For my senior research capstone for my Women's Studies minor, I'm doing my project on perceptions of public breastfeeding in the BYU community. Today, I distributed my first pilot survey to 6 students in the Wilkinson Center at lunchtime, and Tim helped. On one that he got back, there was a phone number, name, and smiley face. Apparently this girl found it quite attractive that he was doing research on breastfeeding.
PS. Interesting enough, every single person surveyed (though I'm doing more tomorrow because I didn't get anyone that was married or had a child, and I want to compare those) had negative things to say about breastfeeding. "Go to the bathroom" "Gross, especially in restaurants" and "Keep your goods hidden" were all responses. I'm interested to see what breastfeeding mothers have to say. I'm taking these pilot surveys and creating a longer, more comprehensive survey online where I hope to get a sample of a couple hundred BYU students. I'll have the link to the survey up here in a couple of weeks. Everyone should take it. The more the merrier in statistical research!
Last semester I breastfed Mason during my classes all the time. I had no other option unless I wanted to skip class. I used my nursing cover, and occasionally I got funny looks, but no one ever dared say anything. BYU apparently has some nursing areas in select bathrooms, but this is most often in the auxiliary buildings, and not buildings used for classes. I can understand why people in our culture would feel uncomfortable watching women breastfeed completely exposed, but with a nursing cover there should be no problem. Breasts in our society are viewed as purely sexual, but in other cultures they are not. It is sad how our society views the female body. I am also the only women that I have ever seen nursing my baby during church. All the other women that I know that breastfed go hide out in the bathroom or the mother's room. Isn't that sad? Good luck with your study Caitlin.
ReplyDeleteI am excited to see the results. I have faith that all nursing moms and families will be pro- nurturing, pro-families in schooling.
ReplyDeleteremember when i got to bump into you so many times (including at the wilk at the scene of the crime)?
ReplyDeleteseriously, though: i think the results of this survey should be very enlightening for how our peers view such a necessary and ubiquitous (seriously. we all came out of a uterus.) phenomenon.