Are nurse-outs an effective catalyst for change?

[krystyn33]

While I am grateful to live in a country where our rights to assemble and speak out are protected by the Constitution, I'm wondering what nurse-ins/outs actually accomplish in the greater scheme of transforming our culture into one in which breastfeeding is the norm. One one hand, they bring public attention to breastfeeding, which is largely ignored by greater society. But they seem to have more of a polarizing effect than actually opening or changing minds about NIP.

I'd like to see NIP (without a discretion clause) protected by law as a civil right with recourse for moms who are harassed. Wouldn't a massive letter writing campaign do more to make this a reality? The failure of the Breastfeeding Promotion Act to get enough committee support to go up for vote by the House was a huge disappointment. I sent bunches of letters urging sponsorship & support for that bill. If every mother who nursed a child even for only one day wrote to her representative, then it would not have been so easy to dismiss as insignificant.

Perhaps letter writing is just less attractive--a less appealing avenue. NIP is such a volatile and emotional issue, so maybe the action of protesting feels better to those who want to express their outrage toward those who want us to cover up or hide. But I wonder if such energy would be more productively channeled into a grassroots campaign to change laws and policies to provide the protection, education and support needed to help more women succeed and sustain breastfeeding.

Other thoughts?

[Sagesgirl]

Activism works. Letter writing, not so much so. This is true of any civil rights issue, not just breastfeeding.

To recycle my comments from another thread...Look at Black civil rights. Letter-writing didn't do a whole heck of a lot for the movement. Do you know one of the things that galvanized the movement early on? Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open-casket funeral, and Ebony magazine published photos from it. I can't think of a much more polarizing act than that. It was followed up by many, many more polarizing actions.

I'm not saying we need to be out there marching in the streets. It simply doesn't raise to that level, IMO. But we must keep a high profile, we must be unapologetic, and we must do these things because it is essential that the general public understands that we are not going to be quiet and go away.

Nurse-ins have worked, on a small scale, to effect change. Applebee's changed. Delta (it was Delta, right?) changed. Nurse-ins not connected to any wrongs--such as the annual attempt to set the record for most people breastfeeding at once--are IMO an excellent way to keep the subject in the public eye and are usually good for some positive publicity.

Does this mean there is no place for letter writing or education? Of course not! But I am really tired of the argument that we should abandon one of our best tactics because some folks might be offended by it. Some people deserve to be offended, quite frankly.

[Breeder]

Originally Posted by Sagesgirl

Does this mean there is no place for letter writing or education? Of course not! But I am really tired of the argument that we should abandon one of our best tactics because some folks might be offended by it. Some people deserve to be offended, quite frankly.

I agree.

[mamajake]

First, it is a "nurse-in." Derived from "sit-in." A "nurse-out" is sometimes used to describe a celebratory collaborative event when a business apologizes for a breastfeeding harassment incident and does something like create a good breastfeeding policy.

As for effective catalyst for change, I think definitely if used in the appropriate circumstances after other resolution methods have been tried. If there is a nurse-in every weekend and no other methods are tried, no one will pay attention to nurse-ins.

[Chandar]

Originally Posted by mamajake

First, it is a "nurse-in." Derived from "sit-in." A "nurse-out" is sometimes used to describe a celebratory collaborative event when a business apologizes for a breastfeeding harassment incident and does something like create a good breastfeeding policy.

As for effective catalyst for change, I think definitely if used in the appropriate circumstances after other resolution methods have been tried. If there is a nurse-in every weekend and no other methods are tried, no one will pay attention to nurse-ins.

Exactly what jake said.

[lulu1213]

i think there are two objectives here:
1. get laws changed
2. change the public conscience

i think letter writing is great for getting laws changed. but i don't understand how it brings attention to the NIP cause in the public conscience. physical protest and public demonstration of values with positive media attention seem vastly more efficient in providing a collective voice to a movement for the purpose of eliciting a change in public opinion.

[Chandar]

Here is a post I made a few years ago but I think it is still relevant.


We want to make sure every single "Nurse-In" is thought through and planned. If we stage protests for every time a mother is approached none of us would have family lives. We would also dilute the impact of the message. Again we don't want to seem like reactionary radical "hippie left wing" people just looking for any reason to protest. We want to be taken seriously. We want our message heard, not brushed aside as a fringe view. We want the country and even the world to know that we will be the majority some day, and they need to recognize our rights.

The Applebee's incident was sadly one of many. The difference being that the mama sought a resolution from the company. The company failed to give a satisfactory resolution, and in effect made the problem worse with their response. Then the mama brought it to the attention of the greater breastfeeding community. We acted en mass. We made the nation notice us. We informed the country that we are still here and we are not going anywhere.

If we have a protest every other weekend nobody will pay attention anymore.


We can not be knee jerk in our responses as a national community. This is hard, as we are all so very passionate about this issue. We all believe any mother harassed is one too many. We all believe every mother should have the strength of her "nation" of nursing mothers to call upon when needed. We just need to temper our actions sometimes, and make sure we are responding in the way that will best get our message across.

Chandra

[meganmarie]

I don't see why they are mutually exclusive. Laws are influenced by whatever politicians think will get them re-elected and/or whatever they think their constituents care about. Media attention (based on activism, or whatever else) is part of getting constituents to care...and letter-writing is part of making sure the lawmakers know that constituents care. So why not do both?

What you are suggesting might be that nurse-ins could generate *negative* media attention, and perhaps get people to write their legislators with anti-lactivist sentiments. That's true (see: the goofballs in the family action group in wisconsin promoting the "modesty amendment" to the breastfeeding bill). But I like the analogy with the civil rights movement - ultimately, when you are in the right, it may not hurt your cause to have people saying negative things about you - it may make them look like bigots and you look like the wronged party.

[songbh]

Originally Posted by Chandar

If we have a protest every other weekend nobody will pay attention anymore.

Is there any evidence to support this claim?

[mamajake]

Originally Posted by songbh

Is there any evidence to support this claim?

I doubt there has been a double-blind control group employed but I think this is common sense. It is hard enough to convince people who are not already breastfeeding advocates that this is an important issue. You can hold a nurse-in every weekend and continue to preach to the converted but I wouldn't consider that a good use of scarce time and resources. I think certainly you won't get press. A nurse-in gets bumped from a news cycle by a the threat of snow.

[songbh]

Originally Posted by mamajake

I doubt there has been a double-blind control group employed but I think this is common sense.

Well, you know I'm an anthropologist, and the discipline of anthropology basically exists to question "common sense." I think it's a question worth asking; how do we know that nurse ins done "too frequently" would end up hurting the cause or losing the public's attention?

Weren't public protests including sit ins, teach ins, and demonstrations a frequent feature in the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era? Wasn't the very frequency of these protest techniques part of what ultimately convinced the administration that the war had lost sufficient public support to warrant its continuation? I'm sure the average citizen got really sick and tired of seeing and hearing about yet another student antiwar protest, but wasn't the effect of all those protests to some degree cumulative, requiring lots and lots of repetition in lots and lots of different places around the country to have an effect, finally?

I'm not necessarily arguing that nurse ins ARE the best use of this movement's resources in any given situation. But I'm questioning the oft repeated conventional wisdom claim that "too many" nurse ins would be counterproductive for our cause. How do we know this? If we don't know it to be true but instead simply believe it to be true, what is fueling that belief?

[mamajake]

Originally Posted by songbh

Well, you know I'm an anthropologist, and the discipline of anthropology basically exists to question "common sense." I think it's a question worth asking; how do we know that nurse ins done "too frequently" would end up hurting the cause or losing the public's attention?

Weren't public protests including sit ins, teach ins, and demonstrations a frequent feature in the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era? Wasn't the very frequency of these protest techniques part of what ultimately convinced the administration that the war had lost sufficient public support to warrant its continuation? I'm sure the average citizen got really sick and tired of seeing and hearing about yet another student antiwar protest, but wasn't the effect of all those protests to some degree cumulative, requiring lots and lots of repetition in lots and lots of different places around the country to have an effect, finally?

I'm not necessarily arguing that nurse ins ARE the best use of this movement's resources in any given situation. But I'm questioning the oft repeated conventional wisdom claim that "too many" nurse ins would be counterproductive for our cause. How do we know this? If we don't know it to be true but instead simply believe it to be true, what is fueling that belief?

While I see your point, and I think historians are mixed on whether protests of certain kinds (anti-war protests during Vietnam shouldn't really be all lumped together) had much impact on bringing the war to an end, I do have personal experience with getting press coverage. I have been told explicitly by reporters that the story was more likely to get air play or prominent print placement if management had been contacted and failed to remedy whatever happened. Some of it is that more bad conduct by the owner makes a "better" or more substantial story. Some of it is that reporters want you to do more legwork so they have to do less. If the owner hasn't had a chance to respond appropriately, the reporter wants to know how retaliating (which a protest appears to be) is fair or news. Mainstream media does not like to do stories that appear to be picking on local business owners.

Also, showing my age here, lots of Vietnam-era protests actually got little press. Sometimes the political impact of protest events was in the coverage of the subsequent criminal trials (I am thinking in particular of the Columbia University campus take-over and the Chicago Seven) which exposed corruption and revealed prejudice through a certain farcical theater.

Now, nurse-ins, like much sixties protesting, has a power in that it invigorates the participants who may come away with a greater commitment to the cause even if no one's mind was changed and there was no immediate change in whatever they were protesting. That is significant but not, in and of itself, a reason to have nurse-ins, I think.

Finally, one thing I find infuriating about nurse-ins is that many participants pat themselves on the back for a great success regardless of whether the mom who was harassed got anything or any policy was changed. As a case in point, how many people know that Delta still has no breastfeeding policy and that Emily Gillette hasn't seen a dime?

Nurse-ins are a tool in what needs to be a much larger arsenal. That's all I am saying.

[runes]

Thanks, mamajake, for yet another well written and comprehensive post.

I think that a lot of times, nurse-in's are seen as something to do in the face of being marginalized, as a show of power, presence and solidarity. In the end, it might make US, the participants, feel good (temporarily) because we "did something", but if the big picture isn't regarded (meaning...true CHANGE in policies and attitudes), what is the point? If a nurse-in is our go-to reactionary response to every single negative nursing interaction, will that really create the kind of change that we are looking for?

It is also my personal opinion that it's kind of ugly to use the beautiful act of nursing to "punish" and call out a person or organization that has not been supportive of breastfeeding in public. It's one thing if it's about support and awareness but if it's done in the spirit of being in their face and saying "oh, yeah? I'll show YOU!!", it's not the message that we should be going for, imo. Thus, the importance of giving the company time to (hopefully) respond appropriately.

I did not know that there has not yet been a resolution to the Delta/Emily Gillette incident. That pisses me off. I organized a nurse-in at our local airport and we did get some press, and the fact that there has not been an established breastfeeding policy implemented speaks volumes of how "effective" this nurse-in was. Overall, that event got a fair amount of local and national attention, and STILL there has been no resolution.

[Sagesgirl]

Perhaps the fact that they seem to have accomplished little thus far is an effect more of the fact that we aren' using them frequently than that they're not particularly useful? If we just have our nurse-in and then leave, patting ourselves on the back and not following up in any fashion, I can see how people can roll over and go back to sleep, so to speak, and ignore our issue. As was said, they perform the essential function of "changing the public conscience."

Look, I live in San Antonio. I'd be willing to bet that if we met downtown on Alamo Plaza and nursed our babies at the cradle of Texas liberty every other weekend, not a protest per se, but merely a "Hey, look at us, we're here, we have a cause and it's not going away", that we could eventually effect a positive change in our state's breastfeeding laws. And what a wonderful thing it would be to raise awareness of breastfeeding in a county with breastfeeding rate so much lower than the national average & a child abuse rate so much higher than the national average, especially given the recent study showing that nursing mamas are so much less likely to abuse their children.

[mamajake]

Originally Posted by kidspiration

Thanks, mamajake, for yet another well written and comprehensive post.

Originally Posted by kidspiration

It is also my personal opinion that it's kind of ugly to use the beautiful act of nursing to "punish" and call out a person or organization that has not been supportive of breastfeeding in public. It's one thing if it's about support and awareness but if it's done in the spirit of being in their face and saying "oh, yeah? I'll show YOU!!", it's not the message that we should be going for, imo. Thus, the importance of giving the company time to (hopefully) respond appropriately.

This is an interesting perspective. I hadn't quite thought of it that way.

Originally Posted by kidspiration

I did not know that there has not yet been a resolution to the Delta/Emily Gillette incident. That pisses me off. I organized a nurse-in at our local airport and we did get some press, and the fact that there has not been an established breastfeeding policy implemented speaks volumes of how "effective" this nurse-in was. Overall, that event got a fair amount of local and national attention, and STILL there has been no resolution.

You should be angry. Everyone should be angry. I have been updating the situation periodically in Mothering magazine bulletins (in the hard copy, not on the website) and when it comes up in threads here on MDC.

The Delta nurse-in was a great thing and drew national attention to how serious a problem breastfeeding harassment is. I know that Emily Gillette is very glad people did it. There is no telling how great an impact the nurse-in had on the movement generally and on moving legislation. But, to my knowledge, Delta never engaged in any serious negotiations, never changed its policy, and was let out of the Vermont state civil rights action by the Vermont commission. The commission found that Freedom/Mesa (the Delta Connection carrier) discriminated against Gillette. That finding does not lead to any recovery by Gillette - it leads to the possibility that the state will file a lawsuit against Freedom/Mesa. My understanding is that the state decided it would file the lawsuit (after Freedom/Mesa did not engage in any serious settlement discussions) but I haven't heard that the lawsuit has been filed. My understanding is Gillette may file a separate legal action against Delta but I haven't heard that that suit was filed.

So, yeah, one tool in the arsenal but there are no quick fixes.

[Chandar]

This is strictly anecdotal, but I have organized a nurse-in to correspond with every national nurse-in in the last 8 years. I have also organized many nurse-outs, and even helped do an event at the state capital. One MAJOR problem we have and I see this jsut getting worse the more frequent they become, is getting large groups of mothers together at one specified times on one specified day. Organizing and rallying enough people is very time consuming. We all know we are all busy mamas who have too much to do, and we all take time out to pay attention to this very important cause, but we can only give what we can give.

Comparing the nurse-ins to the Civil-Rights and Anti-War protests doesn't hold for me. The protests of the 60s had thousands of participants. The largest gathering we had in one place was in NYC for the View. It was somewhere near 300 I think. The largest nationwide count we ever had was Applebees' which stood at over 2000, but that was spread over 40 locations. The numbers aren't there, and imo we need to reserve the troops so to speak for when we can be most effective.

The press is very fickle, and many people in the main stream do not see the big deal that we all make about NIP, so they jump on the more selacious stories, and then move on quickly. We have made enough noise in the past 5 years that they are quicker to respond to us than they were.

I used to think we should have a nurse-in at every chance too. I learned in my last 8 years of activism that they are not always the best route. We changed the law in AZ in 2005-2006 without one single protest. Not one. That doesn't mean we didn't come together en masse at council meetings and committee hearings to make our voices heard. It just means we did not protest against anyone or anything.

Nurse-ins are not a horrible thing. In fact they can be very positive and energizing events. They are just not our first line of communication. When communication breaks down, or never opens, then we can consider protesting for change. Shouldn't we give the companies in question a fair amount of time to hear what we are saying, consider it, and respond before we decide to punish and villify them? Yes there are incidents that happen and need to be addressed, but sometimes it is a singular employee issue, and many times the company is willing to adopt a policy. I have seen it, and done it both ways.

Chandra

[nettieferg]

Re: BF / Abuse Correlation

Originally Posted by Sagesgirl

especially given the recent study showing that nursing mamas are so much less likely to abuse their children.

Would you post this study? I would really like to have that one in my files! :-)
Thank you!!!

[pumpkinhead]

I have mixed feelings.

In some ways, yes, a nurse in is an effective means of peaceful protest.

That said, I didn't nurse my children to prove a point and I am uncomfortable using them as passive items to make a politcal statement.

So yeah, mixed feelings.

[SarahLi]

I think that nurse-ins are effective for change... I think that the most effective catalyst for change is women to breastfeed in public, without blankets, as much as possible. Sometimes it is awkward for some people to see it the first time, but maybe if they see it A LOT they will just get over it.