Sex, naps and meditation: men caught misusing workplace breastfeeding rooms
There was a “lactation/quiet room” sign on the door and the room had been reserved for that purpose on the company calendar. So Hannah was surprised when she walked in to discover a male co-worker using the lactation room for a phone call.
“I had to stand there with my sore, full boobs and explain to this dude who was mad at me for interrupting him that I needed the room to express milk to feed my kid later,” said Hannah, who works at a public health policy not-for-profit.
Her story is far from unusual. Travis Kalanick, the embattled CEO of Uber, it was revealed this week, uses his company’s lactation room to meditate.
“I have walked in on an exec having sex with an intern in the lactation room,” said one women working in tech.
A third woman, who worked for what she described as a well-funded food startup with a social justice mission, said that her CEO regularly used the lactation room to make phone calls or take naps.
“I had to wake him numerous times, which was humiliating,” she said. “Once he told me: ‘I need another 15 minutes.’”
While the CEO would laugh about his behavior, approaching her later to say “Don’t hate me!” or “I owe you one!”, the woman said that his actions had a serious impact on her ability to continue breastfeeding her second child.
“I didn’t pump very long after I went back [to work]. I actually just couldn’t produce enough for my baby, and I know it was because of the stress because I never had that issue with my first,” she said. “I am sad I won’t ever get that back.”
A facilities manager for an advertising company changed the signage on the lactation room from “privacy room” to “mothering room” because, he said: “A guy wouldn’t stop using it to place long angry phone calls hammering out his ugly divorce/custody battle.”
Frustratingly to the manager, the company actually had designated rooms for placing phone calls. “The lactation room was just closer to his desk,” he said.
Male entitlement in action
And can you imagine the rage and horror of these men if women just said “fuck it” and started breastfeeding/pumping at their desk or anywhere.
“well my desk is closer than the lactation room”
the men would completely unravel, and likely at no point would they stop and think “maybe I shouldn’t have used this space set aside for lactating women to fuck my intern”