Editor,

RE: "Is it appropriate to breastfeed in public?” (The New Times, July 1).

This very question shows how western sexualization mentality has insidiously penetrated our culture, especially among urbanized young Rwandans and Africans.

In our time, and even today everywhere in the African countryside, no woman would hesitate to do that most natural of things – to breastfeed her child whenever and wherever it is needed.

And for that matter, no one else would pay any particular attention to those most natural maternal functions: a woman breastfeeding her child anywhere. That, after all, is the purpose of women's breasts. That is why we are part of the mammal family of animals.

Mwene Kalinda

****************************

It looks like people do not really understand the importance of breastfeeding. Doing so from the public eye, I am sure it’s very fine. Maybe there is a certain western culture which is against such a fact. That includes ideologies of lesbianism, gayism and the like, which has seen some people lose the hope of having a baby and how to care about them.

In my childhood, I did not have a chance to breastfeed because my mother experienced difficult complexes while giving birth to me, but I sometimes wish I could turn back time.

Disan Buteera