Public Breastfeeding Mothers: You Go Girls!

In what should really not be a problem in today’s society, breastfeeding in public has once again been shunted to the forefront of controversy by those behind the times. Self-described non-profit organization “Website for Beijing Wangshi” (meaning “The Past of Beijing”) posted a photo to its Weibo account on November 27 that depicted a mother breastfeeding her baby on the Beijing subway and commenting on the picture by saying “it is the Beijing subway, not a countryside bus.” Astonishingly, the post rebuked the woman for exposing her “sexual organ.” As the woman in the photo later told the Beijing News, she had taken her three-month-old daughter to hospital before getting on the subway, and the infant was crying and coughing in obvious distress, calmed only by her mother’s feeding. Despite the Beijing Wangshi account only having around 200 followers, the post sparked public indignation and heated discussion on social media, with most online comments calling the use of the term “sexual organ” to describe breastfeeding as rude and ignorant. After being bombarded by more than 22,000 comments, the original post was deleted by the blogger several days later. More of a concern than a single instance is the growing intolerance by some of breastfeeding in public. In October, a young mother from Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, described in painful detail […]