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A Hush Falls On Pumping Time
Dahlia Lithwick commented yesterday at Slate on a court case involving a medical student (at Harvard) requesting extra time during her medical state board exams (which are nine hours long during which there is a single 45-minute long break) for breast pumping. Initially, the woman was denied the extra time but a Massachusetts appeals court overturned the decision.
As someone who has had limited oversupply issues and who is mildly prone to mastitis, I would be grateful for the extra time, if I were taking the medical boards, but I'm not at all good at asking to be an exception in any way, and my feelings are utterly secondary. Lithwick points out that most disturbing is how quiet everyone has been on the issue that seems reasonable. It is true that the person requesting the extra time does appear to be something of a pill, and thus a not particularly ideal subject to rally behind with all kinds of outrage. But still, these are medical boards, breastfeeding is something of a public health issue, as Lithwick points out, why not show some flexibility and support?
My husband tells me that there are all sorts of fascinating discrepancies when it comes to board exams, none of which seem just or sane. Apparently in New Jersey the bar exam was so rigidly controlled that the bathroom was physically in the testing room, but test takers were free to wander out of the building and smoke, unsupervised. And in a famous incident, in my own fair city, a woman failed the bar exam when she went into labor during the test (the man who helped deliver her baby was also failed-- proving the no good deed goes unpunished principle). But why should it be that real, pressing, embarrassing, physical issues need to be an additional gauntlet for people taking an incredibly hard test in the first place?
Lithwick wonders why commentators have been so silent on this breastfeeding medical board case and suspects some of the hush might come from a fear of having to wrestle with the stay-at-home vs. working mother "wars" the media likes to talk about. I wonder if the silence comes from a fear of life being unfair that everyone seems to rail about these days. Sourpusses would say that this woman chose to have a baby and go to medical school and breastfeed and that she should be responsible for all of her choices. I don't think so, really. I am pathetically grateful when people hold open a door for me when I have a baby in a stroller because I feel so defensive about the whole "it is her decision and she can't expect anyone to help her" attitude that I feel so strongly.
Or is there another reason why people might not be inclined to talk about this problem? Do they think it's silly and too occasional (how many breastfeeding women are ever taking a board exam at a time anyway?) for debate?
posted by Elise at 7:03 AM
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I think it's also because people are deeply ambiguous about breastfeeding in this country. The breast has been sexualized for so long that it's hard for people to think of anything associated with breasts in a non-sexual way. Look at the examples of women being arrested for indecent exposure for breastfeeding in public. Breastfeeding is one of those things that everyone agrees in principle is a good thing, but that no one seems to want to accommodate or actually adjust to.
9/29/2007 2:24 PM
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