An inclusivity policy
Being inclooosive is all very well, but you can’t be inclooosive of everything all the time for the simple reason that sometimes you need to be specific. Specificity requires exclusion.
A trustee and PR director of Britain’s oldest breastfeeding charity has resigned after it introduced an inclusivity policy that allowed men to attend support groups.
This is one of those times. Breastfeeding is inherently “exclusionary” in the blunt factual sense that men can’t do it. It’s not that spiteful bitchy women decided to make it exclusionary, it’s that men can’t breastfeed.
Given the fact that men can’t do it, what can possibly be the point of being inclooosive of men in breastfeeding support groups? What can a man’s motive for attending be other than creepy prurient intrusion? Why do women have to be inclooosive of leering men in breastfeeding support groups?
Miriam Main is leaving La Leche League GB (LLLGB) after a diktat from the global organisation elicited fears that volunteers would have to give advice to transgender women.
Directors at the charity’s British arm have already requested that the Charity Commission intervene over the inclusivity policy, which permits biological males to seek support from the organisation.
Main resigned on Monday, saying that she refused to help biological men “perform a poor imitation of breastfeeding”, which she said put babies’ safety at risk.
Documents produced by LLLGB on transgender and non-binary parents stated that it “supports everyone who wants to breastfeed or chestfeed in reaching their goals”. It said: “We do not discriminate based on sex, gender or gender identity.”
There again – just as with exclooosion, sometimes you have to “discriminate.” Men can’t breastfeed, end of story. The demand to be allowed to “chestfeed” a chemical soup to an infant is trump-level disgusting.
Zion Tankard, executive director of La Leche League International, said: “We respect Marian’s decision regarding La Leche League International. Her contributions and legacy are highly valued as a founder. We will continue to uphold the values of empathy and understanding that are central to La Leche League.”
If “empathy” here means encouraging men to feed infants a chemical soup, then it’s an empathy too far.
Something that would make sense is information for male partners of new mothers on how to be helpful to the new mother.
This sounds completely different and completely unhelpful.