There is a serious amount of people being hyper sensitive lately. I am not sure if it is the season or something in the water but, people are being whiney bitches. Palin and others are complaining about the White House Christmas card, they are complaining about trees not being called Christmas trees, people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas and they are complaining about not being able to breast feed in the middle of a Target.
For those that are unfamiliar with a Target, it is a store that is like Wal-mart, but caters to people who think they are too good for Wal-mart. They have everything you could ever want and most of it is made in the best country on Earth, China. They have clothes, cookware, bath towels, hardware, electronics, cosmetics, plants, furniture, and groceries. They have everything. The store is covered in red and smells like stale popcorn and White Cherry Slushy. I love it. But lately, Target has been in the news.
It seems that Target has a policy, separate from the law, on breast feeding. The laws state that a woman is allowed to breast feed in any public place; the law even allows women to have their suckled breast exposed. Gross. Target, does not seem to agree with this law and thinks breast feeding should be a private experience between a mother and her infant. Target, being private property, is allowed to have their own store policy about breast feeding. Their policy allows women to breast feed but not out in the open. And that has offended some moms.
Currently there are “Nurse-ins” being set up around the country at Targets to try and coax the company to change their policy on breast feeding. The woman stirring the pot is an upset mother about the treatment she received from Target employees while breast feeding her baby. Multiple employees asked her to stop feeding or to move to a different place so that she was not feeding out in the open. As a breast feeding mom, she was upset and embarrassed and outraged by the treatment she received. So she took her complaints to corporate. When the first person she talked to told her she should have taken her milky boobs into a fitting room she asked to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor said the same thing. Naturally, she went to the media.
This mother was covered while feeding her baby and pointed out the other customers wearing low-cut shirts were exposing more of themselves than she was, but no one had an issue with the girls in tight clothes and low cut shirts, nor did anyone seem to have an issue with the women on advertisements wearing nothing but their skivvies. She even pointed to Europe as the model we should follow.
I wonder if she should rethink any parts of her statement. Let’s us start with her baby being hungry. Hungry babies need to feed, that is totally normal. Wanting a child to have the nutritional value that comes with breast milk is also totally normal and completely understandable. But I do not understand why a mother would not have a bottle of pumped breast milk on them if they are going to be out and running around with their infant. That type of bonding with your baby is not necessary for a public environment.
The issue with advertisements of women in their bra and panties is laughable mainly because there is very little other way to advertise bras or panties. It is not like they have pictures of women fit for The Swim Suit Issue of Sports Illustrated in the hardware department. Those pictures are hanging from the ceiling above the department for undergarments. There are also pictures of men in their man-panties next to boxers and briefs. Relevant advertisements do not seem to have a lot to do with public breast feeding.
I think the biggest kicker of her argument is looking to Europe as a model. Sure, Europe has no problem with public breast feeding, but they also do not have a problem with nudity on their beaches (or some of their streets), nor do they have an issue with prostitution, or drug use, or swearing (cunt, anyone?), or news anchors taking off their clothes for ratings. So, if this woman has an issue with lingerie advertisements in a store I am not sure the European model is the one she should be looking towards.
Not to mention, breast feeding in the middle of the store is awkward. Who has to be asked to do that in a private place, like a dressing room? Isn’t that something kind of personal, like pooping?
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