In February 2025, the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark order in Maatr Sparsh, An Initiative by Avyaan Foundation v. Union of India, acknowledging the intertwined legal rights of mothers and infants to breastfeeding, nursing, and childcare in public spaces. The Court identified the corresponding duty on the state to provide supporting infrastructure. While this is a significant step toward destigmatising public breastfeeding, it may inadvertently reinforce the stereotypical belief that infant care and nutrition are solely a mother’s responsibility.

The Court grounded its ruling in the child’s right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, read in conjunction with Directive Principles of State Policy—Articles 39(f) (the state’s duty to ensure children’s health) and 47 (the state’s duty to improve nutrition). Simultaneously, it affirmed the mother’s constitutional right to breastfeed in public and grounded it in the right to life under Article 21 and maternal health more generally. It directed the Government to implement the Ministry of Women and Child Development’s advisory on establishing feeding rooms and childcare facilities in public spaces, government workplaces, and public sector undertakings and establishments, with the aim of increasing women’s inclusion in public life and female workforce participation. The Court affirmed that this would be in furtherance of Article 14 (right to equality) and Article 15(3) (special provisions to ensure equality for women and children).

However by focussing exclusively on mothers, the Supreme Court’s approach risks placing a ‘double burden’ on women, a problem persisting in sex equality law across jurisdictions. A double burden on women refers to the concept of women taking on paid work in the market yet simultaneously continuing to shoulder private caregiving labour. While the Supreme Court aimed to advance women’s participation in public and at work, the result may nonetheless be meaningless unless structural inequality in the distribution of care responsibilities at home and in the workplace is addressed legally and socially. Women, both in terms of expectations and ground reality, are the primary caregivers of children in all spaces. On average, Indian men only spend 15 minutes per day on childcare, whereas Indian women spend almost 70 minutes on it, significantly higher than the global average for women (38 minutes). The Supreme Court’s order could buttress the double burden because it has not considered all dimensions of substantive equality in terms of women’s responsibility for childcare.

Professor Sandra Fredman argues that substantive equality has four dimensions which need to co-exist: redressing disadvantage; combating stigma and stereotyping; increasing voice and participation; and transforming structures. Unless these dimensions occur together, substantive equality cannot fully be achieved. In fact, the non-consideration of any of these dimensions may actively hinder positive effects created by the achievement of the other dimensions.

In this regard, the Supreme Court’s order destigmatises public breastfeeding and promotes public inclusion but fails on other counts. It inadvertently furthers a gendered stereotype that only mothers can, and ought, to undertake childcare, and does not transform the gendered division of labour. To truly achieve substantive gender equality, it is thus imperative to promote equal caregiving responsibilities between parents. In this regard, the law should adopt a more nuanced and understanding of infant-care by distinguishing biologically gendered processes like breastfeeding from gender-neutral caregiving tasks that can be performed by anyone, such as bottle-feeding, changing diapers, and putting infants to sleep. Lactating individuals should certainly have separate spaces to breastfeed their children. However, the gender-neutral caregiving tasks can and should be carried out by fathers as well. Thus, it would be ideal if the Supreme Court ordered that some of these childcare rooms and infant-care spaces in public and at the workplace be made gender-neutral, accessible by any parent. This is not just crucial for gender equality within heterosexual couples, but also for the recognition and inclusion of fathers who are single parents, and queer individuals/couples with children. This understanding of childcare can very well be rooted in the same rights that the Supreme Court has identified—the child’s right to life and gender equality. Therefore, all parents should be allowed and in fact strongly encouraged to utilise public spaces and infrastructure to undertake infant-care.

The law should be careful about the conception of gender equality it propagates. Beyond performing a signalling function, the law plays a tangible role in reshaping structures of labour. To truly become gender-equal, it is crucial to de-marginalise men and fathers from the legal discourse on and social structures of childcare.