For those of you following the Zurich trams vs. mariachis story with baited breath, here’s your long-awaited update. According to this morning’s 20 Minuten (which, in addition to The Daily Show, is the source of all my daily news intake), the VBZ has finally relented and pulled the commercial featuring mariachis busking on a tram. The capitulation occurred after complaints from the Mexican embassy. How often do foreign embassies in your country have to complain to the local public transportation authorities?
In other news (also brought to us, naturally, by 20 Minuten), a local woman was kicked out of a Zurich restaurant for breastfeeding. And here I was thinking that this sort of thing only happened in boobie-fearing America. Alas, even the Swiss are now getting offended by mothers feeding their children.
If you take away one message from today’s post, please make it this: breasts cannot hurt you. Even when they’re in your extended visual field, the chances of you catching cooties from them is virtually zero. (OK, so I don’t have any scientific studies to back this claim up. Any scienticians out there looking for a new research study topic?)
What does the article say? I cant find it on the French version of 20 minutes (people here LOVE boobies). Do they point it out is stupid?
Um, breasts can hurt you. Don’t you remember that lawsuit a few years ago brought by a customer against an exotic dancer?
Apparently he received whiplash during her lap dance performance because of her surgically-enhanced breasts hitting him in the face.
But in the case of the breast-feeding mother, let the poor child eat! And don’t try to send them to the restroom. After all, would you want to eat your meal while sitting on a toilet?
Wow, both these stories surprise me, beh, amusing as they may appear at first, they have me here scratching my head and wondering “really?? wow!”…
i have to say, that although I fully support the right of women to breast feed in public, I am fairly confident that 99% of the time, it could be more discrete.
I really do not want to see a baby being breast fed while I am at a restaurant — it’s unappetizing to me.
Now that I think about it, although I fully support the right of ugly people to go out in public, I really do not want to see them while I’m dining in a restaurant – it’s unappetizing to me. Sure I could just look the other way, but wouldn’t it be better it we kicked them out, too? I mean, as long as we’re banning people based on our personal hang-ups…
Sara – The article is pretty short, and doesn’t say much, but seems mildly partial to the mother who was thrown out. The comments on the article, however, are very mixed. In the reader poll, 40% said it bothered them to have breastfeeding women in a restaurant.
GL – How did I manage to miss that story?
Breastfeeding mothers should deinitely be more discrete. Lord knows I can’t count the number of times I’ve had topless women wagging their boobies and hungry infants in my face while I’m trying to eat. Drives me nuts.
Huh. The breastfeeding story *really* surprises me. I’ve nursed all over Swtizerland from Starbucks’ to the petting zoo and never gotten a second look. And I’m a self-conscious midwestern prude. If people were staring I’d notice.
tqe-adam and mark: Um, no 99% of the time it could not be more discreet. Most nursing mothers are already discreet but you know, for milk to come out there needs to be a nipple. That’s just the way it works.
People who are going to argue that breastfeeding mothers should be more “discrete” really should learn the difference between “discrete” and “discreet.”
Swissmiss: I was trying to join the pile-on in reaction to Adam’s comment – most women are discreet* because who wants people staring at them in what is often an uncomfortable sensation? I thought my hyperbole was enough to convey my sarcasm, but topping Adam’s “99 percent of the time” was beyond my humble abilities.
Shifting to cultural observations, I practically never see women breastfeeding here, but again, working on the assumption that most women aren’t looking to be a spectacle, I not trying to look. And, to be perfectly clear, I don’t care anyway and recognize that it’s my problem if I did.
* (thanks for the correction Angela, I always get that one wrong, and never remember that I do)
While I agree that the “no mariachi” sticker was borderline offensive (and doesn’t make sense since the biggest offenders are accordionists, not mariachi bands), I actually thought the video was kind of clever and funny. I don’t think anything would have made me laugh harder than seeing the reactions of riders to a mariachi band trying to play on a Basel tram.
Maybe the more casual German/French attitude toward nudity helped, along with having a baby that refused to take a bottle, but Gretchen breastfed everywhere we went (with the utmost discretion, of course) and seldom got any reaction except for the occasional old man staring. She even occasionally had women give her knowing smiles. I’ve really been surprised at how little public breastfeeding I’ve seen in the States, but then again we were gone for so long I forgot that boobs scare people here.
Anybody who doesn’t want to see someone breastfeed in public should be willing to put up with ear shattering screaming. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the boobies.
Sorry Mark. I’m not good at catching sarcasm without tone of voice. Makes the internets a tricky place for me sometimes.
Maybe they were actually kicking the baby out of the restaurant for bringing her own food instead of ordering from the menu…