The past few weeks, my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been filling up with memes, articles, and discussions about public breastfeeding. There are constant arguments on whether or not it's okay for mothers to be publicly breastfeeding and whether or not these breastfeeding mothers should have nursing covers.

In a culture where all one person has to do is walk down a city sidewalk, or a mall corridor or drive down the interstate to see a female model exposing herself, we still have debates on whether or not it is "okay" for a mother to breastfeed her child in public. Many new mothers struggle with the idea or action of feeding their child in public. Young mothers have to also take into consideration the scrutiny, dirty looks and blatant stares and comments they will receive while breastfeeding.

With these recent arguments filling many people's Newsfeeds, one person, a YouTuber JoeySalads, has created a video to test out how people (in a mall) react to a mother breastfeeding her child with no cover and how others reacted to a young woman having her breast/cleavage showing in a low cut shirt. Here JoeySalads calls his experiment "sexy versus breastfeeding."

The video shows these two women sitting on the same bench in the mall, but at different times. The first to sit was the "young beautiful women," although she received looks, only had one person stopped to talk to her, and he inevitably sat down and began flirting with the young women. Once the video moved on to the mother breastfeeding, she immediately gained attention. The first person shown walked up and angrily says to the mother breastfeeding "Seriously Ma'am, you have to do that here? That's disgusting." While others seem to walk by this mother breastfeeding her child and make snide remarks like "That's so Disgusting," one woman was very supportive.A young mother who happens to be due in less than a month.

In the second half of the video, JoeySalads has the woman who is breastfeeding her child sit directly next to the young women with her cleavage/breast out. Many men stopped to tell the mother that she was being "gross" and "disgusting." This is where JoeySalads would jump in (and ask the obvious question we've all been wondering) why is it okay for the young women to have her cleavage/breast out and not okay for the mother to breastfeed her child. One man blatantly said to the three sitting there that it was okay for the young women to have her breast/cleavage showing because "that's hot," but it's not okay for the mother to have her breast out and feed her child because "that's disgusting."

By the end of the video, I had so many questions for the people who stopped and actually commented on these two women. First of all, when did a woman's breast begin to be put into two separate categories? What a**hole decided it was not socially okay for women to do what they please with their own body? Thirdly, What ever happen to "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?"

Now I know many people don't understand they way the female body works or they are uncomfortable with seeing women feed their child in public or they are uncomfortable with seeing anyone expose a part of themselves that somehow we as a society has deemed "private." But, with the disgusting results from this video, I decided to take some matters into my own hands. I began to talk to mothers and ask their takes on breastfeeding and their thoughts on breastfeeding in public.

After talking to multiple mothers on the subject of breastfeeding in public, I received a plethora of different responses. I had some mothers who breastfed their children and some who did not.

The responses I received were,

"I understand breastfeeding is a natural thing, but just because it is a natural thing doesn't mean everyone wants to see it. I myself have never breastfed in public because I was never comfortable with 'whipping them out' in public... It was not for the reason of them being "sexualized," just the simple fact that I was uncomfortable with it. It just seems lately that all the breastfeeding moms want is to be able to breastfeed in public comfortably, which I understand, but they seem to attack other people who feel uncomfortable with it. All I'm saying is if you want people to respect your breastfeeding, then you need to respect the fact that not everybody is comfortable with it. "

While another mother responded with,

"I don't believe that either of the women should have their breast out. I do not like the way our society openly sexualizes women's breasts. I agree with women being able to feed their child in public if that's what they choose to do... But I feel they should have a nursing blanket on themselves."

Hearing all of the different responses to women who deal with the conflict of breastfeeding in public and breastfeeding every day it really opened my eyes. I recognize the multiple views in this argument. As a woman, who is not a mother, but believes that all women should be able to do what they please and not be criticized for it, I say "go ahead and breastfeed your baby in public, 1. The law allows you to do it and 2. Your baby is hungry, damn feed it! If it was a two-year-old toddler who was hungry any mom would whip those snacks right out of their purse and/or diaper bag and feed their child so why can't you."

Although talking to other mothers and being a respectful person, I can understand the others views. I realize that people are uncomfortable with breastfeeding, it may not even be that they are uncomfortable with breastfeeding because women's breast are extremely sexualized in our culture, but they are uncomfortable showing something that we as a society has deemed to be a private- behind closed doors - type of thing.

Basically, it's what you teach your children or what you were taught growing up, "Treat others the way you want to be treated," so if you want to be treated with respect, then you also need to respect others. It is easy as that. Just Kidding. As adults, we know issues like this one, have a lot of gray areas that we don't always comment on respectfully.

I think that at the end of the day, the real question we strive to answer isn't whether or not a mother can breastfeed her child in public. It is where are our social norms going? and How do we advance what, we as a culture, typically think a social norm is in an ever growing society?