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In 2013, 81.1 percent of U.S. mothers said they started out breast-feeding their baby. That's up from 75 percent in 2008, and 70 percent in 2000, according to the CDC.
[...] 52 percent of U.S. mothers said they were still breast-feeding their infants when the babies were 6 months old, and 30 percent said they were still breast-feeding when the babies reached 1 year.
How should society handle breastfeeding in public and the workplace? Should there be any restrictions on the age of the child?
Breastfeeding has obvious benefits for a child's development, but breast milk is also a fluid of the body that can carry disease.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-still-breastfeeds-daughter-aged-4881835
http://www.livescience.com/55846-breast-feeding-mothers-united-states.html
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 24 2016, @04:02PM
You're entitled to feel uncomfortable. That doesn't mean you're entitled to stop someone from doing the thing that makes you uncomfortable. Especially when you have some simple alternatives to putting up with it, like going someplace else or simply not looking at them.
And you can, whenever you are at home, or at the home of like-minded friends.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0, Troll) by Francis on Wednesday August 24 2016, @05:42PM
And yet, men get in all sorts of trouble from women from adjusting ourselves when we need to.
Either it's OK to do the things that are natural and largely unavoidable, or it isn't. Considering the huge stink that women have made over things like checking them out and adjusting ourselves when we need to, I don't think it's unreasonable to hold them to a similar standard. Since we're expected to make them feel comfortable and welcome in public, it seems perfectly fair to expect them to avoid doing things that make us feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in public.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday August 24 2016, @06:04PM
Why does breastfeeding make you feel uncomfortable and unwelcome?
Now, if we're talking about radfems who think that assigned males have no right to witness such a holy activity because it'll make 'em rapey, that's another thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JNCF on Wednesday August 24 2016, @06:34PM
I'm not sure why breastfeeding makes you so uncomfortable (I suspect it's cultural). When I see a woman breastfeeding in public, I don't read anything sexual into it. I was also raised around women who breastfed. When discussing double standards of nakedness, it's actually way more socially acceptable in our culture for men to walk around topless -- not less. If you're adjusting your junk because your pants are uncomfortable and somebody freaks out about it, that's just them reading their own mental noise into your perfectly non-creepy actions. If on the other hand somebody has a habit of rubbing their crotch in public while staring at people, I think small societies can generally figure out who amongst them is being creepy and deal with the situation accordingly. I'm with jdavidb in opposing monolithic standards.
If people are accusing you of creepiness without good cause, that sucks. The answer to that problem is not a ban on public breastfeeding.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Francis on Wednesday August 24 2016, @11:19PM
It almost certainly is cultural. Just like how some other cultures used to banish women when they were having their period.
I don't think it would be as much of an issue if more women would just admit that there's an element of education here. It's not really acceptable to just tell men that they need to SIU when women have been behaving like whiny little children over equally natural things that men do. I wish I had the option of excusing myself to the restroom everytime I needed to adjust myself, but that's not how the male body works. If those balls or the penis need adjusting, they tend to need it right then, two minutes later and there's nothing to do about it shy of completely removing the pants to do a proper readjustment.
It's literally acceptable for women to publicly call for men to be castrated, but somehow it's not OK for men to expect that we be shown the same level of courtesy when it comes to things that we'd rather not have to see.
Lastly, this whole breastfeeding in public thing is a relatively new development in America. It's not something that was a common thing when I was a kid, and the rules and norms don't really exist. I think there'd be a lot less resistance to it if there weren't the self-entitlement going on. Have a real dialog about it. Actually let men have our own opinions and stop being such whiny hypocrites about it.
I'm not really surprised that I'm being modded into oblivion. Female privilege isn't something that women like to admit to.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday August 25 2016, @12:05AM
It's literally acceptable for women to publicly call for men to be castrated,
Citation needed. Of course you can find people arguing the point, but I doubt you can find numbers showing that most of society finds the argument acceptable. If you can find legit numbers, I'll eat crow. I just don't think you can.
I'm not really surprised that I'm being modded into oblivion. Female privilege isn't something that women like to admit to.
I doubt that there are many women modding on SoylentNews. Some, yes. I'd bet good money that it's significantly less than the proportion of women in the general population, though. Attributing your down-modding to the inclinations of women seems silly. I'm pretty sure that you're getting down-modded because you keep using terms like "whiny little children" when referring to women, and modders (mostly men) are finding you to be trollish and flamebaity. Don't flamebait and you shouldn't get modded Flamebait. I think the culture of SoylentNews is generally pretty reluctant to down-mod people based on the views that comments express, as long as they are not worded with the intent to provoke. You can find exceptions, but they are exactly that (and they usually get corrected). I suspect that you could argue for the genocide of an entire race or gender without getting down-modded on most days, so long as you did it in the most calm and dispassionate way possible and it wasn't off-topic (Disagree isn't a down-mod, it's +0). If your argument is novel, you might even get modded Interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @09:24PM
You're entitled to feel uncomfortable. That doesn't mean you're entitled to stop someone from doing the thing that makes you uncomfortable.
Yes, you are. After all, isn't that the argument which makes rape (and numerous other violent-but-non-fatal crimes) illegal?
There is a trade-off between how uncomfortable it makes others versus how societal benefit.
Especially when you have some simple alternatives to putting up with it
With this qualifier, I'm prepared to agree with your statement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @01:35AM
I would propose that there's a difference between physical violence and psychic violence, and it's not just one of degree. In particular, when I've been subjected to physical violence, doing things like asking my inner Iron John for help haven't really done a lot of good. The inner Iron John works better against psychic violence.
In a roundabout way of saying, perhaps there's a tiny difference between feeling offended and being violently assaulted by somebody twice your size. It's difficult for various mantras and wtf to make somebody twice your size who has you pinned and is violating you go away.