Just days after an incident in the US whereby a woman was asked to cover her baby’s head while breastfeeding, so as to be ‘respectful’ to male customers, a company has come under fire over a series of offensive tweets.
It started when an employee at the company sent out a tweet about a breastfeeding mother whom she had served that day, and she proceeded to criticise her for nursing in public.
“So I totally had a lady come through my line today while she was breastfeeding her baby,” she wrote, adding, “I don’t like seeing t**s in a public place unless it’s a strip joint. #SorryNotSorry she shouldn’t have taken her baby shopping.”
When the employee’s tweets were brought to the attention of the company, Goodwill Industries, however, it proceeded to defend her in a series of shocking messages.
“There isn’t a thing wrong with breastfeeding, breastfeeding is a natural thing, but it should be done in a private place,” the company’s official account tweeted, adding, “Breastfeeding shouldn’t be done out in public without covering your private parts.”
They also went on to suggest that breastfeeding mums use a ‘blanket’ to cover up when nursing in public.
Needless to say, there were a lot of angry mothers after the tweets were sent out, and the company was later forced to apologise and send out a statement from its CEO.
Describing the actions of the employees tweeting as “completely inappropriate”, Jim Gibbons wrote: “While this event was totally unacceptable and not at all what Goodwill stands for, it has become a teachable moment to remind and re-educate all of our employees about the rights of nursing moms.”
