THAT'S MEN:Breastfeeding mother turns journey into nightmare
BACK TO the matter of mothers breastfeeding in public and the irrational fear this seems to induce in some observers.
A reader writes of a bus journey as follows: “Shortly before the bus moved off, a woman in her early 30s took a seat beside me accompanied by a baby which she placed on her lap.
“Some time after the bus moved off the baby got restless and the mother opened her blouse and began to breastfeed the baby. Naturally, I felt a bit embarrassed but kept staring straight ahead as if all was right with the world.
“As I approached my destination, Y, and was preparing to get off the bus, the woman was still feeding the baby. I glanced at the woman and decided that she was someone not to be messed with, so rather than disturb her act of babyfeeding I stayed in my seat and continued on to the town of Z. At Z she had completed her task and I left the bus after she disembarked.
“I then had to pay €20 to a taxi to get back to my destination Y . . .”
I have to say I’d much rather save my €20 with a polite “excuse me, please” and get off at my destination.
He ends his account with the following statement: “I read somewhere that all men are basically dead scared of women and I felt real fear in my gut when I read recently about the new wave of feminists and their desire to overthrow our patriarchal society.”
Well, I don’t know that all men are scared of women. I’m not. I’m not even scared about the new wave of feminists and their desire to overthrow our patriarchal society. They’re welcome to it though. Frankly, the way things are, it may well be that they don’t want it – come back in a hundred years, they might well say.
Still, I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for marauding battalions of breastfeeding feminists and to take evasive action as soon as they appear on my horizon. I don’t think it will happen though. Most feminists I know are quite fond of men, but are no fools either.
My reader quotes the Renaissance philosopher Ficino as follows: “Think of the excellency of virgins. Marriage replenisheth the earth but virgins replenisheth Paradise.”
Well, if my reader is worried about feminists overthrowing the patriarchy, I would have to advise him that the virgins are the ones you need to look out for.
They are the ones who have time to devote to the overthrow of the man in mankind. The ones who are breastfeeding are off the battlefield listening to morning radio and perfecting the art of tweeting with the fingers of one hand.
And if virgins out there are feeling aggrieved, my reader also appears to mistrust newspapers, quoting the words of Tolstoy: “All newspapers and journalistic activities are intellectual brothels from which there is no retreat.”
That statement is, of course, so self-evidently mistaken that I need not refute it. What could Tolstoy have been thinking of?
On a separate though not entirely unrelated matter, I read that older brothers are more likely to bully their younger siblings than are older sisters.
While older sisters do indeed engage in bullying, it is likely to arise from a clash of some sort with the other sibling and is not simply based on the sibling’s age.
The researchers speculate that older brothers are more into hierarchy and domination than their sisters, who are encouraged to help and protect their younger siblings.
I suspect that when you go outside the home, bullying is more or less evenly divided between the sexes, with bullying in schools more physical among boys and more emotional among girls.
The research was done recently at the Universita’ degli Studi Di Firenze in Florence, the city where Master Ficino, he of the virgins, flourished. It is published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Padraig O'Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book, Light Mind - Mindfulness for Daily Living,is published by Veritas. His monthly mindfulness newsletter is free by e-mail.