Feminist view of breastfeeding

[NotQuiteSoDesperate]

Sorry it this has been done to death already, but I'm really interested in what the feminist view is of breastfeeding. Now, it's nearly 18 years since I last bf my DS2, but I find many of the threads about bf on MN really absorbing. I thought that we had it quite hard all those years ago, but I'm astonished to read that things seem even worse these days.

All of these Mils and DMs who don't support their daughters, DH/DPs who don't support their wives/partners. Women on MN who find bf disgusting etc., and don't support other women feeding in public or feeding older toddlers.

I just wonder how we have managed to get to a place where our society makes it so hard for women to do something that should be a normal, natural skill. But it doesn't seem to be! Is it simply capitalism in the form of the FF companies? Is it the undermining of a womanly art/skill? For what reason? If it were something men could do, would it be supported/praised/in the Olympics?

I'm simply puzzled.

I'm very pro-breastfeeding, but I do remember a 'friend' who was very, very fanatical - she basically defined it as the be-all and end-all of good parenting - saying that she thought that formula should be restricted by the government. As in, only available by prescription, for those tiny percentage of women who genuinely couldn't, medically, breastfeed.

Now that's a feminist issue! She was advocating government control over the use to which a female body is put. Can you imagine, having to go to a doctor, presumably undergo medical tests, to prove your need for formula?

It does swing both ways. Our society sexualises breasts, it doesn't provide facilities or support for breastfeeding, too many women are faced with a straight choice between career and attachment parenting, if we valued the work that breastfeeding women do as much as we value, say, the ability to shoot people there would be a huge change in the resources and knowledge available. Those of you who have said that not being able to breastfeed properly in public meant giving up your social lives, I think if we lived in a matriarchal society this would just be a non-issue.

On the other hand, breastfeeding is a deeply intimate, deeply physical experience that is only available to women, and it does largely define the mothering experience. I weaned DD at around 15 months, not from any external pressure nor sense that she was too old or weirdness about sexuality, but because it simply, at that stage, wasn't something I wanted to do anymore. My relationship with her had changed, and breastfeeding her didn't feel very compatible with that any more. I was absolutely over, OVER, having my body made available to be suckled at. And this was after a nice, close, easy breastfeeding relationship with loads of social support. It was very visceral to me: I did not want to do it anymore.

And if another woman makes that choice earlier, I can't stand in her way anymore than I'll ever advocate taking reproductive choice away.

Exactly, Norman.

Great post, Tortoise. I'm cautiously pro-breastfeeding: DS is 13 months and we're still going (though admittedly down to one feed a day now). He seems very healthy, though I suspect he's not very bright. BUT I can absolutely see why women choose formula. I never liked breastfeeding, and I did all my bonding with DS at times when I wasn't feeding him: I loathed feeding for the first month, when it was agonisingly painful, tolerated it for the next three or four, then tried to get DS used to a bottle in preparation for me going back to work when he was 6 months and found he wouldn't take one.

He never did: poor DH ended up spoonfeeding him for the first month after I went back. At that point I really did start to feel trapped by it and ferociously resentful of being chained to DS, particularly at bedtime. It wasn't till DS was 9 months that DH could do a bedtime feed from a cup and I could stay at work (or, shock horror, go out after work) if I needed / wanted to.

Oh, and being the only parent who would do at night nearly killed me: between 4 and 9 months DS woke every two hours and only a feed would settle him. I reached the stage of really quite hoping I'd get run over by a bus on my way to or from work because the sleep deprivation was making me feel so utterly awful.

I can quite see that in a wonderful matriarchal society I wouldn't have had to go back to work after 6 months, but on the other hand I wanted to go back when I did: I'm good at my job, and I'm a useless primary parent, whereas my DH is brilliant. Breastfeeding put us all through an enormous amount of unnecessary stress and made my return to work harder than it need have been. I bitterly regretted having breastfed at all. Now that it's a bit further behind us I suppose it may have been worth it, but in the unlikely event that we ever had another child I think I'd mixed feed from the beginning.