YouTube star Joey Salads highlights difference in how people respond to breastfeeding and cleavage in public
‘Social experiment’ shows people calling breastfeeding ‘disgusting’
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Your support makes all the difference.A social experiment has highlighted the absurdity of people's attitudes towards breastfeeding and women showing cleavage in public.
YouTube star Joey Salads filmed people responding to the sight of a model wearing a cleavage-baring top and compared it to a mother breastfeeding her infant son.
The video highlights a perception that the main purpose of breasts is that they be used as sexual or aesthetic organs, rather than for feeding babies.
In the experiment, both women are asked to sit on a bench inside a shopping mall for an hour each.
The model receives many looks, with one man introducing himself and sitting down next to her.
“Oh, I guess,” she can be heard saying before he strikes up a conversation and asks her to follow him on Instagram.
The mother, on the other hand, is told her breastfeeding is “disgusting” multiple times, even when she explains she's feeding her hungry baby.
One man said: “Seriously ma’am, do you have to do that here? It’s disgusting.”
According to the video, the only person who supported her was another woman expecting a baby in two weeks.
The pregnant woman sits next to her on the bench and asks for advice on what she should expect with breastfeeding.
The two women are then asked to sit side by side on an outdoor bench while the mother breastfeeds her son, while Mr Salads stood by.
One man passing by said: “That’s disgusting ma’am, I don’t think your tit should be out like that.”
When asked why he feels it is okay to comment on the woman breastfeeding, but not on the model with cleavage showing, he replies: “That’s just how her [the model’s] shirt is, that’s fine… You could just do that [breastfeed] somewhere else. That’s not appropriate.”
Mr Salads responds: “Well, if you have a problem with that boob being out, you should have a problem with that boob being out too.”
The video then shows another man stopping to ask the mother: “Why do you have to do that in public? That’s disgusting.”
When asked why one sight was fine compared to the other, the man points at the model and says: “Because that’s hot, and that [breastfeeding] is just disgusting.”
Mr Salads said: “So that [cleavage] is okay because it’s hot, but this [breastfeeding] is not okay because it’s something natural and you think it’s disgusting?”
The video was created in support of the Normalise Breastfeeding Campaign, which aims to highlight the benefits of breastfeeding.
Most recently, a Republican state representative said men should be allowed to grab the nipples of breastfeeding mothers if a law banning women from exposing their breasts did not pass.
In the UK, Public Health England launched a national campaign encouraging mothers to breastfeed their children in public.
The campaign followed a survey that found six out of 10 new mothers tried to hide their breastfeeding, and 21 per cent feeling other people did not want them to do it.
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