Subject: Breasts, the least of our worries

This is from the Monday Dayton Daily News.  By DL Stewart, the humor
columnist.

I've never nursed anything but an occasional grudge, so maybe I have no
right to an opinion.  But this whole breastfeeding flap has me puzzled
(about the 2 women who were asked to not BF at Walmart and who have filed a
court case).

As you may have read, two area women are suing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. because
they say there were not allowed to breastfeed their babies in the stores.
They're asking for apologies and a change in the stores' policies.

This is hardly a new issue.  It's been an ongoing skirmish ever since
breastfeeding was invented by baby boomers in 1971.

But I still don't understand it.

Not only don't I understand why this is a controversy, I can't even figure
out who made it one.  What percentage of the public actually objects to
women nursing their babies in public?  Who are the people who strongly
against breastfeeding that Wal-Mart is willing to risk being known as
anti-motherhood in order to pacify them.

Is it men?

As with anything else that negatively affects women - including unequal pay,
splits ends and varicose veins-the whole thing could be our fault, I
supposed.  And I'm sure there are men who are offended by the sight of a
woman's bare breast, although I don't personally know any.  But I don't
think most men care if a woman nurses her baby in Wal-Mart.  Most men don't
want to be in Wal-Mart in the first place.

If it's not men who are upset, my next guess is that it must be women.

That doesn't make sense to me either, though.  Any woman offended by the
sight of breasts probably would have a tough time getting dressed in the
morning.

Whoever they are, I'm sure the people who object to breastfeeding in public
have good reasons for the way they feel.  Such as, they have been personally
appointed by God to make sure the entire world eventually is afflicted with
as many sexual hangups as possible.

But the biggest question I have about all this is: Who decided which body
parts are supposed to be covered and which aren't?

Who made the rule that it's offensive for women to bare their breasts but
it's a lovely sight when they appear in a pair of shorts that exposes
several acres of gelatinous flesh?

How did it become illegal for women to reveal a nipple in public, but okay
for men to show both of theirs?  Not to mention enormous Budweiser-filled
gust, hairy backs and really appetizing armpits?

Anyway, if we're going to cover up body parts, I vote for anything that
jiggles.

And feet.

Feet don't start out looking too bad. But by the time a person reaches
adulthood a lot of them are covered with corns and calluses and hair and
chipped toenail polish and all sorts of nasty things you hardly ever see on
breasts.  And yet people think nothing of walking around in public barefoot.
Or wearing shower clogs or those big clunky sandals that make them look like
Roman centurions.

So, for what it's worth, my opinion is that people who have a problem with
her breastfeeding in public need to grow up.  I think a woman should have
the right to nurse her baby anywhere she pleases.

As long as she's wearing socks when she's doing it.

~~~~~
Mardrey Swenson DC, IBCLC

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