Professor breastfeeds during lecture. Whole situation blows up.

American University anthropology professor Adrienne Pine woke up on August 28th--the first day of class--to her infant child sick with a fever. Because no daycare typically takes a sickly child, and instead of calling for a babysitter or canceling the first day of class, Pine took the sick infant to her lecture.

Fast forward a bit into the lecture, and the infant was hungry and crying. So Pine decided that now was as good a time as any to breastfeed the child and continue the lecture. Out came the breast, onward continued the lecture.

Fast forward a little more, a student newspaper politely asked for a comment to the story they were told by Pine's students. Pine felt attacked by the email, and this whole thing has snowballed.

I was going to detail the exchange between the student newspaper and Professor Pine--from Pine's own account in a CounterPunch.org article--but it'll involve roughly a 47,000 word analysis by me of how Pine's reaction to the newspaper is largely why the world views academics as insane.

Pine's whole article comes across as someone who is just an unpleasant human being. When one student saw her baby daughter stick a paper clip in her mouth and alerted Pine, Pine was angry the student thought the baby was a boy. Instead of thanking the student for letting her know her infant was chewing on a paper clip--Pine states she was angry the student assigned a gender to a bald-headed infant. There's perspective.

Just this one quote from Professor Pine though, to whet your appetite:
"What did the [student newspaper] think I was? A rice paper painting? A hymen?"

Because the newspaper emailed her. For a quote. A hymen.

And this is why people mock academics.





As a side note: American University's own comment on the situation mentions that Pine had available leave time she could have used to cancel class, there was time for a break in the middle of lecture, and that there are rooms available for private breastfeeding should she want to utilize those.

But, you know, somehow everyone is calling Professor Pine a hymen.