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.

AssignedMentalAtBirth

Yes, sorry I read it wrong. I also read it wrong yesterday! You'd think I would learn.

I can't imagine how people think this will work. I often wonder whether superficial differences in appearance is going to strike a note. So a 6 foot four father of 3 in hob nailed boots and a beard, claiming he is a woman. Technically, that is perfectly acceptable.

I just wonder how it would go down.

Male lactation and men 'nursing' or 'breastfeeding' children is hardly a new concept- it was certainly a well known thing in the unassisted birth circles at the time I was pregnant with ds1 (who is now 11).

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
Why? I am a woman who has spent, so far, over seven and a half years of my life breast feeding and I do not think it is either deranged or insulting to suggest that when a male nipple produces milk which is consumed by a baby suckling at that nipple is breast feeding. Possibly inaccurate, depending on how you define a breast, but deranged and/ or insulting? No. Not unless you are trying very hard to be insulted.

You know what happens when a bloke with a beard claims to be a woman, Datun. They get massive social media support and go to live in women's shelters.

EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans

Well yes. This keeps happening to me. I think what would happen if… then I remember that it has happened and an unthinkable reaction was the result.

I still think that when a man identifies as a woman and shows up in stereotypically male mode there will be something of a reaction. Daniel Muscato is not known to the general public.

If the person says I am a woman, but I am not conforming to stereotypical gender roles people surely someone must ask well what's the point then? And, surely to God, they might suddenly get an inkling of why women may not want these people sharing their intimate spaces?

Which, to any analytical thinker, would lead straight on to the concept that sex role stereotypes are complete bollocks.

I find that comparing men who are producing discharge from their nipples as a result of illness to women breastfeeding to be clearly inaccurate and wilfully misunderstanding what breastfeeding is. I find it a bizarre to attempt to insist that something that really is only done by women must also be done by men.

alltouchedout

A man producing some form of liquid and an infant suckling on his nipple for comfort is probably fine in some circles and weird in others.

But I don't think you can call it breastfeeding.

Rightly or wrongly if a man was claiming to breastfeed his baby by doing this, I would think he was an idiot. If nothing else, it diminishes the material reality of breastfeeding.

It sounds, to me, along the lines of men saying we are pregnant.

It is not discrimination to ask for a female doctor. And it's perfectly legal.

However in NY where Misgendering can result in a huge fine and anyone canself determine their gender it might certainly make a woman think twice .

ThanksMsMay

Thanks for the clarification. And it is as I thought. You will have to come up with a reason, that is not the real reason.

So women's discomfort is ignored. Even though laws have been put place to accommodate it.

Backwards. Bloody backwards.

Comment from the article posted earlier...has AGP written all over it.

What is a bigger issue for feminism that millions of women having their external genitalia ripped off each year? If we cannot discuss FGM or even call ourselves women, we cannot name our biology-based oppression.

The point of the FB post is not that a single 16 year old was a twat but that, in a class on feminism, a young woman was told - by her teacher - that she could not mention FGM or anything to do with female biology. Why did the teacher think it was appropriate to silence her? Because of the insane idea that has developed, fed by social media, that discussing female biology is transphobic.

This is why social media are anything but trivial. They are at the forefront of attempts to silence women.

Similarly, the point about the changing room link is not that a single 70 year old felt threatened by a man, but that no woman in Canada now has the right to use changing facilities without men (who claim to identify as women) being present. That is not trivial. Look at the Target link: 17 men charged with sex crimes in a single year, in a single store chain. Imagine that reproduced across every public changing facility in North America.

A great way of silencing women is to tell them that their concerns are trivial: that an injustice cannot be addressed because a greater injustice exists elsewhere. It only seems to happen to women - I don't see gay people being told that they shouldn't be bothered about the right to marriage because gay people are thrown off roofs by ISIS.

I cannot think of a more important cause for feminism than FGM or women's safety. And to discuss FGM, safety and every other biological basis of oppression, we need to be able to discuss our own bodies.*

Fantastic post ShineyNewUserName For me this is it in a nutshell - why are women constantly being told that there are "bigger" problems than theirs? More important injustices than their inequalities? And, what I don't understand, why so many women buy into it if not because they are socialised to accept it?

Gender is hokum. I have no gender and I refuse to be pigeon-holed into having one

Here's a little documentary that sheds some light on the subject:

He's not exactly whapping them out is he? Somewhat sceptical, especially about selling it on.

Assuming of course it's not a big joke. Hard to tell these days

Yeah, it's a joke. Seems to be one in a series.

Directed by our monica, the poster's nickname.

He probably has male galactorrhea (nipple discharge) due to pituitary dysfunction. That would fit with the story of being teased at school and being a late developer, especially if he also has hypogonadism. Galactorrhoea is caused by high prolactin levels. It is not milk.

I feel sorry for him, but I'm not sure flogging your nipple discharge is the healthiest way to cope.

Yeah, it's a joke

Phew!

I feel sorry for him, but I'm not sure flogging your nipple discharge is the healthiest way to cope.

I'm amazed he managed to find someone close enough to knock on his door and get a bottle full. Many people in fact, as he manages to make it a nice little earner.

(It's not real).

LOL.
It IS hard to know these days. World is fucked up

Yes - literally nothing would surprise me about the fetishisation of women's bodies. Plenty of "milk-maids" online (don't Google) so why not a milkman?

shinynewusername

Obviously I was aware of fetishists. Even the really weird ones. Not that I had ever really encountered any, in real life (that I knew of).

But delving into Trans World has shaken me, to be honest. Perhaps you come across more stuff in your line of work, but I never have.

This disturbing disconnect between fetishising women's bodies and disliking women because of it, but craving them at the same time produces some really fucked-up narrative. I know narcissism is meant to be quite prevalent, but nonetheless, the raw rage is difficult to swallow.

Going back to the OP.

This woman had to jump through hoops when she went back to work whilst still breastfeeding. The court decided she didn't try hard enough to resist being asked to resign.

But. They then shored up the argument by saying:

Sherwin also noted another reason the court denied Ames’ motion for a hearing: “The trial court also held, nonsensically, that even if Angela had been fired because she was breastfeeding that was not sex discrimination, in part because men can lactate under certain circumstances.”

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6653418?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003

And that case is surely the most pertinent point about this whole discussion. If men lactate then women have no right to claim discrimination if asked to stop. That poor woman, losing her job like that. Of course the earlier poster who said feminism was not about seeking special treatment would no doubt be satisfied that 'equality' was achieved here in the court's judgment.

And the reality is, that unless it is a protected act, then our freedoms are curtailed. If you're breastfeeding a young baby you have to be able to breastfeed them anywhere, at any time. If you're expressing, you have to be able to do it when you need to do it. If you cannot breastfeed in public, or express at work then you cannot go to work, or out at all.

God, how long did it take for breastfeeding to be protected?! It's very recent. When I was breastfeeding my children, it was still considered fairly taboo. You could do it, in public, but very discreetly. The onus was on you to find a private place, and remain out of the public arena.

The whole campaign for it to be not only publicly accepted l but also promoted as a normal part of a mother's job, was just starting.

Backwards.

I think anyone coming on to a Mumsnet thread dealing with a feminist issue who chooses to argue against a very specific Tumblr kind of (straw) feminism that no-one has brought up is very unlikely to actually know what the fuck they're talking about, or indeed what the MN feminists are talking about. Or if they do grasp the latter, they're awfully confident in their ability to derail the argument.

and I agree they're not a woman, who do they think they're kidding

This disturbing disconnect between fetishising women's bodies and disliking women because of it, but craving them at the same time produces some really fucked-up narrative

Coupled with the fact that some men (not misgendering as not all of them identify as trans) have a fetish for the 'humiliation' - as they perceive it - of being mistaken for women. So they imitate women as a form of masochism.

On the one hand, I'd say that people can't necessarily help what paraphilia they have - a lot of them seem to be based in childhood experiences, from what I understand. On the other, just because you have an fetish, doesn't mean you have to indulge it. If a white man got off on blacking up, I'm sure no one would think it OK to do it in public, let alone demand that the entire black population indulge him and pretend they thought he was truly Kenyan and could run a marathon in record time when in fact he couldn't make it to the chippy without a sit down halfway there.