Walmart's War on Women

by: satyr9us

Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 02:11 PM CST

Supposedly, the company is specifically focused on facilitating the needs of mothers.

Walmart's silly, pandering, new "Eleven Moms" campaign-- consisting, no kidding, of 19 rather than 11 bargain-hunting, values-beaming women bloggers-- will probably serve its intended purpose of buoying the brand through the upcoming holiday season.

But to peel back the facile PR facade-- to examine real real stories of women's experiences at Walmart's stores-- is to see something else entirely:

Heather Silvis says she felt bullied when Wal-Mart associates told her she could not breastfeed her baby in the store on Two Notch Road.

To be clear: breastfeeding in public is expressly permitted under South Carolina law.

Also, to be clear: asking someone to go to a special area to perform a given function she's about to undertake is one thing. That's not what happened. A team of thugs in Walmart uniforms, including a manager, not only didn't ask, but rather told-- they illegally handled the child without permission, separating the baby from its mother:

"Then one of them stood up and pushed my shopping cart with my 21-month-old baby in it and my purse around the corner and I was told, 'If you want to breast feed, you're going to have to go in there.' So I followed my child who was in my shopping cart went into the dressing room and nursed my baby," Silvis said.

Of course this is only one of the things wrong with Walmart. I'm working with Wake-Up Wal-Mart to rally American voices, to force Walmart to respect its workers and its customers. There's more information here.

A few non-rhetorical questions:
Is public breastfeeding legal here in Texas?
Has Walmart disrespected the legal rights of its customers here in Texas?
What is the worst thing Walmart has done in Texas?

(Cross-posted to Daily Kos and MyDD)