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Parenting & Pregnancy   >

Feeding & Breastfeeding

Should women be allowed to breastfeed in public areas?

Results so far:

No
17% 207 votes Total: 1216 votes
Yes
83% 1009 votes

Of course women should be allowed to breastfeed in public. The vast majority of them would be perfectly discreet about it and would not want to be flashing their breasts or exposing them to an inappropriate degree. Their only intent is to meet the needs of their baby in the most natural way possible - which mothers of every mammalian species have been doing since the beginnings of life as we know it.

I cannot help but wonder why this even continues to be an issue in such progressive, educated and in many ways even downright immodest (often to the point of being crass, crude and shameless) times. So many people in our society and age expose various previously unmentionable and private parts of their body without too many onlookers batting an eyelid in embarrassment - let alone expressing shock and horror.

We see women with plunging necklines often enough. Does anybody ask whether such a state of dress - or undress - should be allowed in public - or suggest that the woman with her "lungs dropping out" (as my mother would have put it) ought to be made to go somewhere more appropriate? We only have to go to the beaches to see people wearing the equivalent of their skimpiest underwear in public and few people see this flaunting of flesh as offensive any more. If a woman should not be allowed to quietly and unobtrusively meet the basic needs of her child wherever they happen to be when the baby cries out for those needs to be met, should we not also demand that women dress more modestly on the beaches too?

What about people who flaunt their "thong" underwear for public exhibition - or those who wear the skimpiest shorts or the most skintight pants that leave little to the imagination - for no more noble reason than to look sexy? Then there are those male athletes that boggle us when we watch the Olympic Games as they race along the field in their extremely revealing shorts with their "crown jewels" in full flight.

We are constantly bombarded by blatant sexual images on TV. What about the inappropriate and on occasion even downright promiscuous behaviour of exhibitionists who seem not to have any sense of modesty about what people see them doing on so-called reality TV shows?

Why does our society accept all these things as the norm these days - and yet a mother feeding a needy infant in public is often seen as inappropriate and distasteful (no pun intended)?

There is no reason in the world why a breastfeeding mother should be treated


Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:

Should women be allowed to breastfeed in public areas?

Yes
  • 1 of 97

    by Sandra Choukroun

    Babies are the foundation of the future and they have to eat! Breastfeeding, if mothers can do it, has been proven be...read more

  • 2 of 97

    by Skathock Motyka

    Public breast feeding isn't the horrible thing that people seem to think. If women choose to breastfeed while they ar...read more

No
  • 1 of 8

    by Ticia

    What is there to debate about on the subject of breast feeding? Yes this is a very natural thing to do for a mother ...read more

  • 2 of 8

    by Glenda Hill

    I think, from a woman's point of view, that a woman should be allowed to breastfeed but not in public places. What I ...read more

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