LuxFX / They Think They’re Newsworthy

Boy this makes me mad! Ok, so there’s another fairly big (as in media attention) ruckus over a mother breastfeeding her baby. This one happened in Iowa, when a restaurant owner asked a mother to either stop breastfeeding, do it in the restroom, or leave. (she left) Iowa’s state code says that women may breastfeed in any public place. Asking otherwise is simply discrimination.

I don’t even know where to start ranting about this. First off, this guy was asking this woman to either segregate herself and her child from the rest of the restaurant (which, incidentally, didn’t even notice), or deny food to her baby. Adults can eat at the table, why not babies? Another restaurant owner in a similar case said, “I don’t see any difference than if they were changing a diaper on the table.” What!? Adults eat at restaurant tables, why not babies? And to say it’s the same thing as changing a diaper is ridiculous — I think it would be safe to say that the restaurant owner would consider an adult eating at the table versus an adult going to the bathroom at the table pretty different, so why not with babies?

Something most people try to argue over is that breastfeeding is not discreet. Why does it have to be discreet at all? Feeding babies is the purpose of breasts! Why should a breast be something to be ashamed of, just because society has declared them to be nothing more than sexual objects? The natural function of a hand is to grasp objects. Should I have to keep my hands hidden from sight when grasping objects, just because a hand is also capable of sticking up its middle finger as an act of vulgarity? Likewise, the mouth is capable of saying extremely sexual comments, but restaurant owners don’t seem to have a problem with their customers using their mouths for their primary purposes — eating, breathing, and communicating. So why is a breast, that occassionally supports a sexual role, condemned for it’s functional purpose? As a society, Americans are a confused people.

But the original story gets even worse — breastfeeding supporters realized that the same restaurant had, earlier that summer, hosted a wet t-shirt contest! Well, so much for arguing discretion. But one thing is abundantly clear: the owners of that restaurant are definitely in the opinion that breasts are nothing more than sexual objects.

Now, had it happened to me, I probably would have tried to verbally corner the owner. I would have made something up, like:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2004 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.