Hi, all:  I'd like to take issue with the comments about biblical mothers
including Mary not "whipping it out indiscreetly".  I personally have
seen paintings of the Madonna and Child from the Byzantine and
Renaissance eras with the breast very clearly exposed.  No one seems
shocked about this.  It appears that opposition to "whipping it out" is a
more recent phenomenon.  The legislative efforts are attempts to separate
breastfeeding mothers from those who expose themselves for other reasons,
even if they expose their breast and nipple in the process of feeding
their child.  In Auerbach and Riordan's textbook, there is a description
of Muslim women in Saudi Arabia who are heavily veiled over their entire
body, but think nothing (and neither does their society) of exposing
their breasts in public to feed their children.  It appears that aversion
to seeing breastfeeding mothers is our own society's phenomenon, probably
related to the sexualization of the breast.  Alicia.  [log in to unmask]