So can be breastfeeding mother be “dignified”, be your representative? It seems not, at least to a neanderthal* council in northern England:
A former mayor has successfully sued her council for discrimination after she was banned from breast-feeding while using the official limousine.
When Pauleen Lane, 41, became mayor of Trafford council in Greater Manchester, she was told she would not be able to use the mayoral Volvo to take her baby son with her to official engagements.
She was told to drive behind in her own car, while an attendant travelled in the limousine with the official chain of office….
Paul Gilroy, QC, for Trafford council, argued that Ms Lane could have expressed breast milk and left her son in the care of someone else. But the former mayor said she was unable to express sufficient milk.
Trafford council’s chief executive David McNulty said: “The reputation and dignity of our mayor as our first citizen is important to the council as it is to local people. We have done and will continue to do our best to uphold the reputation of this civic post.”
* Apologies to any neanderthal reading this, but it seems an appropriate adjective….
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Stop me if I’m being an idiot, but I thought it was against the law to stop a woman breastfeeding in this country?!
Oh heavens. When you think of all the TRULY appalling and undignified things men have done in official limousines, does breastfeeding really qualify?
And about expressing milk vs. direct feeding–they’re not easily interchangeable. Some babies never learn to use an artificial nipple; some mothers aren’t able to express in sufficient quantities for the baby’s appetite and/or the mother’s health. Mr. Gilroy should keep his grand ideas to himself.
There is such a law in Scotland I believe Anji, but not in England.
Whoah Ho, Penny. What do you know that I don’t? Come on, spill those beans.
Astonishing that they think that breastfeeding is undignified.
I hesitated before posting this on an “always feminist” blog. But then I thought I should not be intimidated by your masthead.
“NEANDERTAL”?
Cllr Pauleen Lane, like other local councillors, is elected to serve the people of Trafford. How has her ‘stand’ actually benefited _them_?
It appears to have created mainly a great deal of ill-feeling. It has led directly to a court case brought by Lane, which has apparently cost the tax-payers of Trafford some £200,000 – money which might have been spent by her Council on local services, including for mothers. It has been a distraction throughout Lane’s appointment by the whole Council as Mayor to represent all the people of Trafford, however enlightened their personal attitudes may or may not be on breast-feeding. Trafford is not Islington.
Lane complained after winning £7000 damages “I still don’t feel the council understands they have done anything wrong. The ruling has gone in my favour but I don’t have an apology.” So she was still dissatisfied. So too were the Council.
Bear in mind that this case was not actually about mothers or anyone else in Trafford – just Mayor Lane who felt she had been discriminated against in her right to personal transportation in a limousine. Nobody else suffered, except the baby who seems to have been given no choice but to serve as a political pawn of the adults (well, older people).
Some may feel this ruling was a triumph for a valiant Councillor upholding her rights to personal transportation in a posh car as Mayor. But at the end it seems to have achieved nothing but a total waste of money on lawyers. It certainly doesn’t seem to have persuaded anybody.
Surely a better way forward could, and should, have been found? It might have involved some compromise on the part of Mayor Lane and the Council. It might even have involved some recognition by her that social attitudes matter in the role of Mayor, even if they are not as progressive as she might like. I read the posting, and was disgusted. I only hope her judgement in other matters as a Councillor is a bit less self-obsessed.
Neandertals, incidentally, appear to have been rather good parents, so far as we can judge from their remains.