If the sight of one breastfeeding woman disgusted staff at a Sydney café on the weekend, we’d love to know how they felt when more than 50 mothers descended on the Newtown eatery at lunchtime today.
Lactivists Australia staged a “nurse-in” at the Satellite Café in the trendy inner-city suburb this afternoon after a waitress branded breastfeeding “an offence against humanity”.
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Regan Matthews was dining at the café on Saturday afternoon when a waiter approached her and asked her to stop breastfeeding her nine-month-old son.
She refused; pointing out that it was illegal to ask her to stop. Shortly afterwards, the owner approached her and told her she was behaving “offensively”.
Regan claims she asked if any of the other patrons were offended, and all denied they were.
“So I was like, ‘Look no one else is offended, what’s the problem?’ Regan said.
“And she said ‘It is offensive’ … and as she was walking away from me she said over her shoulder ‘It’s an offence to humanity’.”
Regan wrote about her experience on Facebook, and the story quickly spread, with hundreds of people from across the country flooding the café’s Facebook page with complaints.
The café has since apologised, but their words haven’t placated angry mums.
“Discrimination in any guise is unacceptable,” Tabitha Adamson wrote. “Newtown was always known as a place of tolerance and acceptance. Apparently some are exempt. How disappointing.”
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Hayley Rawhiti agreed, writing: “I don’t think many breastfeeding mothers are going to want to come here after that, apology or not, it’s pretty awful.”
The nurse-in comes just weeks after a similar one in Martin Place, when about 100 mothers breastfed in public to protest against David Koch’s comments that nursing women should be “more discreet and modest”.
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