Friday, August 8, 2008

This is...

...My 200th post!!

It seems that for this occasion I should write something profound, and wouldn't you know it, nothing comes to mind. Ha! So instead, I'll draw your attention to this article, which I thought was so cool.

The short form of the story is that the Vancouver H&M store recently told a woman who was breastfeeding that the company had a policy against allowing women to feed their babies in the store for fear that other patrons would be offended. The woman was escorted into a backroom. As a result, dozens of women and their children arrived at the store over the lunchhour on Thursday to feed their babies. To give credit where credit is due, the store seems to have handled the situation entirely positively, and I think that there was lots of good will involved.

I remember a conversation I had with two staff members when I was working at the students' association at Colourful U. These two girls, who were both about 21 or 22 (but were really young in a lot of ways) had come down to the office all a-flutter with offence because they had witnessed a woman breastfeeding in the cafeteria. To quote: "It's disgusting." My jaw just about hit the floor that the simple act of feeding one's baby had been viewed by these two people as some kind of act of vulgarity. Once they had a chance to get their outrage out of the way, I said, as even-handedly as I could manage, "You get to eat in public; why shouldn't her child?" To which the response was, "But we could see her B00B." So I gave up and walked away, but reading this article with the memory of that conversation has made me smile broadly this morning.

For all the offensive and vulgar and explicit and sexual and raw imagery that gets forced on us every day, I just can't understand how breastfeeding OFFENDS people in such dramatic ways.

Get over it.

5 comments:

I'm Still Me said...

Thanks for this post! Part of me is nervous at the idea of having to breastfeed in public but I know I too will get over it as necessity will require it.

Annie's Mom said...

I think that there are lots of options out there in the way of shawls and blankets for women who are looking for something to provide some coverage. I saw one recently with a little mesh window in it so you could look down and see how things were going... I thought that was neat!

Towanda said...

Congrats on your 200th, and I totally agree with you.

Patrick C said...

Word.

If you wish, by the way, to read possibly the dumbest (not to mention creepiest) thing ever written about this issue, I invite you to feast your eyes on this.

And congratulations on the 200th post!

Sue said...

congrats on the 200th post and i totally agree on the breastfeeding thing.