For decades there have been countless stories of nursing women being told that breastfeeding their child in public is not okay. From being asked to cover-up to being escorted from the premises, mothers and feminists are rightfully fed up with the country’s reaction to the female breast.

Right off the bat, I want to clarify that this is not some propaganda for the “breast is best” belief in parenting. I believe that it is every woman’s decision whether she wants to breast or bottle feed, and whether formula is an option she would like to consider. However if a woman has made the choice that she wants to breastfeed, no one else should get a say in that decision. Yet people don’t seem to be grasping this.

Emily Locke was attending her sister’s wedding at the Western Revere Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio. After taking family photos, she paused to feed her 9-year-old son when she was approached by the museum staff. They informed her public breastfeeding was against museum policy and aggressively shamed her into stopping. She later posted about this event on facebook, saying, “It was a beautiful day darkened by one situation.”

There are laws in place to protect mothers from confrontations like these. The main issue is, a lot of them fall into this legal grey area. Mothers are protected with laws stating that women are allowed to breastfeed any place they are legally allowed to be. It gets tricky when you add in the fact that these businesses are often private properties and they also hold certain legal rights to what people can and cannot do on their property. However if they confront a mother and she knows her rights, it can become a confusing situation because they cannot kick her out. At this point, mothers are generally asked to relocate to the bathroom.

Here at College of Dupage, the schools breastfeeding policy mimics that of Illinois’. According to the Illinois Right To Breastfeed Act (740 ILCS 137/10), “A mother may breastfeed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether the nipple of the mother’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breastfeeding.” This is great news for COD mothers, as they can breastfeed their child while continuing their education if they so choose.

Some companies have taken it upon themselves to add “lactation rooms.” These are special rooms made just for the purpose of nursing mothers, and they are being found more and more in corporate offices. At this time they are only available to employees and not customers, although that may change in the future.

What many people don’t seem to realize is that this issue is more than just women trying to feed their children. It has to do with the hypersexualization of women. The female breast is not a sexual organ. It never has been, nor will it ever be. It is a collection of fatty tissue and milk ducts, and are used almost exclusively for feeding children. That is the biological reason for them to be on a human body.

A lot of people, however, see breasts as this glorified sex symbol (think Jessica Rabbit, Kim Kardashian, Pam Anderson, etc.). This is where the idea of women breastfeeding becomes perverted and something that should be kept private. But at the end of the day, it is the most natural, and most human thing a woman can do.

So how do we fix this? Let’s start by making lactation rooms a cultural norm. All major businesses and companies should have them on their premises, so the women have a place they can go if they choose to breastfeed in private.

Some women may not want to breastfeed in private, though. We need to find a way to support them in that choice as well, and there are two ways we can do that. The first, we should help spread knowledge of the issue. We need to educate the public about why a woman may choose to breastfeed, and why your opinion has nothing to do with it. This can be done through ads on television, in magazines. You could even use famous mothers to help back the cause!

The second way involves change at a local level. Call your city government and find out what kind of laws they have in place to protect breastfeeding mothers. If there aren’t any, perhaps start a petition, or a political club to get the community engaged in this issue. I promise there are other people, especially parents, who would become enraged when they learned about the lack of protection.

The battle for women’s rights has been ongoing and uphill for centuries, and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. I understand that cultural change takes time, but let’s not sit idly by and accept it. The only way to create change is to fight, and I am calling to you, the people of COD, to help.