– or more importantly, WHO are they for? The Guardian has just launched a campaign to get offensive sexual images off our high streets:
http://www.facebook.com/theguardian
and people have been campaigning for decades on the right to breastfeed in public. Breastfeeding is a known factor in helping the immune system and aids bonding between mother and baby: yet it is on the decrease. This is partly because more women are going back to work – though in many office-based jobs could theoretically cope with a feeding baby (I will always remember footage of a ‘Friends’ editorial meeting where a couple of the editors were feeding babies) and I suspect a baby or two around the place would calm a lot of testosterone-fuelled atmospheres. On the other hand a continually screaming baby would definitely not help… but workplace creches could deal with that.
No: it’s not so much women at work, it’s the idea that milk is a product. The very worst culprit here is undoubtedly Nestle, who have been marketing formula in the most unscrupulous ways, particularly in Third-world countries:
http://info.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree
Breast milk is not a product – it’s a relationship: a bonding between mother and baby which is beneficial for both. And what makes me incandescent with rage is that tits on page 3 are OK but breastfeeding is not. Women should never feel embarrassed about feeding in public. Why the hell should we have to go to the toilet or to a special room? Take your sub-pornographic mags into a special room because they offend me. and not only me but most women and a number of men.
So join the campaign and tell Facebook that breastfeeding is OK in public! And that tits on the High Street are not!
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 