Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Dear Facebook and Bill Maher: You're Idiots

So hey, remember when MySpace went stupid and banned a user who {gasp!} posted a picture of her baby breastfeeding?

Facebook just did it too. Oh hell, people, I swear that I don't have the patience for this shit. I mean, are you kidding me? Breastfeeding is obscene? But half-naked 16-year-olds are not? We are such an ass-backwards society! Our priorities are so ridiculously effed up!

As IzzyMom points out, Facebook considers pictures of nursing babies obscene, but they are perfectly o.k. with hosting more than 350 pro-anorexia groups. What a great way to sum up what is wrong with the way our society views women.

And here, of course, is where Bill Maher comes in. This dickbag recently went on this totally unfunny diatribe about how mothers who breastfeed in public (and take on the cause) are petty and narcissistic and angling for the "spotlight". Yeah Bill, because the times when Max would yank his sling or blanket off his head, I was all check me out now, muchachos! My B's are now unbearable D's, and all this milk that keeps gushing out at the wrong moments? So fucking sexy! Indeed, didn't you all know that the only reason I breastfed was to be stared at and glared at and have everyone look at me while I struggled with a fussy baby who couldn't decide if he wanted on or off the boob?

Normally, I would dismiss Maher's comments as nothing but an attempt to shock and draw ire by a political comic who no longer matters, but my problem with him in particular is that he is - as has been pointed out - a regular at the Playboy Mansion, and my guess is that the bare breasts there don't really bother him. So he is guilty of what so many hypocrites in this country are: breasts to sell sex are o.k., but breasts to feed babies are not. Breasts popping out of tiny, plunging tops (on teenage girls, no less) are o.k.; but breasts barely (if at all) exposed to accommodate an infant are not.

I feel like a broken record: this is wrong, this is stupid, this is so ridiculous my teeth ache. And yet this is reality. For untold amounts of people out there, the sight of a baby taking nourishment from his or her mother's breast is obscene. It's wrong. It shouldn't be allowed in public.

Politics and health benefits aside, breastfeeding is such a beautiful thing. I would daresay that most mothers (at least, I) aren't eager to nurse in public. But sometimes we have to, and we should have that right. When I had to nurse Max at the mall or at a restaurant (and when I will surely nurse my as-yet-unborn children in public), I was meeting his needs; I was being his mother. It wasn't about you; it wasn't about my breasts. It was about Max and what was best for him.

That people equate that with obscenity is sad and despairing.

(And hat tip to Mojo of a Mama for putting it so, uh, graphically!)

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Posted by Tere @ 9/18/2007   | |

4 Comments

  • Anonymous cecilia posted at 9/19/2007 7:40 AM  
    What I loved was how he said the only place where breasts and food belong together was at Hooters.
    :/
    I was unable to process any other thought for at least 5 minutes

  • Blogger AmandaDufau posted at 9/19/2007 8:47 AM  
    You're absolutely right.

    And Bill Maher is a F**King idiot. I can't stand him, or his show.

  • Blogger slouching mom posted at 9/19/2007 10:04 AM  
    It's fitting that his initials are BM, right? Cuz he is a TURD.

  • Blogger Mad Hatter posted at 9/19/2007 7:46 PM  
    It's Maher, Facebook, MySpace, whatever the hell airline that was a few months ago, Applebee's recently, a feminist listserv that Thordora linked to this week. It goes on and on and on. I've seen comments these past few days that tell bloggers just to ignore Maher b/c he is deliberately trying to light a fire. I wish it were that easy. The forest is burning all around us on this one and it drives me nuts. Thanks for posting this Tere. The more voices of sanity we bring to the issue, the better.

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