Mom embarrassed after being shamed for breastfeeding in courthouse: 'Stop sexualizing women'
Savannah Bannon was outraged when she saw an officer at the Tulsa Municipal Court shame a woman for breastfeeding in the hallway and wrote on Facebook that she was “ashamed” of the city of Tulsa. In response to her post, mothers planned to stage a “nurse-in” at the courthouse Friday morning.
“Really I think it’s just a part of something bigger,” Bannon said in a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle. “We hope to be able to change the mindset eventually. Hope that people will stop shaming mothers for feeding their children. Stop sexualizing women to the point where we can’t even use our bodies for what they were meant to do.”
Bannon and other Oklahoma women wanted to take action after Bannon described seeing a courthouse employee tell a breastfeeding mother to go to the bathroom to do “that.” Bannon wrote on Facebook that she could tell the woman was “embarrassed for being shamed” and a little shocked at the request. Bannon was “appalled” at the man’s behavior, she wrote, adding that both she and the mother filed formal complaints. Bannon also urged people to reach out to Jensen about organizing a nurse-in.
Oklahoma law gives women the right to breastfeed “anywhere they have a right to be.” About 20 people have RSVPed to the nurse-in on Facebook in the hopes of reminding the public of that right.
“This is to educate others, specifically persons of law enforcement, about breastfeeding laws/rights,” Brooke Jensen, one of the organizers, wrote in a Facebook event created for the nurse-in.
The demonstration will take place outside the courthouse, and Jensen’s posts reminded participants not to go inside and disturb the municipal court.
“Being outside and nursing our babies should be enough as far as getting the message out there,” Jensen wrote.
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
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