Am I seeing more coverage of women's issues in the news?

[cheeseknight]

I'm fairly new to the feminism boards on here so just interested to hear your opinions.

As per the title really - do you think there's more coverage of women's/feminist issues in mainstream news recently? Or am I just noticing more now as I'm more aware of the issues? Is this a step in the right direction or are the BBC just paying lip service to these stories (especially considering recent revelations on gender pay in the organisation).

I have linked to two items from this morning's BBC breakfast. There was also a story about recommendations for more breastfeeding facilities in public places and for the benefits of breastfeeding to be taught in schools (sorry can't find link for that one).

A possible ban on forcing women to wear high heels in the workplace:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-40787770/researchers-say-uk-law-should-be-tougher-on-high-heels

Charlie xcx talking about how she wanted to reverse the traditional gender roles in her new music video. She cast a whole raft of male musicians in provocative poses and had them doing things that women are often expected to do in these videos like having pillow fights whilst wearing pink. She didn't appear in the video herself but instead directed behind the scenes.

Now I'm not saying that I completely agree with her methods but i do think it's a positive step and that some young girls may see it and question their ideas about women in the music industry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/40743336/i-need-a-boy-detox---charli-xcx

So is this coverage a step forward?

It's all crumbs from the table though.

Common sense dictates that high heels are bad for your health. Why there should be a debate about it is beyond me.

Breast feeding is all fine and dandy but it's attitudes towards nursing mothers that needs to change.

That last link is so 3rd wave feminism, it's like flogging a dead horse.

Why didn't you agree with her methods?

What are breastfeeding facilities? Is it a room to breastfeed in? I know some women prefer that, but for me the most positive thing about breastfeeding was that I didn't need anything but a place to sit, which could just be a patch of ground in the park.

I would rather see breastfeeding normalised. We hear a lot about 'breastfeeding in public' as if doing it only in private is a possibility and you're choosing specifically to breastfeed in a cafe, rather than being in a cafe and breastfeeding as the need arises. The language is far too much about some CHOICE I've apparently made, when really all I did was leave the house and continue to not starve my child.

A bit of a tangent, maybe, but I find a lot of the coverage about breastfeeding pretty awful - it sets it up as a debate and validates the opinion that it's something shameful.

You might not want to use them in the park if it was cold or raining though.

If they had breastfeeding rooms in libraries and doctors, it would give mothers somewhere to go when out in public doing other stuff.

To clarify, I'm not saying that mothers with a doctor's appointment shouldn't sit in the waiting room and breastfeed, or that mothers using the library shouldn't breastfeed in the library.

What I mean is what if you are out shopping, or getting something fixed, and you don't want to sit out in the cold on a bench, can't there just be rooms available for breastfeeding? So they could be attached to already existing public buildings.

Found a link from sky news:

news.sky.com/story/doctors-call-for-pupils-to-be-taught-importance-of-breastfeeding-10969436

I agree with you basket that bf needs to be normalised but we are so far away from that. I have several friends with very young babies who are reluctant to bf in public. I feel that facilities like rooms for mums to express or feed in (like is mentioned in the article) would be a step in the right direction.

I'm not sure how telling schoolchildren that breastfeeding is good is going to help. I was aware of all the benefits when I gave birth 12 weeks ago. I was desperate to bf. Unfortunately I had delayed milk due to emcs and even after getting support from bf specialists for 3 weeks after leaving hospital I was not able to establish enough supply to feed my baby. I felt like I had failed as a mother as the only message I heard was breast is best and formula is a poor substitute.

Had I received better support and the right information from midwives on postnatal ward (where I had to stay for 5 days) I believe I would have been more successful in establishing bf. Had I been given advice about mixed feeding (like friends in different hospital trusts) I could have avoided having to rush a dehydrated days old baby into A&E.

I think what I'm trying to say is that just telling women bf is best isn't enough. There's needs to be real support immediately after birth in hospital from midwives who know what they're talking about. And continued practical and emotional support once women are home.

Saintfrancis what I meant was I'm not sure I would watch her video and think 'oh look there are lots of men being exploited in that music video'. I don't think the message is explicit enough. Maybe her talking about it on the news is though?

I don't know any girls (or women) irl who may be in her target audience so I'm interested to see if other posters think it's helpful? Does it go far enough? Does she have enough influence that some girls may watch it and think twice about how women are portrayed in these videos?

I'm not saying that breastfeeding rooms shouldn't exist, or that it's wrong to prefer to breastfeed in private. I agree that employers should provide a space to feed or express - the facilities mentioned in the article make sense to me.

But just for when out and about I can't see when they are all that practical. Usually they're next to changing facilities so not particularly nice, and when they're not a bit dirty they're just dreadfully dull. At the beginning feeds last ages, and I would have hated sitting in a bare room for half an hour or more, without any company. Later on when they speed up it would seem pointless to me to get all my stuff together to go to the feeding room for the sake of 5-10 min. I really can't imagine parks having nice feeding rooms - so would rather go to a cafe if it was too cold or wet to feed outside, but probably wouldn't be there if it was cold and wet anyway. What I meant about being able to feed anywhere is that it's something you can do instantly, and messing about going to a different room just makes it more inconvenient from my mount of view.

I think the point of introducing breastfeeding to children while still at school is that they have found that a lot of young people think of it as being a bit grim, and those attitudes continue into adulthood. Young women are often more misogynistic about it that you'd imagine - I've had plenty of women in their late 20s tell me how disgusting they find birth, breastfeeding, why anyone would choose to do it in public is beyond me etc. They have no concept of the realities of feeding.

Yes, certainly a cafe is preferable, although there is a cost issue to that for some people.

I saw someone breastfeeding for the first time when I was 19, on a train. The other people at the table complained about it.

I would have benefitted from it being talked about in school.

Yes I see your point about discussing issues at school.

This article sums up how I feel about it much better than I ever could...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/01/pregnant-women-breastfeeding-tough-british-attitudes?CMP=fb_gu

I completely agree, cheese. BF support from my HVs was like something from Kafka.

A few days after birth I was dreading every feed. My nipples were sore and bleeding and feeds were 45 min of agony. The HVs would ask how bf was going and I would say it was very painful still. They said bf isn't painful unless the latch is wrong, checked the latch and said it was fine, so it couldn't be painful. I said I could cope with it if it wouldn't be this painful forever. They said pain wouldn't improve if there was a problem with the latch, so I should sort any latching problems. I pointed out that she had just said there weren't any lathing problems, and she said that there is only pain when there is a latching problem. She wrote in my red book that I had no discomfort breastfeeding.

Luckily my mum was there and said she was talking bollocks and that it can be awful but it gets better. Which was all I needed to hear - yes it's shit, but it will be easy in a few weeks and you'll be glad you stuck it out. (I'm not saying everyone can just 'stick it out', btw, just that I experienced genuine agony and only kept going out of bloodymindedness).

I personally never found bf to be a wonderful bonding experience. I did it because of the benefits for my baby, and because I expected to because that's how I was fed. I didn't feel sad about the last feed like everyone else I know, just relieved that I'd kept it up for over a year and it was done without any tears. The first 6 weeks were horrible, but after that I was in the swing of it and it wasn't painful, it was free, instant and convenient.

I needed to hear that yes it can be horrible, but that bit isn't forever, that just because it's not easy right away, you can still succeed at it, and I did hear it luckily, but having HCP tell me I wasn't feeling what I was feeling would have been terrible if that had been my only support.

Only in a "What are those silly feminists banging on about now" kind of way, I think.