Coffee Shop Totally Deserves Internet Backlash For Shaming Breastfeeding Mother

A coffee shop in Austin is dealing with a PR nightmare, after a nursing mother posted a review on their Facebook page accusing the business of not welcoming breastfeeding mothers. Stonehaus Coffee is scrambling to make amends to the the hordes of mothers they’ve offended. They wouldn’t be having to deal with this headache if they didn’t take the puritanical, illegal action of telling a nursing mother she needed to cover up to begin with.

Stephanie Barlow Scott and her friend Amberly Worley visited the shop with their infants in tow. Scott told her local news station KXAN what happened:

”[Worley] was nursing him and was pretty discrete,” said Scott. ”A lady came over with a towel and asked ”˜if she wanted to cover up?’ and my friend said ”˜No, am I making you uncomfortable?’”

According to Scott, the lady ”” who was the business owner ”” said she wasn’t uncomfortable but that some of the men in the shop might have been.

Here is the post that started it all:

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And here is their initial response:

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Oh really, MAN? The use of a nursing cover is generally widely understood and practiced in the nursing community? You don’t say? I’m assuming you are now talking out of your ass, because you are not a member of a nursing community. Because you don’t have boobs. And feed children from them.

I was in the food service industry for a long time. I don’t love seeing a small business deal with a pile-on of angry customers. But if that’s what needs to happen to send a very loud, clear message to other establishments that shaming women for feeding their children is absolutely unacceptable — so be it.

The fact of the matter is, a nursing mother is simply not indecent. Maybe, maybe someone (if staring) will catch a millisecond glimpse of a part of a nipple as a baby is latching on. Maybe. But the most any onlooker would really ever see is some side boob and the back of an infant’s head. Side boob is totally okay on a woman who’s not nursing, apparently. But introduce an actual functional use for a boob and we are all disgusted by it.

The coffee shop has tried to make further amends since that initial mansplaining apology:

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Yup — that just made it worse. The breastfeeding mother was approached to cover up by the FEMALE, FORMER BREASTFEEDING OWNER? Backlash deserved. #SorryNotSorry.

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