| By Molly Snyder Edler OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer E-mail author | Author bio More articles by Molly Snyder Edler |
| Published June 27, 2006 at 12:23 p.m. |
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This Saturday, two moms are organizing a nationwide nurse-in at the popular lingerie store, Victoria's Secret. Prompted by run-ins with Victoria's Secret employees, Rebecca Cook, of Burlington, and Jessie Chandler, of Quincy, Mass., have decided to do something about state and federal laws that do not protect nursing mothers.
"A Tale of Two Nursing Moms" seeks a federal law that protects a nursing mother's right to feed her baby anywhere that she and her baby would otherwise be allowed to be. They are urging moms to go to their local Victoria's Secret on July 1 at 1 p.m. to nurse their babies and be a part of this movement.
On June 21, Rebecca Cook entered a Victoria's Secret store with a friend to browse through the sales racks. While in the store, Cook's daughter wanted to nurse, so she went to the dressing room and asked for one. When a dressing room wasn't available, she said that she'd sit out of the way and nurse her daughter, and was told that she wasn't allowed to by a store employee, that she would have to use a restroom. After she refused to use a restroom to nurse her daughter, a dressing room opened up, and while she was in it, the two store employees were heard loudly discussing, right outside her dressing room, to make sure if there's an occupied sign that the dressing room is truly occupied and to get customers in and out of the dressing rooms as soon as possible.
Cook left the dressing room because of their rudeness, nursing her daughter on her way out of the store. When she called to complain to the store manager, she was told that the employee probably asked her to nurse in the restroom because the sight of her breasts might offend a customer. Taking the complaint of the treatment by the store manager to the corporate customer service wasn't any further help, because she was told that women are not allowed to try on clothing in the middle of the store, therefore they are not allowed to nurse in the middle of the sales floor.
In a similar incident, Jessie Chandler entered a Victoria's Secret store on June 22, to browse the sales racks as well, after feeding her daughter. A saleswoman approached her to welcome her to Victoria's Secret, and Chandler asked to use a changing room. When asked by the sales associate if she was going to change her daughter's diaper, Chandler said that she was going to nurse her, to which the sales associate replied with giving directions to the bathroom outside the store.
Chandler refused to use the bathroom, and the attendant said that it was unsanitary for her to nurse in the dressing room because people change in them. When Chandler called the store manager, she received an apology. Chandler called Victoria's Secret's corporate office after hearing of Cook's experience with corporate's customer service, and was told that Chandler's experience was an isolated experience and that she would have a letter of apology sent out to her.
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