Express.
A MOTHER was banned from breast-feeding her baby in public by civic centre bosses over claims it would cause “uproar” among Muslim visitors.No doubt breastfeeding is offensive to some Muslims, God knows they get offended with just about everything else, but it's not about Muslims either, I've seen old women complain in cafe's about breastfeeding mums.
Emma Mitchell, 32, was preparing to feed her four-month-old son Aaron when a receptionist warned her it was a “multicultural building” and that she should use the nearby public toilets instead.
Furious Emma then had a stand-off with a manager at Oldham Civic Centre before being offered an empty room under supervision.
She said: “It was just awful. I felt humiliated, intimidated and guilty through the whole thing.
“We all live in Oldham and use this building and what I was doing was one of the most natural things a mum can do. I shouldn’t be made to feel it was wrong just because it’s not in someone’s culture.”
The incident occurred last Friday while Emma was visiting the town’s Citizens Advice Bureau.
When Aaron started crying, she asked if she could use an empty corner of the room to breast-feed him in, offering to face the wall.
But the receptionist told her it wasn’t allowed as “some gentlemen had complained in the past” and suggested she use the public toilets nearby. Emma said: “You wouldn’t eat your dinner in the toilets, so why should my son? She rang the manager who said ‘You absolutely can’t do that here’.”
A member of the complaints department then took her to a small room. Emma’s friend Michelle Booth, 38, who was with her, said: “They were implying breast-feeding was offensive to Muslim sensibilities. It’s political correctness gone mad.”
Granted not everyone likes to see a woman in full view feeding her kids via the breast, but, it's something that is encouraged and not something that should cause over officious jobsworths to step in and say use the toilets. Whilst I do have some sympathy for private businesses in a sort of my gaff my rules sort of way, if an area is designated as public access, then you take the risk of some woman needing to feed a hungry baby.
So it strikes me as being offended in someone's name seems to be the most natural thing in the world for some people.
Not me though, I'm offended about a lot of things, just not in anyone but my own name, it's part of being a real grown up. If people can't cope with real life as it's lived, perhaps they'd be better off living where it isn't permitted, rather than complaining to a receptionist.
As for the receptionist...
Words fail.
3 annotations:
Classic piece of "entitlement poker" there ;-)
Having worked in Oldham I always felt that the Council supporting Gay Pride Week mixed rather uneasily with local, er, ethnic sensibilities.
Of course, ritual slaughter is not offensive?
I find it absolutly, criminally offensive but I don't think that they will ban it because it offends indigenous sensibilities.
I anyone does not like our culture, traditions and national sense of decency, then get the hell out. In some countries we would be lucky to escape with our lives if we were critical.
Very odd - when I was in Saudi I saw women breastfeeding babies. No-one, even the fruitcake religious police, didn't say a thing. Must be a western thing eh?
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