Anyway, if I had more time, money, dedication, etc, I would probably be a fairly attentive gamer. I love puzzles and adventures and all that stuff, and there's something about shooting bad guys in games like Doom that is nothing short of cathartic. I'm a member of The Escapist, which is a great site for gaming and game discussion, and incidentally the host site of some of my favourite weekly series' (Zero Punctuation, The Big Picture and Extra Credits, to name a few). For better or worse I occasionally participate in the forums as well, and one of the topics on the forums today was on breastfeeding in public.
Well, of course, I had to participate in it. I vaguely remember, as a child, watching the occasional woman whipping out her newborn child's feeding apparatus and coaxing said newborn child to have its lunch, and I remember being somewhat intrigued by the process. It never entered my mind that the process was indecent. Isn't it what you're supposed to do, after all? When baby's hungry, baby needs to eat. But the issue of public breastfeeding came to my attention a few years ago via Penn and Teller's Bullshit! episode on Breast Hysteria (season 5, in case you're interested in hunting it out). I was amazed that so many people were against public breastfeeding. I wasn't and never have been a gibbering moron; I know that it's considered indecent for women to remove their bras and shake their bouncing knockers around as though they're church bells, but I figured that most people would surely realise that these women aren't just exposing their breasts for shits and giggles here. I'd have thought feeding a hungry baby would take precedence over possible offending of the populace with your exposed and probably not very pretty nipples.
Evidently not, if this forum's anything to go by. Most people appear to be on my side if the poll's anything to go by, but many are against it. Here are some inspiring bits of prose by the nay-sayers:
As a 20 something man, I feel perfectly justified NOT wanting to see certain things when I go out into public. Its not because I think its wrong to breastfeed, or even because its supposedly "obscene". It just strikes me as something that should be done privately ... Any time I see breastfeeding in public, I turn my head and am forced to make an effort to not look. If its being done in a restaurant, I have trouble continuing to eat without staring directly at my plate.
I can appreciate this bloke (he's the OP, btw)'s discomfort, but my main argument is that his comfort really should not be considered more important than a hungry child. Not feeding a hungry child is something that I would argue to be child abuse (not that that's a phrase I really like slinging around, but it's like when forcing a child to diet. It's cruel). What I really enjoyed was his "20 something man" part. I'll bet he's sis-gendered and white too.
while i personally would prefer it if they didnt, i understand that the baby has to eat, if its outside then there's not really too many places you can go, however if its in a restaurant i'd rather they went to the bathroom or something otherwise its realllly awkward
Sorry about the poor grammar. I think this person's mostly got the right idea, but the bathroom bit... well, maybe, if they have that option. But I'd argue that you wouldn't want to eat your lunch there, so why should the baby?
No one should have to adjust what they're doing so they can keep one person comfortable at the expense of the rest of the crowd
Really? Even when that one person is less than a year old, and as-yet incapable of producing their own meals, while the rest of the crowd has the ability to look away?
Now for some yay-sayers, just to keep things even.
I don't really mind, but you do know that a baby crying in public is much more annoying that breastfeeding, right?
I reckon! A few people pointed this out, and I think it's probably the best argument for getting the nay-sayers to stop complaining, because it's addressing their comfort. Ahh, humans. What a selfish bunch we are.
It's a perfectly natural act. If you wanna act like a 12 year old boy about it you should probably grow up and show some respect. Mothers don't get to chose when their kids are hungry. And how would you like it if someone said that you can't eat in public, but that you had to go into the bathroom to eat.
Spot on. And I told him/her as such.
How dare, how dare I say, that woman drag herself out of the house where she might inconvenience you with the sight of a perfectly natural phenomenon.
Come on, boyo, she went through nine months of relative hell and then squeezed a baby out of a hole severely undersized for the job. Now you want her to stay at home, too? Post-natal depression gets so many women in part because of the isolation you'd see mothers go through to prevent you seeing a nipple. You're perfectly justified in not wanting to see it, but she's also perfectly justified in wanting to go out on occasion. Babies get hungry at all hours, man, she's just got to go with the very literal flow.
This one made me lol. I just loved the "How dare, how dare I say" bit.
Anyway, I commented similarly, emphasising that it's possible to look away. The OP replied saying "should I look at my plate then, if she's directly in front of me?" to which I answered "yeah, if it bothers you that much" This other chap then replied, saying that the mother could take a bottle or two when they go out, and that the nay-sayers are basically saying that asking the mother to have a little decency is not too much to ask for in modern society.
This is where my initial spiel about feminism comes in, because here was where I smelled male privilege coming into play. Not that there aren't women against public breastfeeding as well, because there are, but anyway. What struck me at this point was that, were breasts a male organ, and were men the ones having to expose that body part to feed children, what would the public reaction be? In my humble opinion, I don't think there would be nearly as big an outcry. Men, after all, are not expected to always be put-together and decent and proper all the time, like women are. Consider how much more OK it is for men to rearrange their clothing in public than it is for women. For something more related to the topic, consider how much more OK it is for men to be completely topless in public than women. Now admittedly for that one you can argue that breasts are a sexual organ and therefore should be covered, and women are allowed to walk about in bikini tops all they want, buuuuut... I'll argue that. Firstly, while men are very sexually attracted to breasts (and why wouldn't they be?) I'd argue that their main purpose is for breastfeeding and for telling men and women apart. It's the womanliness of breasts that makes men find them sexy. I mean, vaginas are undeniably sexual organs, but men would surely say they find breasts hotter than vaginas, just like I find pretty much every other part of a male more attractive than his penis. Secondly, even if we compare topless men to bikini-clad women, I think the men are still more socially acceptable. Not by much, nowadays, but still.
My point is, even nowadays when feminism has made such an impact on how we as society view women, there still seems to be a fair ways to go. When something like public breastfeeding has such a large percentage of people saying "it's wrong and indecent", when it's, you know, an action that serves a REALLY IMPORTANT BLOODY PURPOSE, you have to question how equal men and women really are, even in these modern times.
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