So... it's not about whales.. but it's something.
This annoyance was sparked by an article I read this afternoon, and it made me want to rant about it so I figured that it was about time that I returned to the blogging game, rather than bugging people on Facebook with my thoughts.
Again, I'm gonna start of with a 'lets get something straight'... Let's get something straight, I am not opposed to breast feeding, nor doing it in public... they are breasts.. so I'm all for getting them out in the mall.. but not everyone thinks like that. And the people who annoy me are the ones who don't understand that not everyone likes to see random boob when they are out doing some shopping.
This is another kind of topic where the entire problem lies in the fact that some people are completely retarded when it comes to having perception or reaching compromise. If you read the article that i have linked above, you will see that the whole problem and protest stemmed from the fact that a women who decided to breast feed in a store was asked by an attendant, not to leave the store, but simply to stop breast feeding. Personally, I don't see why this sparked any sort of problem other than a little embarrassment for the breast-feeding women. It is completely within the rights of a shop owner/worker to ask a patron to stop doing something, especially if the thing they are doing could disturb other patrons, they are trying to run a business after all.
What particularly made me laugh was that there was a quote in the article from the initial breast-feeder saying: "It's shocking to me that, in 2011, people still have an attitude that women shouldn't breast-feed in public, I think it's absurd, especially in a children's clothing store". I will talk about the start of that quote in a bit, but for now I want to focus on that last line.. "Especially in a children's clothing store".. Reeeeally? You think that it is weird that people wouldn't be comfortable with you exposing your body to their young children while they are trying to buy them clothes? There is a time and a place for everything, a store filled with young children probably isn't the place to get a relatively taboo body part out.
Which brings me to my next point.. the part where some people just plain aren't comfortable with breast feeding.. You can say all you want about how that's wrong and not the way it should be, and how we should be comfortable with out natural naked bodies, but the fact of the matter is, we aren't, and that isn't about to change. It is how we are raised, we are taught to think of the human body as taboo, it is in our nature to shy away from it. It is a similar thing as, say, eating bugs.. there's nothing that wrong with it, it's not that different from eating any other animal, and we did it as kids. But as we grow up we are taught that it is wrong and disgusting, and now you go ask an adult to eat some bugs, you see how they react. The only way you are going to get a public that is unanimously okay with breast feeding is if you raise the next generation to be fine with the human body... possibly by making it compulsory for children to routinely watch soft-core porn.
You hear all these people talking about how it is just the human body, everyone has them, it's completely natural.... lets see if those people say the same thing when they are walking through the mall and see a male masturbating... it's just natural, ladies.
You may have noticed that I haven't actually talked about the act of feeding the child yet, that's because that isn't the problem, no one has a problem with the fact that these women are trying to feed their children, they just don't want to see body parts when they aren't prepared for it. Maybe if they knew that when they went to the store that day that they would see breasts, they would be okay with it (or they could just avoid going), but people don't like surprises, particularly when the surprises disagree with their built-in moral code. Besides, how hard is it for a mother to go to the freaking rest-room if she wants to feed her child? Unless you are trying to raise a Bear Grylls-esque child and refuse to feed them until they are on the brink of passing out from starvation, I don't think a walk to a private room is going to do that much harm, and it's certainly going to offend less people.
