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Monday, June 30, 2008

Milk of Dignity

Feminists everywhere are probably going to lynch me for saying this but ... what bollocks.


OK, of course, breast feeding is a wonderful thing.  Between mother and child.  But it should not be inflicted on the unsuspecting and uncomfortable.  Sure it is a natural thing.  So is pissing.  But if a bloke unzipped, took out his willy and started pissing in public view, he would get bloody arrested, wouldn't he?

So this is totally double standards, is it not?

Loads of women breast feed in public.  I've seen them.  They drape this cloth over their shoulder and their feeding spawns to hide their boobies from pervy or horrified eyes.  It's really considerate and discreetly classy.

But to demand your right to breast feed in public as a constitutional, human amendment right is a bit much.  It's like asking for extra pay to take leave to nurse your sick child while your single colleagues have to cover your duties with no compensation.  It's a trite bit unfair and what about the rights of the singletons?  Or the blokes having to hold their wee in while in search of the loo?

It's not as if the breast feeding mums can't go to the loo to breast feed too.  

I remember a girlfriend who called me up in tears years ago.  It was early morning and I was in the office when a weeping woman wailed over the phone.  It was her 30th birthday and she was going through some emotional depression at reaching that hallmark without anything to show for it.  So she hied herself off to the nearest McDonalds to drown her sorrows in a McMuffin and dishwater coffee when a woman and her baby sat at the opposite table.

And proceeded to open her blouse, take out her boobie and breast feed in full view of my girlfriend.

Who promptly burst into tears and called me in the office in hysterics.

I was in hysterics myself at the thought of a woman baring her boobies with such impunity in public.

I never forgot that incident and have developed a deep phobia of going to McDonalds in the morning for breakfast in case of boobies flashing.

So the Italian mums protest that showgirls reveal their boobies so why can't they?  My dears, people pay money to see showgirls.  I reckon some people might pay you to put yours away.  And usually the telecast of gratuitous boob flashing are during the hours when kids are safely in bed.

And boobies are not a sexual thing?  Well, loads of blokes' willies are not sexual things too and more of laughable things but you'd get them arrested in a shot if they flashed those at you, wouldn't you?

Come on, be fair here ... and where's your dignity?

Thus, I am against the mass demonstration of rabid boob flashing by breast feeding mums with overdeveloped sense of entitlement.  OK, they should be allowed to breast feed if they cover up with the cloth tent act or go to the loo but no nekkid boob should be shown.  Hey, there might be young, impressionable kids besides your own around.  They could be scarred for life!

So ... Yes, you are entitled to breast feed where and when you wish.  And yes, we are entitled to call the cops on you for indecent exposure.



06/25/2008 03:26 PM

THE POLITICS OF BREAST-FEEDING


Italian Mothers Hold Mass Public Nursing


Whether it's dealing with the squeamish people or oglers, women often feel uncomfortable about breast-feeding in public. This week, a group of 100 women in Rome held a nurse-in to protest what they see as Italy's unfair stigmatization of women who nurse on the street.


Protesting social attitudes that stigmatize breast-feeding in public in Italy, more than 100 mothers gathered in Rome on Tuesday for a public mass-nursing aimed at bringing attention to the matter.


"People still give a start when they see a woman breast-feeding," Grazia Passeri, president of Salvamamme (Save Mothers), told the Italian news agency ANSA, "but they have to learn that a breast is not just a sexy object." Passeri's organization promotes mothers' rights and is currently running a campaign with the slogan, "I'll Nurse Where I Feel Like It."


Pointing out the irony that Italian television is full of lightly or un-clad women, Passeri added: "It's ridiculous that showgirls can show their (breasts) but mothers can't."


One of the participants in Tuesday's mass-nursing, told ANSA that, when she breast-feeds in public: "They give me evil looks, but I do it anyway."


Although the World Health Organization has labeled breast-feeding "the ideal way of providing young infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development," many societies still feel squeamish about seeing women breast-feed in public.


In England, for example, breast-feeding in public can still be punished under public order laws and laws of public decency. That will soon be changing, though, as the government hopes to push through new laws by the end of the year.


"We intend to make clear in the equality bill that it's not acceptable for women who are breast-feeding their babies to be shooed out of restaurants, public galleries and other public places," Harriet Harman, the leader of the House of Commons, told MPs last Thursday, according to the Guardian.


A similar nurse-in was held in November 2006, when women gathered to nurse in public at 31 airports throughout the United States to protest after a flight attendant kicked a passenger off a plane for breast-feeding her daughter.


Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,561978,00.html

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