Is breast feeding more offensive than the burqa or hijab?

Breastfeeding should be allowed anywhere eating a sandwich, drinking a glass a water, or breathing is allowed.
Disclaimer: My wife is a lactation consultant.

I still think The DailyMail is a shitrag tabloid.

No. But that is just me. Those Muslims have done other things incorrigible so this is unsurprising. However, there are also non-Muslim men who feel awkward seeing women breastfeeding.

Hope you don’t mind my taking this opportunity to maybe inquire from your girlfriend why there are women in the US who wear burqas and the hijab. We have a neighbor who wears a black overall and we could only see her eyes. One neighbor always wonders why even if it’s a religious tradition would someone here in the US wear them? Is the burqa or hijab a universal form of subjugating women? Or by cultural tradition that is not always the case?

I rather agree with your girlfriend when it comes to the symbology of the burqa and hijab. However, I fully support a woman’s right to wear such garb if she freely chooses to.

Regarding breast feeding, I have never understood the hubbub. What can possibly be more natural and wholesome than a woman feeding her baby?

@mazingerz88 Trust me, I have inquired many times, and she has volunteered her opinion many times. If I wrote it down here, it would probably get modded.

Breastfeeding isn’t offensive at all.
The burqa or hijab, isn’t necessarily offensive if it is freely chosen by a woman. (I say that as an American woman who has never been told that I have to wear one.)
I have been in a similar situation as the young mother in the article. I was in a public library, completely covered, my breast was never exposed to anyone but my baby. It was a very embarrassing and troubling experience.

Your girlfriend would know a lot more about burqas and hijabs than I do. I’ll trust her feelings.

If they’re all being done of the free will of those involved, I don’t find any of them offensive.

In fact if the mom is a milf, I kinda like the breastfeeding one ;) (sorry I had to)

If I see a woman in a burqa I feel bad because all I can see are her eyes and they’re usually lovely. They’re not free and it sucks.

Breastfeeding women… Ehhh. It weirds me out when I’m in a restaurant and there’s a woman with a boob and a baby on the table. I’m all for breastfeeding, I did it for a very short while, but there’s no reason those women can’t drape a light blanket over themselves like I did. I’d especially not want to publicly throw my breast and baby out if people like @tedd are lurking around hahaha

@redfeather: “there’s no reason those women can’t drape a light blanket over themselves like I did”

I’ll readily admit that this is a sensitive topic for me and I have been surrounded by it for 8+ years. And I find what you said to be a common reaction of many people. If a woman is especially modest and decides to put their kid under a blanket to eat, then I have no problem with this. That’s her decision. However, for it to be expected – or for it to be considered offensive if she doesn’t is where I have a problem. I’m not saying that this is what you’re saying, and I apologize if I am assigning to you an attitude you don’t have.

I suspect that it “weirds” people out because the US has dismal breastfeeding rates, and it just isn’t that common to see. Believe me, when you see it enough, it really does look like a child getting fed. I’m a heterosexual male who’s obsessed with breasts (surprise). However, I’ve been surrounded by breasts (not my wife’s) in the context of breastfeeding for 8+ years, and there hasn’t been a single moment that I thought, “wow, I get to peek at a boob”. It’s the least-sexual context I can think of. If there are 5 women in a room and 4 of them have their breasts out nursing their babies, the only breasts I am checking out is the one not breastfeeding.

Breasts can be beautiful, sexually-attractive body parts. However, they can also just be a food source, providing babies with the best nutrition available to them. If more women breastfed, I believe most people wouldn’t be so offended or shocked. The women who had to get a glimpse of the breast would be unfazed, and the men would continue scoping out all of the other, clothed breasts in the room.

EDIT: Crap, did I just invite a sh*tstorm of hate posts against me. I think I should consider not posting in threads about topics I feel strongly about.

@redfeather But what’s all those milk ads for? lol.

I think I’m in love with @tom_g.

@tom_g I covered up for a few reasons. It’s weird to me when a woman just pulls up her shirt, pops out a boob, and starts feeding her kid with no discretion at all. I have no problem with someone publicly breasfeeding, just show a little discretion is all. Anyways, that’s a topic for another thread. This is about burqas vs breastfeeding in terms of public indecency and offensiveness. PM me if you wanna discuss it more.

@redfeather: “Anyways, that’s a topic for another thread”

You’re right. I am derailing this thread. Apologies to @josie.

I’d like to know why the Daily Mail thinks that wearing a burqa or a hijab is offensive in any way, shape or form.

@troubleinharlem

I can’t speek for the Daily Mail. However, for me it is not the burka or the hijab that is offensive. It is the total subjugation of women that the ultra conservative wing of the religion that mandates such attire that is offensive.

As a parallel example, consider the US confederate flag. There are many in the south who view it as a symbol of southern heritage and do not attach feelings of racist bigotry to that symbol. Further, they have every right to display said symbol on their muscle car, double wide trailer, or trucker cap. However, just because they don’t attach negative connotations to the symbol and have every right to display it, that does not invalidate the opinions of those who find it offensive because of the very real historical baggage that comes with that symbol.

@YoBob the irony of the “confederate flag” is that the one we all recognize was never used by the Confederacy, or even used by infantry troops in the Confederate Army. It was a little used Confederate Naval flag, that didn’t even see the light of day until almost the end of the war.

Somehow when movements picked up in the early part of the last century, they adopted that flag rather than any of the actual flags used by the Confederacy.

Not at all related to the debate, just a fun note I thought I’d throw in. :)

@tedd – Thanks for the tidbit. This gives a bit more credibility to the argument that the symbol is about southern heritage in general than about carrying on the civil war.

Of course the point is that it is not the item itself, but rather what (they believe) that item represents that many find offensive.

I find the burqa and hijab much more offensive than breast feeding. Breast feeding is a sign that a mother wants the best for her child. This religious gear is a sign that a woman is completely cowered and subjugated by men or is ostentatiously religious. Either one is an offense to my sense of justice and democracy.

Always makes me feel happy to see a mother breast feeding. Delightful and the child always seems so happy and content.

No not at all breastfeeding is not look offensive as every mother is having right to feed their baby. In most of the Arab countries women are wearing burqa, as it is traditional dress and rule of their country to wear burqa. No one has right to give comment on their traditional culture and values, we have to respect it and don’t think that it will not be that breastfeeding is more offensive in burqa and hijab.