I am writing in response to the New Rules segment that aired on September 11th. In it Bill attacked a woman’s right to feed her child in public places. I understand this is a “funny” commentary time for him, but he just took our society back a step by airing his ignorance for all to hear and see. Following are quotes from your transcript of the show and my form of education for Bill interjected in the quotes. Please read carefully and share these with Bill.

“Breast-feeding a baby is an intimate act, and I don’t want to watch strangers performing intimate acts. At least not for free. [laughter] It cheapens it. [laughter]”

-No, breast-feeding a baby is not intimate. It is part of life. Is it intimate when you are eating a steak? A bowl of cereal? No. People have given it that title because they see women’s breasts to be genitalia, which they are not, and they associate anything with that to be sex. But then people point out that a baby eating has nothing to do with sex, so they label it “intimate” to keep the sexual connotation. Babies eating are not intimate. Yes, the mother and baby bond during this time, but so do mothers who are holding their babies while pacing up and down the hall at 3 am to get them back to sleep. It is part of taking care of a child.

“But breast-feeding activists – yes, breast-feeding activists, called “lactivists” – say this is a human right and appropriate everywhere, because it’s natural. Well, so is masturbating, but I generally don’t do that at Appleby’s. [laughter] [applause] Not in the main dining area, anyway.”

-Again, associating babies eating with sex. I’ll chalk that one up to poor education rather than the perversion of our society. And again I will say Babies eating are just babies eating. It is nothing sexual or intimate, it is survival.

“I mean, next thing, women will be wanting to give birth in the waterfall at the mall! [laughter] Look, there’s no principle at work here other than being too lazy to either plan ahead or cover up.”

-With a baby there is no such thing as planning ahead. Some times they will go for 3 hours without eating. Other times they will want to eat every half hour for a few hours. It is not something you can place on a strict schedule. The idea that a mother is “too lazy” to cover up is just as silly. Have you ever seen what happens when you place a blanket over a babies head? Their little arms start flying around and they start screaming. You would too if you were suddenly thrown in the dark and found that the air you were breathing was stale and warm. I personally would love to be able to cover my daughter with a blanket when I was feeding her so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the idiocy of strangers, but I cannot or she would surely cause a bigger scene. It is not laziness, sir. Laziness is your lack of research on the topic.

“But this isn’t really about women taking their breasts out in public, as much as I’d like it to be. [laughter] It’s about how petty and parochial our causes have become, how activism has become narcissism. It’s why Al Gore can’t get people to focus on global warming unless there’s a rock concert. “Melting icebergs, brought to you by Smashing Pumpkins.”

It’s why there’ll be no end to this dumb war until there is a draft. Because, at the end of the day, Iraq is somebody else’s problem.”

-How you related babies eating to Iraq and the draft… I cannot even begin to imagine.

I hope that you take the time to educate yourself in manners of basic life 101. And in the meantime, I hope that women who live near you hold a nurse-in on your sidewalk. Maybe then you will get used to seeing a woman holding a child, because really, that is pretty much all you see.

One more lost viewer,
Trishia Gallardo
Sioux City, Iowa

Anyway, my question is this:
I’m thrilled to learn that Mr. Maher does not engage in masturbation at restaurants, does he eat in them?”

Having just read a transcript of Bill Maher’s idiotic commentary “New Rules: 9/11″ I just wanted to take a moment and add my voice to the no doubt countless others who take issue with his misogynistic disparagement of motherhood. It is interesting to me how someone who thinks himself so intelligent can claim to be a “Libertarian” and yet have absolutely no idea what the word means.
A mother feeding her baby in public is NOT an exhibitionist. What she is doing is in no way equivalent to masturbating, urinating, or defecating in public. Such sexual and scatological comparisons plague every American mother who dares to leave the house with a baby that might just dare to get hungry while they are out. We are not “lazy” or ill prepared - babies are unpredictable and, like most of us, prefer to eat without their head covered by a heavy drape. Some of us may have been on bed rest for weeks prior to giving birth and may take weeks more to finally get brave enough to venture out with baby in tow. A simple trip to the mall or local restaurant may take hours of preparation and I promise that NO new mother ever leaves the house without first giving to infant one last feed and hoping it will be enough.
When the baby DOES (inevitably) start crying, there is a very short window of opportunity to get him latched on and eating before the cries become frantic and draw even more attention to the flustered mother trying to comfort him. Like Bill Maher himself, babies are self-centered little creatures only concerned for their own well-being and comfort. Unlike Bill Maher, they are too young to know any better and their desire constitutes a true biological need to be fed on demand.
“Lazy” is not feeding a hungry baby in public…”Lazy” is writing a social commentary and not even bothering to research the facts. Just because you haven’t heard of a nurse-in before the one at Appleby’s does not automatically make it the “world’s first.” This is a battle that has been ongoing in a society that knows a baby should be breastfed for optimal health and development and yet is perfectly content to put their own preference for the bottle ahead of a child’s best interests.
If nothing else, mothers everywhere can at least take comfort in the fact that, while a dog may very well be capable of having a baby, a man is not.

Marion A. Caisse

I’m really sorry you guys have to go through this… And I hope these people really do get the point soon!

I wonder- why does Bill Mahr think bottle feeding is more decent than breastfeeding? I wonder why he thinks that lactivists are narcissitic, looking-for-a-cause time-wasters. In reality, we are encouraging women to nurse their children without fear or shame for something that is not shameful or wrong in any way. We are standing up for human rights.
If Bill Mahr applied the same argument to black people or people in wheelchairs eating in restaurants like normal human beings then I guarantee you none of that forced laughter or applause from the audience would have happened.
Breasts are for breastfeeding. If breastfeeding is intimate then intimate must also apply to hugging, kissing, cuddling or rubbing noses with a baby. I wonder if Bill Mahr were a woman if he would feel so adamant that breasts are only meant to sell products by reminding us of sex.
Using the “breasts are for sexual excitement” argument really just makes him sound like a totally uninformed pervert.
There is a very simple ability God gave you if you’re out in public and you see something that bothers you: the ability to look away.
Having dined out several times a week for most of my life I can tell you I have never seen another breastfeeding mom. Probably because I was minding my own business. In fact the only times I’ve ever noticed out in public that someone else was breastfeeding were when they used blankets to cover themselves.
Although I have noticed other nursing moms and babies when I’ve atended breastfeeding support rallies or meetings with a lot of moms. But I would be willing to bet that Bill Mahr has never seen a breastfeeding mother in public (or perhaps he has never seen a breast of a breastfeeding woman in public), unless he has nothing better to do than turn on his boobdar every time he leaves the house.
Averting the eyes is a simple, easy thing for someone to do if they feel annoyed or offended by what someone else is doing. I do this when I don’t want to make eye contact with panhandlers or natural nail polish salesmen at the mall. It’s kind of like hanging up on a telemarketer except that the breastfeeding mom isn’t bothering you, just feeding her child.
I will agree to just bring a blanket to cover up feeding my child when Bill Mahr agrees to do his show with a king sized quilt over his head.
He might find it very hard to breathe or make eye contact with anyone or communicate from under there.

I resent my comment with this at the top:

I just sent in this comment a minute ago but since I was busy breastfeeding two chilren while I wrote the note, I forgot to include my basic question here:

If Bill Mahr is truly nauseated by the sight of breastfeeding, then why on earth did he have a giant billboard-sized photo of a woman’s uncovered breast with a baby latched on during the segment?

Thanks for writing about this, Heather, I hadn’t heard about it yet. I bet when I go looking, though, I will find many conversations about it going on! I will send feedback to his show and to his forum moderator as well but it won’t be nearly as eloquent as some of the ones posted here already!

From Suburban Oblivion and Erin says, “Bill Maher Can Suck My Tits”

I actually popped on here when it first happened…and I’m glad to see you had a chance to “cover” the issue.

It’s not about the mother’s right to feed, it’s about the baby’s right to be fed.

Seriously, Bill Maher oribably doesn’t even have an opinion on the subject. He just wants laughter and ratings.

I usually enjoy Bill Maher’s humor but after watching his September 11th New Rules segment I refuse to watch him any longer.

As a breastfeeding mother I felt trashed and insulted by this segment. When he equivocated breastfeeding to masturbating, when he called breastfeeding in public lazy. Breastfed babies eat when they feel the urge, not when you schedule it. Of course I could stay home for an entire year so as not to inconvenience the public with my breastfeeding…but then this is America, not Iran.

Bill Maher is wrong…we ARE fighting for a right. I have no interest in being in the spotlight (but apparently Bill Maher does) and if I wanted my breasts to be in the spotlight I’d go swing on a pole. I have no interest in world recognition…believe it or not I really am just a mother fighting for the right to feed her baby when she NEEDS to be fed. This means NOT having to run and hide in a hot/cold car, in a stinky restroom, or make an inconvenient drive home.

It seems to me Bill Maher is the narcissist here - getting a cheap laugh at the expense of breastfeeding moms.

I posted about this as well, with the video. It made me pretty upset, so much so that after writing my post I felt like I should have written more, but I left it: http://www.breastfeedingsymbol.org/2007/09/15/bill-maher-woman-hating-child-hating-idiot/.

Anyway, there are a couple of really important lactivism issues I’m currently working on. One is the Breastfeeding Promotion Act. I’m putting together a post to make it easy for people to learn more about it and how they can help push it through to the House and Senate and made into federal law.

The other is something I actually stumbled upon almost by accident. It’s about a recent breastfeeding study, maybe you’ve read about it? The study, which claimed to be the “largest ever double-blind randomized trial” on human lactation, came to the conclusion that breastfeeding provides “no protection” for allergies and asthma… I remember reading it, the original study, and try as I might, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. It seemed bullet-proof. But then I did some digging… I discovered that it may, in fact, have been funded in part by European formula manufacturers. Please check out my post (with links to all relevant agencies): http://www.breastfeedingsymbol.org/2007/09/24/feeling-a-little-paranoid-you-will-after-reading-this/.

This is a pretty big scandal, and I hope to get more people reading about it, so that it can be revealed.