I made a post the other day about a woman who was proudly, without any covering, breastfeeding her child and angered by the woman at the next table who was glaring at her.

A self-declared feminist on Twitter retweeted my original post and attracted the attention of a group of people who strongly, and I do mean strongly, advocate breastfeeding in public without any covering.

I’ve gotten a large amount, well, a large amount for me, of Twitter hate. I’m being called misogynistic, ill-informed, perverted, male-privileged, and various other names. In the midst of it all a woman grabbed a screen capture of my Twitter image which shows the three main protagonists from my latest novel, The Girl in Glass I: Apparition. She asked if I liked the way the woman was dressed. It was Rhia the powerful swordswoman of the group.

I do like strong and powerful woman. I find them attractive and interesting in real life and I enjoy writing about them in my fictional universe. My mom and all of my sisters (five for those of you counting) certainly fall into that category and the women I date tend to as well.

A thought occurred to me as I was looking at this Tweet.

Are not the women who are so dedicatedly defending the act of uncovered breastfeeding also strong and passionate women? By golly, they are!

I personally don’t think we’re that far apart in our opinions of breastfeeding uncovered in public. I think a woman should make an effort to cover herself out of consideration to the other diners. My Twitter friends think otherwise.

I certainly agree women should be allowed to go without covering themselves and not fear arrest of indecency. I think if a woman wants to do so she has every right to do that. I would fight vigorously against making such illegal. I also think accommodations for breastfeeding women should be made much more readily available.

That being said, it is not me who thinks our opinions are widely divergent. It is the strong and vocal women. They are mad at me, not vice versa.

To that I say: Good for you. I admire your passion. Keep up the fight! We disagree but that’s not a reason to hate, at least not for me.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition
Next Release: The Gray Horn