cede privacy and rights to men?

And does the fact that most women would prefer not to be naked in front of a male stranger

Most women I know would prefer not to be naked in front of anyone. Does that give me the right to a private room to change in? Maybe communal rooms should be banned and we just have cubicals for everything.

What if a person doesn't want to be naked in front of a gay/muslim/fat/old person, or is it just trans people your against? So this thread isn't so much about men breast feeding as it is trans bashing?

As for going to university, having a job, property, the right to divorce, you are of course focusing on a very western history

Oh no - you have got me! How incredibly Eurocentric of me to care about those things . Why, in many parts of the world, lucky women can still die in childbirth, get married off at 13 or be killed for going to school without any interference at all from a pesky feminist.

Yep, women are soooo much better off when no one worries about them being oppressed as a biological sex.

Jamie can you think of a reason why women might object to changing in front of men/male bodied people? A reason that doesn't apply to those other categories of people you mentioned?

Pretending that there is no biological basis to the oppression of women, or that men and women are equally violent, is part of the same agenda of erasing women that my OP complains about. So it's not surprising to see people who deny women's biological oppression coming up with those arguments.

If these people get what they want, there will no longer be any separate rights or facilities for women at all, but women will still carry exactly the same biological burden as they do now.

Beauty No one is forcing a woman to get naked in front of a man, and no one is forcing a man to breast feed.

Wasn't there a woman in the US who was denied something employment related (damn my memory!) on the basis that "men breastfeed too"?