Andrea O’Reilly, a York University professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies, was quoted in a Toronto Star article discussing nursing rooms at the Eaton Centre shopping mall. The article reports that two fathers were asked by mall security to leave a nursing room claiming it was for mothers only, prompting disagreement and leading one family to file a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
O’Reilly says that since the mall only has a single nursing room available, it should offer more space and a private area so that both families and individual mothers can use the space. O’Reilly says it’s important to remember that families care for children, not only women, so ideally there should be several nursing rooms to meet the needs of different families.
O’Reilly is internationally recognized as the founder of Motherhood Studies. In addition to being a York professor, she is founder/editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement and publisher of Demeter Press. She is the editor or co-editor of over 30 books exploring a variety of topics related to motherhood.
Read the full article in the Toronto Star.