Sigh. You would think that people would have better things to do with their time.

I am referring to the flap over at Live Journal about the use of breastfeeding pictures as default icons. I was thinking it was an LJ thing, and once the initial flurry had passed, I could safely ignore it, until Patrick Neilsen Hayden at Making Light, one of the most interesting blogs around, posted "LJ's attack on women and mothers."

I am both. I have been a nursing mother, and I know some of the pitfalls and stresses caused by trying to nurse in public. I know how frustrating it is to have to deal with people who think that the sight of a baby being breastfed is WRONG! I know what it's like to have to pump milk in a bathroom stall because there was no appropriate place to do so.

And I say: If the fact that you cannot use a picture of your nursing baby as your default icon on your LJ creates a crisis for you, then you need to get a life.

People are still allowed to use pictures of themselves as icons other than default icons. People are still allowed to post pictures of themselves nursing their babies. (People use actually racy /pornographic images on some of their non-default icons.) No one is saying they can't.

Providers of services on the Internet are coming under increasing scrutiny. Listening to television news, you would think that MySpace (the site most singled out for attention by the fearmongers in the media and elsewhere) is nothing more than a den of pedophiles and pornographers waiting to seduce and corrupt the Youth of America. Live Journal operates in an area that is threatened with government regulation. They are walking a fine line between respecting the free speech of their users and running afoul of the more conservative elements out there who could make life difficult for them and by extension their users.

It has, however, been treated as a "LJ is against nursing mothers!" issue. It has also given some of the more radical -- and nasty -- pro-breastfeeding people an opportunity to make mothers who cannot breastfeed feel like shit. According to the nursing totalitarians, anyone who does not breastfeed their baby is an unfit mother, quite ignoring the fact that there are many caring, thoughtful mothers who cannot breastfeed. (If you notice in the article quoted, nursing is the only proper way to feed a baby, and women who don't are poor, or uneducated. Funny, all the women I know who've struggled with this have been bright, well-educated, and simply unable to nurse, and their babies have done fine.)[Edit: At the suggestion of commenters, the moderators redacted out the more inflammatory portions of the quoted article as being irrelevant to the discussion of LJ's policies.]

There are real issues facing nursing mothers. Having a place to either pump milk or nurse your baby while at work being a big one. Actually being prevented from nursing in public is another. Support for low-income mothers is another. Getting the information out about breastfeeding in a calm non-judgmental way is important.

Not being able to post a 100 pixel square picture of a woman nursing a baby as a default icon at LJ is not.


*For those lucky enough to not be familiar with what's going on, LJ asked a user to remove a breastfeeding woman icon as their default icon, and the user publicized this, and it became a "LJ is stifling free speech!" and "LJ is against nursing mothers!" sort of thing.