That Time I Got Told My Wife Was A “Bad Feminist”
By: Dillon Melet
Tags: Feminism, Arguing With A Woman, Womens Rights, Sexism, Breastfeeding

It wasn’t life changing.

Photo by Julien L on Unsplash

It all started with a conversation about breastfeeding in public. The year: 2019. The setting: work. The conversation partner: a female coworker who was an art major, had moved to Tel Aviv from Manhattan and was very touchy when it came to discussing issues about gender and discrimination.

Yea. Do I even need to make a joke about how stupid I was for bringing that up?

In my defense, Israel is, in general, a much more open society than the United States. With so many different groups each being influenced by education, wealth, religion, ethnicity, history, and location, there isn’t quite as much of a “mainstream ideology” here like there is in the States.

Also, political correctness isn’t quite as big of a thing here. But it’s coming, mark my words.

On top of all of that, I had just gotten out of the IDF. I wasn’t used to having to filter out my thoughts quite as much because I had spent the past 2.5 years living with a group of guys who all thought the craziest shit that was all over the political spectrum.

Our company commander had encouraged us at the time to argue, discuss, and debate one another. For him, a healthy unit was an honest unit and, as warriors, it was important that we work our minds in addition to our bodies.

Plus, the army offers a unique opportunity to live with people who come from all walks of life. You can have a settler in the West Bank serving next to a Beduin from the Negev. It’s pretty cool watching people like this come together and, even though they might hate everything the other person stands for, manage to love each other anyways.

But that’s the army, and this was real life.

My brain hadn’t quite made the switch yet.

Before you start thinking that I’m some sexist, patriarchy-supporting piece of shit I want to make clear what my position is on the public breastfeeding front.

In a nutshell — I’m all for it. Your baby’s hungry? You whip those hush puppies out lady and do what God intended for them!

However…

I do wish that women would be just a teensy bit more courteous when at… let’s say… a restaurant. When I’m halfway through my mashed potatoes I would rather not look up and see some woman’s boobie stuffed in a baby’s mouth.

Before you send me that hate mail just wait!

I’m not saying that the woman should be forced to leave, or go sit in the bathroom, or wherever to breastfeed. Nor would I ever go up to a woman and demand that she cover those funbags up while I wait for dessert! It’s totally possible to just deal with it, and continue having a nice time while ignoring it.

That’s the thing though, isn’t it? You have to put in the effort to ignore the suckling baby while trying to focus on your wife telling you about her friend’s last run-in with her ex while over her shoulder a new mom struggles to balance a baby in one hand and open her bra with the other.

To that end, would it be possible for her to just toss a towel over her shoulder during this process? I get that she doesn’t owe me anything. But we also live in a society where we’re surrounded by other people. As a result, we do things to make other people more comfortable… or at least just enough to get them to leave us alone.

Just to recap. 100% okay with the women breastfeeding in public. Wish they would just bring a small towel that they could use to cover up the baby when doing it in a place where people are eating or working. That’s it. Deep sigh of relief.

If this makes you seeth in anger, I’m sorry. I truly am. I’m not about to protest legislation preventing it, or get in people’s faces demanding it. To be honest, I hardly even care enough to argue about it.

So why write a whole post about it?

Because what drove me crazy about the interaction with that former coworker wasn’t that she got in my face about it. It wasn’t that she told me I was wrong. Or that, as a man, I’m not “allowed” to have an opinion on the issue (although that part was a little annoying, how can I prevent myself from having opinions??).

It was that after I pointed out that my wife thought along the same lines as me she said, and I quote, “She needs to be a better feminist.”

That pissed me off.

For the record, me and this… lovely person… worked at a company that generated and sold clickbait of the trashiest degree (I know, but I needed a job and I’m out of that game now anyways. Save your judgment).

My wife, on the other hand, had been a captain in the IDF who had served with distinction, finished at the top of her class in med school, and had gone on to become a freaking gynecologist!

Her job was to spend 26-hour shifts helping women survive pushing newborn life out of their vaginas.

I can go on in the numerous other ways in which my wife is one of the most incredible women I’ve met, but that’s not what this is about.

What I saw that day is what happens when people get completely carried away by an ideology. Obviously, we hear about it all the time (terrorist organizations and crazy uncles and such), but it’s rare to see it so clearly from someone you know pretty well.

It’s interesting to see that someone who believes in an ideology built around the emancipation and promotion of women and their independent choices is now bashing a star or a woman because her ideas differ slightly from her own.

Now, at this point, I could offer her the benefit of the doubt. I could say that it was an argument, things were getting heated, and maybe she just said some crazy shit at the moment with the goal of winning.

However, I found out that for a couple of days after that she went around telling people that I didn’t think women should breastfeed in public which was NOT what I was saying AT ALL!

Thankfully, most people either didn’t care or didn’t think it was that big a deal. Turns out breastfeeding in public isn’t the cultural flashpoint some people think. Sorry if you happened to be one of those people.

The point of this writing isn’t to bash women, or feminism, or to say that I was right in any way. I was still learning to adjust to civilian life and if I could go back in time and smack myself upside the head while shouting SHUT UP, I would.

I’m also not interested in dissecting this woman psychologically. I don’t know her well enough to do so and I got enough to think about as is without wasting too much time picking her apart.

I only have 2 points: